Volume 6 — LETTER 264 (continued 9)

Your Brother fool C.L.

[Collier's book would be his History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1831. Nichols's Illustrations had been begun by John Nichols, and six volumes were published between 1817 and 1831. It was completed in two more volumes by his son, John Bowyer Nichols, in 1848 and 1858.

"H."—Leigh Hunt. We do not know what W.W., presumably Wordsworth, had to say of him; but this is how Hunt had referred to Moxon's publications and Lamb's Satan in Search of a Wife in The Tatler for June 4, 1831, the occasion being a review of "Selections from Wordsworth" for schools:—

Mr. Moxon has begun his career as a bookseller in singularly high taste. He has no connection but with the select of the earth. The least thing he does, is to give us a dandy poem, suitable to Bond street, and not without wit. We allude to the Byronian brochure, entitled "Mischief." But this is a mere condescension to the elegance of the street he lives in. Mr. Moxon commenced with some of the primaeval delicacies of Charles Lamb. He then astonished us with Mr. Rogers' poems on Italy…. Of some of these publications we have already spoken,—Mr. Lamb's Album Verses among them. And why (the reader may ask) not have noticed his Satan in Search of a Wife? Because, to say the truth, we did not think it worthy of him. We rejoice in Mr. Lamb's accession to the good cause advocated by Sterne and Burns, refreshed by the wholesome mirth of Mr. Moncrieff, and finally carried (like a number of other astonished humanities, who little thought of the matter, and are not all sensible of it now) on the triumphant shoulders of the Glorious Three Days. But Mr. Lamb, in the extreme sympathy of his delight, has taken for granted, that everything that can be uttered on the subject will be held to be worth uttering, purely for its own sake, and because it could not well have been said twelve months ago. He merges himself, out of the pure transport of his good will, into the joyous common-places of others; just as if he had joined a great set of children in tossing over some mighty bowl of snap-dragon, too scalding to bear; and thought that nothing could be so good as to echo their "hurras!" Furthermore, we fear that some of his old friends, on the wrong side of the House, would think a little of his merriment profane: though for our parts, if we are certain of anything in this world, it is that nothing can be more Christian.

"The Banquet." I cannot find this poem. It is, I think, not in The Tatler.

"How capitally the Frenchman …" I cannot find any French paraphrase of Satan in Search of a Wife, nor has a search at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris revealed one.

"R.'s interview with the Premier." R. would be Rogers. Perhaps the best explanation of this portion of Lamb's letter is the following passage from Mr. Dykes Campbell's memoir of Coleridge:—

On June 26, 1830, died George IV., and with him died the pensions of the Royal Associates. Apparently they did not find this out until the following year. In the Englishman's Magazine for June, 1831, attention was directed to the fact that "intimation had been given to Mr. Coleridge and his brother Associates that they must expect their allowances 'very shortly' to cease"—the allowances having been a personal bounty of the late King. On June 3, 1831, Gillman wrote a letter to the Times, "in consequence of a paragraph which appeared in the Times of this day." He states that on the sudden suppression of the honorarium, representations on Coleridge's behalf were made to Lord Brougham, with the result that the Treasury (Lord Grey) offered a private grant of £200, which Coleridge "had felt it his duty most respectfully to decline." Stuart, however, wrote to King William's son, the Earl of Munster, pointing out the hardship entailed on Coleridge, "who is old and infirm, and without other means of subsistence." He begs the Earl to lay the matter before his royal father. To this a reply came, excusing the King on account of his "very reduced income," but promising that the matter shall be laid before His Majesty. To these letters, which are printed in Letters from the Lake Poets (pages 319-322), the following note is appended: "The annuity … was not renewed, but a sum of £300 was ultimately handed over to Coleridge by the Treasury." Even apart from this bounty, Coleridge was not a sufferer by the withdrawal of the King's pension, for Frere made it up to him annually.

It is interesting to know that Lamb played so useful and characteristic a part in this matter.

"The Sugdens." I do not identify these friends.

"2d vol. Elias." This would refer, I think, to the American volume, published without authority, in 1828, under the title Elia; or, Second Series, which Lamb told N.P. Willis he liked. It contained three pieces not by Lamb; the rest made up from the Works and the London Magazine (see Vol. II., notes).]

LETTER 534

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

Pray forward the enclosed, or put it in the post.

[No date. Early August, 1831.]

Dear M.—The R.A. here memorised was George Dawe, whom I knew well and heard many anecdotes of, from DANIELS and WESTALL, at H. Rogers's—to each of them it will be well to send a Mag. in my name. It will fly like wild fire among the R. Academicians and artists. Could you get hold of Proctor—his chambers are in Lincoln's Inn at Montagu's—or of Janus Weathercock?—both of their prose is capital. Don't encourage poetry. The Peter's Net does not intend funny things only. All is fish. And leave out the sickening Elia at the end. Then it may comprise letters and characters addrest to Peter—but a signature forces it to be all characteristic of the one man Elia, or the one man Peter, which cramped me formerly. I have agreed not for my sister to know the subjects I chuse till the Mag. comes out; so beware of speaking of 'em, or writing about 'em, save generally. Be particular about this warning. Can't you drop in some afternoon, and take a bed?

The Athenaeum has been hoaxed with some exquisite poetry that was 2 or 3 months ago in Hone's Book. I like your 1st No. capitally. But is it not small? Come and see us, week day if possible. C.L.

[Moxon had just acquired The Englishman's Magazine and Lamb contributed to the September number his "Recollections of a Late Royal Academician," George Dawe (see Vol. I. of this edition), under the general title "Peter's Net." Daniels may have been Thomas or William Daniell, both landscape painters. Westall may have been Richard Westall, the historical painter, or William Westall, the topographical painter. H. Rogers was Henry Rogers, brother of the poet.

"The Athenaeum has been hoaxed." The exquisite poetry was FitzGerald's "Meadows in Spring" (see next letter).]

LETTER 535

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Aug. 5, 1831.]

Send, or bring me, Hone's No. for August.

Hunt is a fool, and his critics——The anecdotes of E. and of G.D. are substantially true. What does Elia (or Peter) care for dates?

That is the poem I mean. I do not know who wrote it, but is in Hone's book as far back as April.

Tis a poem I envy—that & Montgomery's Last Man (nothing else of his). I envy the writers, because I feel I could have done something like it. S—— is a coxcomb. W—— is a —— & a great Poet. L.

[Hone was now editing his Year Book. Under the date April 30 had appeared Edward FitzGerald's poem, "The Meadows in Spring," with the following introduction:—

These verses are in the old style; rather homely in expression; but I honestly profess to stick more to the simplicity of the old poets than the moderns, and to love the philosophical good humor of our old writers more than the sickly melancholy of the Byronian wits. If my verses be not good, they are good humored, and that is something.

The editor of The Athenaeum, in reprinting the poem, suggested delicately that it was by Lamb. There is no such poem by James Montgomery as "The Last Man." Campbell wrote a "Last Man," and so did Hood, but I agree with Canon Ainger that what Lamb meant was Montgomery's "Common Lot." I give the two poems in the Appendix as illustrations of what Lamb envied.

"Hunt is a fool." In The Tatler for August 1 Leigh Hunt had quoted much of Lamb's essay on Elliston. I do not, however, find any adverse criticism.

"E. and G.D." Lamb had written in the August number of The Englishman's Magazine his "Reminiscences of Elliston." Lamb's article on George Dawe did not appear till the September number, but perhaps Moxon already had the copy.]

LETTER 536

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Sept. 5, 1831.]

Dear M., Your Letter's contents pleased me. I am only afraid of taxing you, yet I want a stimulus, or I think I should drag sadly. I shall keep the monies in trust till I see you fairly over the next 1 January. Then I shall look upon 'em as earned. Colburn shall be written to. No part of yours gave me more pleasure (no, not the £,10, tho' you may grin) than that you will revisit old Enfield, which I hope will be always a pleasant idea to you.

Yours very faithfully

C.L.

[The letter's contents was presumably payment for Lamb's contribution to The Englishman's Magazine.]

LETTER 537

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT, JR.

[P.M. Sept. 13, 1831.]

Dear Wm—We have a sick house, Mrs. Westw'ds daughter in a fever, & Grandaughter in the meazles, & it is better to see no company just now, but in a week or two we shall be very glad to see you; come at a hazard then, on a week day if you can, because Sundays are stuffd up with friends on both parts of this great ill-mix'd family. Your second letter, dated 3d Sept'r, came not till Sund'y & we staid at home in even'g in expectation of seeing you. I have turned & twisted what you ask'd me to do in my head, & am obliged to say I can not undertake it—but as a composition for declining it, will you accept some verses which I meditate to be addrest to you on your father, & prefixable to your Life? Write me word that I may have 'em ready against I see you some 10 days hence, when I calculate the House will be uninfected. Send your mother's address.

If you are likely to be again at Cheshunt before that time, on second thoughts, drop in here, & consult—

Yours,

C.L.

Not a line is yet written—so say, if I shall do 'em.

[This is the only letter extant to the younger Hazlitt, who was then nearly twenty. William Hazlitt, the essayist, had died September 18, 1830. Lamb was at his bedside. The memoir of him, by his son, was prefixed to the Literary Remains in 1836, but no verses by Lamb accompanied it. When this letter was last sold at Sotheby's in June, 1902, a copy of verses was attached beginning—

There lives at Winterslow a man of such Rare talents and deep learning …

in the handwriting of William Hazlitt. They bear more traces of being Mary Lamb's work than her brother's.]

LETTER 538

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. October 24, 1831.]

To address an abdicated monarch is a nice point of breeding. To give him his lost titles is to mock him; to withhold 'em is to wound him. But his Minister who falls with him may be gracefully sympathetic. I do honestly feel for your diminution of honors, and regret even the pleasing cares which are part and parcel of greatness. Your magnanimous submission, and the cheerful tone of your renunciation, in a Letter which, without flattery, would have made an "ARTICLE," and which, rarely as I keep letters, shall be preserved, comfort me a little. Will it please, or plague you, to say that when your Parcel came I damned it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending you to morrow, the last day you gave me. Now any one calling in, or a letter coming, puts an end to my writing for the day. Little did I think that the mandate had gone out, so destructive to my occupation, so relieving to the apprehensions of the whole body of R.A.'s. So you see I had not quitted the ship while a plank was remaining.

To drop metaphors, I am sure you have done wisely. The very spirit of your epistle speaks that you have a weight off your mind. I have one on mine. The cash in hand, which, as * * * * * * less truly says, burns in my pocket. I feel queer at returning it (who does not?). You feel awkward at re-taking it (who ought not?) Is there no middle way of adjusting this fine embarrassment? I think I have hit upon a medium to skin the sore place over, if not quite to heal it. You hinted that there might be something under £10 by and by accruing to me Devil's Money. You are sanguine—say £7: 10s.—that I entirely renounce and abjure all future interest in, I insist upon it, and "by Him I will not name" I won't touch a penny of it. That will split your Loss one half—and leave me conscientious possessor of what I hold. Less than your assent to this, no proposal will I accept of.

The Rev. Mr.———, whose name you have left illegible (is it Sea-gull?) never sent me any book on Christ's Hospit. by which I could dream that I was indebted to him for a dedication. Did G.D. send his penny tract to me to convert me to Unitarianism? Dear blundering soul! why I am as old a one-Goddite as himself. Or did he think his cheap publication would bring over the Methodists over the way here? However I'll give it to the pew-opener (in whom I have a little interest,) to hand over to the Clerk, whose wife she sometimes drinks tea with, for him to lay before the Deacon, who exchanges the civility of the hat with him, for him to transmit to the Minister, who shakes hand with him out of Chapel, and he, in all odds, will —— with it.

I wish very much to see you. I leave it to you to come how you will. We shall be very glad (we need not repeat) to see your sister, or sisters, with you—but for you individually I will just hint that a dropping in to Tea unlook'd for about 5, stopping bread-n-cheese and gin-and-water, is worth a thousand Sundays. I am naturally miserable on a Sunday, but a week day evening and Supper is like old times. Set out now, and give no time to deliberation—

P.S.—The 2d vol. of Elia is delightful(-ly bound, I mean) and quite cheap. Why, man, 'tis a Unique—

If I write much more I shall expand into an article, which I cannot afford to let you have so cheap.

By the by, to shew the perverseness of human will—while I thought I must furnish one of those accursed things monthly, it seemed a Labour above Hercules's "Twelve" in a year, which were evidently Monthly Contributions. Now I am emancipated, I feel as if I had a thousand Essays swelling within me. False feelings both.

I have lost Mr. Aitken's Town address—do you know it? Is he there?

Your ex-Lampoonist, or Lamb-punnist—from Enfield, Oct. 24, or "last day but one for receiving articles that can be inserted."

[Moxon, finding The Englishman's Magazine unsuccessful, gave it up suddenly after the October number, the third under his direction. His letter to Lamb on the subject is not now forthcoming. The ludicrous description of a landscape by an R.A. is, I imagine, that of the garden of the Hesperides in the Elia essay on the "Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Production of Modern Art" (see Vol. II.). Probably Turner's "Garden of the Hesperides" in the National Gallery.

By "Devil's Money" Lamb means money due for Satan in Search of a Wife. I do not identify * * * * * *.

"The Rev. Mr. ——." I have not identified this gentleman.

"G.D…. penny tract." I have not found Dyer's tract.

"Mr. Aitken." John Aitken, editor of Constable's Miscellany, whom Moxon would have known at Hurst & Co.'s.]

LETTER 539

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Dec. 15, 1831.]

Dear M. +S. I know, has an aversion, amounting almost to horror, of H. He would not lend his name. The other I might wring a guinea from, but he is very properly shy of his guineas. It would be improper in me to apply to him, and impertinent to the other. I hope this will satisfy you, but don't give my reason to H.'s friend, simply, say I decline it.

I am very much obliged to you for thinking of Gary. Put me down seven shillings (wasn't it?) in your books, and I set you down for more in my good ones. One Copy will go down to immortality now, the more lasting as the less its leaves are disturbed. This Letter will cost you 3d.—but I did not like to be silent on the above +.

Nothing with my name will sell, a blast is upon it. Do not think of such a thing, unless ever you become rich enough to speculate.

Being praised, and being bought, are different things to a Book. Fancy books sell from fashion, not from the number of their real likers. Do not come at so long intervals. Here we are sure to be.

[S. and H. I do not identify—perhaps Southey and Hunt. Hunt's need of guineas was chronic. The reference to Gary is not very clear. Lamb seems to suggest that he is giving Gary a copy of a book that Gary will not read, but will preserve.

"Nothing with my name." Moxon may perhaps have just suggested publishing a second series of Elia.]

LETTER 540

CHARLES LAMB TO JOSEPH HUME'S DAUGHTERS

[No date. 1832.]

Many thanks for the wrap-rascal, but how delicate the insinuating in, into the pocket, of that 3-1/2d., in paper too! Who was it? Amelia, Caroline, Julia, Augusta, or "Scots who have"?

As a set-off to the very handsome present, which I shall lay out in a pot of ale certainly to her health, I have paid sixpence for the mend of two button-holes of the coat now return'd. She shall not have to say, "I don't care a button for her."

Adieu, très aimables!

Buttons 6d. Gift 3-1/2

Due from —— 2-1/2

which pray accept … from your foolish coatforgetting

C.L.

[Joseph Hume we have met. Mr. Hazlitt writes: "Amelia Hume became Mrs. Bennett, Julia Mrs. Todhunter. The latter personally informed me in 1888 that her Aunt Augusta perfectly recollected all the circumstances [of the present note]. The incident seems to have taken place at the residence of Mr. Hume, in Percy Street, Bloomsbury, and it was Amelia who found the three-pence-halfpenny in the coat which Lamb left behind him, and who repaired the button-holes. The sister who is described as 'Scots wha ha'e' was Louisa Hume; it was a favourite song with her." Mrs. Todhunter supplied the date, 1832.]

LETTER 541

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE

[P.M. March 5, 1832.]

D'r Sir, My friend Aders, a German merchant, German born, has opend to the public at the Suffolk St. Gallery his glorious Collection of old Dutch and German Pictures. Pray see them. You have only to name my name, and have a ticket—if you have not received one already. You will possibly notice 'em, and might lug in the inclosed, which I wrote for Hone's Year Book, and has appear'd only there, when the Pictures were at home in Euston Sq. The fault of this matchless set of pictures is, the admitting a few Italian pictures with 'em, which I would turn out to make the Collection unique and pure. Those old Albert Durers have not had their fame. I have tried to illustrate 'em. If you print my verses, a Copy, please, for me.

[The first letter to Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789-1864), a friend of Keats, Hunt and Hood, editor of Dodsley and at this time editor of The Athenaeum. Lamb's verses ran thus:—

TO C. ADERS, ESQ.

On his Collection of Paintings by the old German Masters

Friendliest of men, Aders, I never come Within the precincts of this sacred Room, But I am struck with a religious fear, Which says "Let no profane eye enter here." With imagery from Heav'n the walls are clothed, Making the things of Time seem vile and loathed. Spare Saints, whose bodies seem sustain'd by Love With Martyrs old in meek procession move. Here kneels a weeping Magdalen, less bright To human sense for her blurr'd cheeks; in sight Of eyes, new-touch'd by Heaven, more winning fair Than when her beauty was her only care. A Hermit here strange mysteries doth unlock In desart sole, his knees worn by the rock. There Angel harps are sounding, while below Palm-bearing Virgins in white order go. Madonnas, varied with so chaste design. While all are different, each seems genuine, And hers the only Jesus: hard outline, And rigid form, by Dürer's hand subdued To matchless grace, and sacro-sanctitude; Dürer, who makes thy slighted Germany Vie with the praise of paint-proud Italy.

Whoever enter'st here, no more presume To name a Parlour, or a Drawing Room; But, bending lowly to each, holy Story, Make this thy Chapel, and thine Oratory.]

LETTER 542

CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE

April 14th, 1832.

My dear Coleridge,—Not an unkind thought has passed in my brain about you. But I have been wofully neglectful of you, so that I do not deserve to announce to you, that if I do not hear from you before then, I will set out on Wednesday morning to take you by the hand. I would do it this moment, but an unexpected visit might flurry you. I shall take silence for acquiescence, and come. I am glad you could write so long a letter. Old loves to, and hope of kind looks from, the Gilmans, when I come.

Yours semper idem C.L.

If you ever thought an offence, much more wrote it, against me, it must have been in the times of Noah; and the great waters swept it away. Mary's most kind love, and maybe a wrong prophet of your bodings!—here she is crying for mere love over your letter. I wring out less, but not sincerer, showers.

My direction is simply, Enfield.

[Mr. Dykes Campbell's comment upon this note is that it was written to remove some mistaken sick-man's fancy.]

LETTER 543

CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES

[No date. ? April, 1832.]

Dear Kn.—I will not see London again without seeing your pleasant Play. In meanwhile, pray, send three or four orders to a Lady who can't afford to pay: Miss James, No. 1 Grove Road, Lisson Grove, Paddington, a day or two before—and come and see us some Evening with my hitherto uncorrupted and honest bookseller

Moxon. C. LAMB.

[I have dated this April, 1832, because it may refer to Knowles' play "The Hunchback," produced April 5, 1832. It might also possibly refer to "The Wife" of a year later, but I think not.]

LETTER 544

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[? Late April, 1832.]

One day in my life Do come. C.L.

I have placed poor Mary at Edmonton—

I shall be very glad to see the Hunch Back and Straitback the 1st Even'g they can come. I am very poorly indeed. I have been cruelly thrown out. Come and don't let me drink too much. I drank more yesterday than I ever did any one day in my life.

C.L.

Do come.

Cannot your Sister come and take a half bed—or a whole one? Which, alas, we have to spare.

[Mary Lamb would have been taken to Walden House, Edmonton, where mental patients were received. A year later the Lambs moved there altogether.

The Hunchback would be Knowles; the Straitback I do not recognise.

John Forster (1812-1876), whom we now meet for the first time, one of Lamb's last new friends, was the author, later, of Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth and the Lives also of Goldsmith and of Landor and Dickens, whose close friend he was. His Life of Pym, which was in Vol. II. of the Statesman, did not appear until 1837, but I assume that he had ridden the hobby for some years.]

LETTER 545

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON (?)

[P.M. June 1, 1832.]

I am a little more than half alive— I was more than half dead— the Ladies are very agreeable— I flatter myself I am less than disagreeable— Convey this to Mr. Forster— Whom, with you, I shall just be able to see some 10 days hence and believe me ever yours C.L.

I take Forster's name to be John, But you know whom I mean, the Pym-praiser not pimp-raiser.

[This letter possibly is not to Moxon at all, as the wrapper (on which is the postmark) may belong to another letter.]

LETTER 546

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

July 2, 1832.

AT midsummer or soon after (I will let you know the previous day), I will take a day with you in the purlieus of my old haunts. No offence has been taken, any more than meant. My house is full at present, but empty of its chief pride. She is dead to me for many months. But when I see you, then I will say, Come and see me. With undiminished friendship to you both,

Your faithful but queer C.L.

How you frighted me! Never write again, "Coleridge is dead," at the end of a line, and tamely come in with "to his friends" at the beginning of another. Love is quicker, and fear from love, than the transition ocular from Line to Line.

LETTER 547

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON

[Dated at end: Aug., 1832.]

My dear Wilson, I cannot let my old friend Mrs. Hazlitt (Sister in Law to poor Wm. Hazlitt) leave Enfield, without endeavouring to introduce her to you, and to Mrs. Wilson. Her daughter has a School in your neighbourhood, and for her talents and by [for] her merits I can answer. If it lies in your power to be useful to them in any way, the obligation to your old office-fellow will be great. I have not forgotten Mrs. Wilson's Album, and if you, or she, will be the means of procuring but one pupil for Miss Hazlitt, I will rub up my poor poetic faculty to the best. But you and she will one day, I hope, bring the Album with you to Enfield— Poor Mary is ill, or would send her love—

Yours very Truly

C. LAMB.

News.—Collet is dead, Du Puy is dead. I am not.—Hone! is turned Believer in Irving and his unknown Tongues.

In the name of dear Defoe which alone might be a Bond of Union between us, Adieu!

[Mrs. Hazlitt was the wife of John Hazlitt, the miniature painter, who died in 1837. I have been unable to trace her daughter's history.

Collet I do not recognise. Probably an old fellow-clerk at the India House, as was Du Puy. It is true that Hone was converted by Irving, and became himself a preacher.]

LETTER 548

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[No date. ? Early October, 1832.]

For Lander's kindness I have just esteem. I shall tip him a Letter, when you tell me how to address him.

Give Emma's kindest regrets that I could not entice her good friend, your Nephew, here.

Her warmest love to the Bury Robinsons—our all three to

H. Crab. C.L.

[Mr. Macdonald's transcript adds: "Accompanying copy of Lander's verses to Emma Isola, and others, contributed to Miss Wordsworth's Album, and poem written at Wast-water. C.L."

The Bury Robinsons were Crabb Robinson's brother and other relatives, whom Miss Isola had met when at Fornham.]

LETTER 549

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

[No date. October, 1832.]

Dear Sir, pray accept a little volume. 'Tis a legacy from Elia, you'll see. Silver and Gold had he none, but such as he had, left he you. I do not know how to thank you for attending to my request about the Album. I thought you would never remember it. Are not you proud and thankful, Emma?

Yes, very, both— EMMA ISOLA.

Many things I had to say to you, which there was not time for. One why should I forget? 'tis for Rose Aylmer, which has a charm I cannot explain. I lived upon it for weeks.—

Next I forgot to tell you I knew all your Welch annoyancers, the measureless Beethams. I knew a quarter of a mile of them. 17 brothers and 16 sisters, as they appear to me in memory. There was one of them that used to fix his long legs on my fender, and tell a story of a shark, every night, endless, immortal. How have I grudged the salt sea ravener not having had his gorge of him!

The shortest of the daughters measured 5 foot eleven without her shoes. Well, some day we may confer about them. But they were tall. Surely I have discover'd the longitude—

Sir, If you can spare a moment, I should be happy to hear from you—that rogue Robinson detained your verses, till I call'd for them. Don't entrust a bit of prose to the rogue, but believe me

Your obliged C.L.

My Sister sends her kind regards.

[Crabb Robinson took Landor to see Lamb on September 28, 1832. The following passage in Forster's Life of Landor describes the visit and explains this letter:—

The hour he passed with Lamb was one of unalloyed enjoyment. A letter from Crabb Robinson before he came over had filled him with affection for that most lovable of men, who had not an infirmity to which his sweetness of nature did not give something of kinship to a virtue. "I have just seen Charles and Mary Lamb," Crabb Robinson had written (20th October, 1831), "living in absolute solitude at Enfield. I find your poems lying open before Lamb. Both tipsy and sober he is ever muttering Rose Aylmer. But it is not those lines only that have a curious fascination for him. He is always turning to Gebir for things that haunt him in the same way." Their first and last hour was now passed together, and before they parted they were old friends. I visited Lamb myself (with Barry Cornwall) the following month, and remember the boyish delight with which he read to us the verses which Landor has written in the album of Emma Isola. He had just received them through Robinson, and had lost little time in making rich return by sending Landor his Last Essays of Elia.

These were Landor's verses:—

TO EMMA ISOLA

Etrurian domes, Pelasgian walls, Live fountains, with their nymphs around Terraced and citron-scented halls, Skies smiling upon sacred ground—

The giant Alps, averse to France, Point with impatient pride to those, Calling the Briton to advance, Amid eternal rocks and snows—

I dare not bid him stay behind, I dare not tell him where to see The fairest form, the purest mind, Ausonia! that e'er sprang from thee,

and this is "Rose Aylmer";—

Ah what avails the sceptred race! Ah what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.

Of the measureless Bethams Lamb wrote in similar terms, but more fully, in an article in the New Times in 1825, entitled "Many Friends" (see Vol. I.).

On April 9, 1834, Landor wrote to Lady Blessington:—

I do not think that you ever knew Charles Lamb, who is lately dead. Robinson took me to see him.

"Once, and once only, have I seen thy face, Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue Run o'er my heart, yet never has been left Impression on it stronger or more sweet. Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years, What wisdom in thy levity, what soul In every utterance of thy purest breast! Of all that ever wore man's form,'tis thee I first would spring to at the gate of Heaven."

I say tripping tongue, for Charles Lamb stammered and spoke hurriedly. He did not think it worth while to put on a fine new coat to come down and see me in, as poor Coleridge did, but met me as if I had been a friend of twenty years' standing; indeed, he told me I had been so, and shewed me some things I had written much longer ago, and had utterly forgotten. The world will never see again two such delightful volumes as "The Essays of Elia;" no man living is capable of writing the worst twenty pages of them. The Continent has Zadig and Gil Bias, we have Elia and Sir Roger de Coverly.

Mrs. Fields, writing in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1866, on Landor, says that Landor told her of his visit to Lamb and said that Lamb read to him some poetry and asked his opinion of it. Landor said it was very good, whereupon Lamb laughed and called Landor the vainest of men, for it was his own.

In a letter to Southey the lines differed, ending thus:

Few are the spirits of the glorified I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven.]

LETTER 550

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[Late 1832.]

A poor mad usher (and schoolfellow of mine) has been pestering me through you with poetry and petitions. I have desired him to call upon you for a half sovereign, which place to my account.

I have buried Mrs. Reynolds at last, who has virtually at least bequeath'd me a legacy of £32 per Ann., to which add that my other pensioner is safe housed in the workhouse, which gets me £10.

Richer by both legacies £42 per Ann.

For a loss of a loss is as good as a gain of a gain.

But let this be between ourselves, specially keep it from A——- or I shall speedily have candidates for the Pensions.

Mary is laid up with a cold.

Will you convey the inclosed by hand?

When you come, if you ever do, bring me one Devil's Visit, I mean Southey's; also the Hogarth which is complete, Noble's I think. Six more letters to do. Bring my bill also. C.L.

[I do not identify the usher. Mrs. Reynolds, Lamb's first schoolmistress, we have met. The other pensioner I do not positively identify; presumably it was Morgan, Coleridge's old friend, to whom Lamb and Southey had each given ten pounds annually from 1819.

A——- I cannot positively identify. Perhaps the philanthropic Allsop.

Southey's "Devil's Visit" was a new edition of The Devil's Walk illustrated by Thomas Landseer.

Noble's "Hogarth." Noble was the engraver.]

LETTER 551

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Winter, 1832.]

Thank you for the books. I am ashamed to take tythe thus of your press. I am worse to a publisher than the two Universities and the Brit. Mus. A[llan] C[unningham] I will forthwith read. B[arry] C[ornwall] (I can't get out of the A, B, C) I have more than read. Taken altogether, 'tis too Lovey; but what delicacies! I like most "King Death;" glorious 'bove all, "The Lady with the Hundred Rings;" "The Owl;" "Epistle to What's his Name" (here may be I'm partial); "Sit down, Sad Soul;" "The Pauper's Jubilee" (but that's old, and yet 'tis never old); "The Falcon;" "Felon's Wife;" damn "Madame Pasty" (but that is borrowed);

Apple-pie is very good, And so is apple-pasty; But— O Lard! 'tis very nasty:

but chiefly the dramatic fragments,—scarce three of which should have escaped my Specimens, had an antique name been prefixed. They exceed his first. So much for the nonsense of poetry; now to the serious business of life. Up a court (Blandford Court) in Pall Mall (exactly at the back of Marlbro' House), with iron gate in front, and containing two houses, at No. 2 did lately live Leishman my taylor. He is moved somewhere in the neighbourhood, devil knows where. Pray find him out, and give him the opposite. I am so much better, tho' my hand shakes in writing it, that, after next Sunday, I can well see F[orster] and you. Can you throw B.C. in? Why tarry the wheels of my Hogarth?

CHARLES LAMB.

["I am worse to a publisher." There is a rule by which a publisher must present copies of every book to the Stationers' Hall, to be distributed to the British Museum, the Bodleian, and Cambridge University Library.

"A.C…. B.C." Allan Cunningham's Maid of Elvar and Barry Cornwall's English Songs, both published by Moxon. This is Barry Cornwall's "King Death":—

KING DEATH

King Death was a rare old fellow! He sate where no sun could shine; And he lifted his hand so yellow, And poured out his coal-black wine. Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

There came to him many a Maiden, Whose eyes had forgot to shine; And Widows, with grief o'erladen, For a draught of his sleepy wine. Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

The Scholar left all his learning; The Poet his fancied woes; And the Beauty her bloom returning, Like life to the fading rose. Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

All came to the royal old fellow, Who laugh'd till his eyes dropped brine, As he gave them his hand so yellow, And pledged them in Death's black wine. Hurrah!—Hurrah! Hurrah! for the coal-black Wine!

By the "Epistle to What's his Name" Lamb refers to some lines to himself which had been printed first in the London Magazine in 1825, entitled "The Epistle to Charles Lamb." See in the Appendix.

"Madame Pasty." Procter had some lines on Madame Pasta.

"My Specimens." Lamb's Dramatic Specimens, which very likely suggested to Procter the idea of "Dramatic Fragments."

Under the date November 30, 1832, an unsigned letter endorsed "From Charles Lamb to Professor Wilson" is printed in Mrs. Gordon's "Christopher North:" A Memoir of John Wilson. Although in its first paragraph it might be Lamb's, there is evidence to the contrary in the remainder, and I have no doubt that the endorsement was a mistake. It is therefore not printed here.]

LETTER 552

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[Dated by Forster at end: Dec., 1832.]

This is my notion. Wait till you are able to throw away a round sum (say £1500) upon a speculation, and then —don't do it. For all your loving encouragem'ts—till this final damp came in the shape of your letter, thanks—for Books also—greet the Fosters and Proctors—and come singly or conjunctively as soon as you can. Johnson and Fare's sheets have been wash'd—unless you prefer Danby's last bed—at the Horseshoe.

[I assume Lamb's advice to refer to Moxon's intention of founding a paper called The Reflector, which Forster was to edit. All trace of this periodical has vanished, but it existed in December, 1832, for three numbers, and was then withdrawn. Lamb contributed to it.

Johnson and Fare had just murdered—on December l9—a Mr. Danby, at Enfield. They had met him in the Crown and Horseshoes (see note to next Letter).

Mr. W.C. Hazlitt prints a note to Moxon in his Bohn edition in which Lamb advises the withdrawal of The Reflector at once. This would be December, 1832.]

LETTER 553

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

To Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, 14 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street. For the Editor of the Reflector from C. Lamb.

[P.M. Dec. 23, 1832.]

I am very sorry the poor Reflector is abortive. Twas a child of good promise for its weeks. But if the chances are so much against it, withdraw immediately. It is idle up hill waste of money to spend another stamp on it.

[Around the seal of this note are the words in Lamb's hand: "Obiit Edwardus Reflector Armiger, 31 Dec., 1832. Natus tres hebdomidas. Pax animae ejus."

The newspaper stamp at that time was fourpence (less 25 per cent.).

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Badams (née Holcroft), dated December 31, 1832, not available for this edition, in which, after some plain speaking about the Westwoods, Lamb refers to the murder of Mr. Danby at Enfield by Fare and two other men on the night of December 19, and says that he had been in their company at the inn a little before, and the next morning was asked to give his evidence. Canon Ainger says that Lamb's story is a hoax, but it reads reasonably enough and might as easily have happened as not.]

LETTER 554

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Jan., 1833.]

I have a proof from Dilke. That serves for next Saturday. What Forster had, will serve a second. I sent you a third concluding article for him and us (a capital hit, I think, about Cervantes) of which I leave you to judge whether we shall not want it to print before a third or even second week. In that case beg D. to clap them in all at once; and keep the Atheneums to print from. What I send is the concluding Article of the painters.

Soften down the Title in the Book to

"Defect of the Imaginative Faculty in Artists."

Consult Dilke.

[Lamb's Elia essay "Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Production of Modern Art," intended originally for The Englishman's Magazine, was partly printed by Forster in The Reflector and finally printed in full in The Athenaeum in January and February, 1833. The reference to Don Quixote is at the end. Moxon was already printing the Last Essays of Elia.

"Consult Dilke" was a favourite phrase with Lamb and Hood and, long before, with Keats.]

LETTER 555

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Jan. 3(1833).]

Be sure and let me have the Atheneum—or, if they don't appear, the Copy back again. I have no other.

I am glad you are introduced to Rickman, cultivate the introduction. I will not forget to write to him.

I want to see Blackwood, but not without you.

We are yet Emma-less.

And so that is all I can remember.

This is a corkscrew.

[Here is a florid corkscrew.]

C. Lamb, born 1775 flourished about the year 1832.

C.L. Fecit.—

[Lamb refers still to the "Barrenness of Imagination" series.

There are several scraps addressed by Lamb to Forster in the South Kensington Museum; but they are undated and of little importance. I append one or two here:—]

LETTER 556

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date.]

Orders.

Go to Dilke's, or Let Mockson, and ax him to add this to what I sent him a few days since, or to continue it the week after. The Plantas &c. are capital.

Requests.

Come down with M. and Dante and L.E.L. on Sunday.

ELIA.

I don't mean at his House, but the Atheneum office. Send it there. Hand shakes.

[The Plantas would probably be a reference to the family of Joseph Plantas of the British Museum. M. and Dante and L.E.L. would be Moxon, Cary and Letitia Landon, the poetess, to whom Forster was for a while engaged.

This letter, up to a certain point, was repeated as follows. It also is at South Kensington:—]

LETTER 557

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date.]

I wish youd go to Dilke's, or let Mockson, and ax him to add this to what I sent him a few days since, or to continue it the week after. The Plantas &c. are capital. Come down with Procter and Dante on Sunday. I send you the last proof—not of my friendship. I knew you would like the title. I do thoroughly. The Last Essays of Elia keeps out any notion of its being a second volume.

LETTER 558

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date.]

There was a talk of Richmond on Sunday but we were hampered with an unavoidable engagement that day, besides that I wish to show it you when the woods are in full leaf. Can you have a quiet evening here to night or tomorrow night? We are certainly at home.

Yours C. LAMB.

Friday.

LETTER 559

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Jan. 24, 1833.]

Dear Murray! Moxon I mean.—I am not to be making you pay postage every day, but cannot let pass the congratulations of sister, brother, and "Silk Cloak," all most cordial on your change of place. Rogers approving, who can demur? Tell me when you get into Dover St. and what the No. is—that I may change foolscap for gilt, and plain Mr. for Esqr. I shall Mister you while you stay—

If you are not too great to attend to it, I wish us to do without the Sonnets of Sydney: 12 will take up as many pages, and be too palpable a fill up. Perhaps we may leave them out, retaining the article, but that is not worth saving. I hope you liked my Cervantes Article which I sent you yesterday.

Not an inapt quotation, for your fallen predecessor in Albemarle Street, to whom you must give the coup du main—

Murray, long enough his country's pride.

Pope.

[Then, written at the bottom of the page] there's [and written on the next page] there's nothing over here.

[Moxon was moving from 64 New Bond Street to 33 Dover Street.

"Silk Cloak" would, I imagine, probably be a name for Emma Isola.

"The Sonnets of Sydney"—Lamb's Elia essay on this subject. It was not omitted from the Last Essay, which Moxon was to publish, and eleven sonnets were quoted.

"Your fallen predecessor." It is hardly needful to say that Moxon made very little difference to Murray's business. The line is from Pope's Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace. To Mr. Murray, who afterwards was Earl of Mansfield.]

LETTER 560

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[Feb. 10. P.M. Feby. 11, 1833.]

I wish you would omit "by the author of Elia," now, in advertising that damn'd "Devil's Wedding."

I had sneaking hopes you would have dropt in today—tis my poor birthday. Don't stay away so. Give Forster a hint—you are to bring your brother some day—sisters in better weather.

Pray give me one line to say if you receiv'd and forwarded Emma's pacquet to Miss Adams,

and how Dover St. looks.

Adieu.

Is there no Blackwood this month?

[Added on cover:—]

What separation will there be between the friend's preface, and THE ESSAYS? Should not "Last Essays &c." head them? If 'tis too late, don't mind. I don't care a farthing about it.

["What separation"—the Last Essays of Elia were preceded by "A Character of the Late Elia."

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Badams, dated February 15, 1833. Lamb begins with a further reference to the Enfield murder. He says that his sister and himself have got through the Inferno with the help of Cary, and Mary is beginning Tasso.]

LETTER 561

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Feb., 1833.]

My dear M.—I send you the last proof—not of my friendship— pray see to the finish.

I think you will see the necessity of adding those words after "Preface"—and "Preface" should be in the "contents-table"—

I take for granted you approve the title. I do thoroughly— Perhaps if you advertise it in full, as it now stands, the title page might have simply the Last Essays of Elia, to keep out any notion of its being a second vol.—

Well, I wish us luck heartily for your sake who have smarted by me.—

LETTER 562

CHARLES LAMB TO T.N. TALFOURD

February, 1833.

My dear T.,—Now cannot I call him Serjeant; what is there in a coif? Those canvas-sleeves protective from ink, when he was a law-chit—a _Chitty_ling, (let the leathern apron be apocryphal) do more 'specially plead to the Jury Court of old memory. The costume (will he agnize it?) was as of a desk-fellow or Socius Plutei. Methought I spied a brother!

That familiarity is extinct for ever. Curse me if I can call him Mr. Serjeant—except, mark me, in company. Honour where honour is due; but should he ever visit us, (do you think he ever will, Mary?) what a distinction should I keep up between him and our less fortunate friend, H.C.R.! Decent respect shall always be the Crabb's—but, somehow, short of reverence.

Well, of my old friends, I have lived to see two knighted: one made a judge, another in a fair way to it. Why am I restive? why stands my sun upon Gibeah?

Variously, my dear Mrs. Talfourd, (I can be more familiar with her!) Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd,—my sister prompts me—(these ladies stand upon ceremonies)—has the congratulable news affected the members of our small community. Mary comprehended it at once, and entered into it heartily. Mrs. W—— was, as usual, perverse—wouldn't, or couldn't, understand it. A Serjeant? She thought Mr. T. was in the law. Didn't know that he ever 'listed.

Emma alone truly sympathised. She had a silk gown come home that very day, and has precedence before her learned sisters accordingly.

We are going to drink the health of Mr. and Mrs. Serjeant, with all the young serjeantry—and that is all that I can see that I shall get by the promotion.

Valete, et mementote amici quondam vestri humillimi.

C.L.

[Talfourd, who had been pupil of Joseph Chitty, had just become a serjeant.

"H.C.R."—Crabb Robinson.

"My old friends." Stoddart and Tuthill were knighted; Barron Field was a judge; Talfourd was to become both a knight and a judge.

"Mrs. W——." Mrs. Westwood, I suppose.]

LETTER 563

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. 1833.]

D'r M. let us see you & your Brother on Sunday—The Elias are beautifully got up. Be cautious how you name the probability of bringing 'em ever out complete—till these are gone off. Everybody'd say "O I'll wait then."

An't we to have a copy of the Sonnets—

Mind, I shall insist upon having no more copies: only I shall take 3 or 4 more of you at trade price. I am resolute about this. Yours ever—

LETTER 564

CHARLES LAMB TO C.W. DILKE

[P.M. Feb., 1833.]

CHRISTIAN NAMES OF WOMEN

(TO EDITH S——-)

In Christian world MARY the garland wears! REBECCA sweetens on a Hebrew's ear; Quakers for pure PRISCILLA are more clear; And the light Gaul by amorous NINON swears. Among the lesser lights how LUCY shines! What air of fragrance ROSAMUND throws round! How like a hymn doth sweet CECILIA sound! Of MARTHAS, and of ABIGAILS, few lines Have bragg'd in verse. Of coarsest household stuff Should homely JOAN be fashioned. But can You BARBARA resist, or MARIAN? And is not CLARE for love excuse enough? Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess, These all, than Saxon EDITH, please me less.

Many thanks for the life you have given us—I am perfectly satisfied. But if you advert to it again, I give you a delicate hint. Barbara S—— shadows under that name Miss Kelly's early life, and I had the Anecdote beautifully from her.

[The sonnet, addressed to Edith Southey, was printed in The Athenaeum for March 9, 1833.

For "Barbara S——" see Vol. II. of the present edition.]

LETTER 565

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Early 1833.]

No writing, and no word, ever passed between Taylor, or Hessey, and me, respecting copy right. This I can swear. They made a volume at their own will, and volunteerd me a third of profits, which came to £30, which came to Bilk, and never came back to me. Proctor has acted a friendly part—when did he otherwise? I am very sorry to hear Mrs. P—— as I suppose is not so well. I meditated a rallying epistle to him on his Gemini—his two Sosias, accusing him of having acted a notable piece of duplicity. But if his partner in the double dealing suffers—it would be unseasonable. You cannot rememb'r me to him too kindly. Your chearful letter has relieved us from the dumps; all may be well. I rejoice at your letting your house so magnificently. Talfourd's letter may be directed to him "On the Western Circuit."* That is the way, send it. With Blackwood pray send Piozziana and a Literary Gazette if you have one. The Piozzi and that shall be immed'tly return'd, and I keep Mad. Darblay for you eventually, a longwinded reader at present having use of it.

The weather is so queer that I will not say I expect you &c.—but am prepared for the pleasure of seeing you when you can come.

We had given you up (the post man being late) and Emma and I have 20 times this morning been to the door in the rain to spy for him coming.

Well, I know it is not all settled, but your letter is chearful and cheer-making.

We join in triple love to you.

ELIA & Co.

I am settled in any case to take at Bookseller's price any copies I have more. Therefore oblige me by sending a copy of Elia to Coleridge and B. Barton, and enquire (at your leisure of course) how I can send one, with a letter, to Walter Savage Landor. These 3 put in your next bill on me. I am peremptory that it shall be so. These are all I can want.

*Is it the Western? he goes to Reading &c.

[John Taylor, representing the firm of Taylor & Hessey, seems to have set up a claim of copyright in those essays in the Last Essays of Elia that were printed in the London Magazine. For Procter's part, see next letter.

Piozziana; or, Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi (Johnson's Mrs. Thrale), was published in 1833. It was by the Rev. E. Mangin.

Mad. Darblay would be The Memoirs of Dr. Burney, 1832, by his daughter Madame d'Arblay (Admiral Burney's niece). The book was severely handled in the Quarterly for April, 1833.

The following letter, which is undated, seems to refer to the difficulty mentioned above:—]

LETTER 566

CHARLES LAMB TO B.W. PROCTER

Enfield, Monday.

Dear P——, I have more than £30 in my house, and am independent of quarter-day, not having received my pension.

Pray settle, I beg of you, the matter with Mr. Taylor. I know nothing of bills, but most gladly will I forward to you that sum for him, for Mary is very anxious that M[oxon] may not get into any litigation. The money is literally rotting in my desk for want of use. I should not interfere with M——, tell M—— when you see him, but Mary is really uneasy; so lay it to that account, not mine.

Yours ever and two evers,

C.L.

Do it smack at once, and I will explain to M—— why I did it. It is simply done to ease her mind. When you have settled, write, and I'll send the bank notes to you twice, in halves.

Deduct from it your share in broken bottles, which, you being capital in your lists, I take to be two shillings. Do it as you love Mary and me. Then Elia's himself again.

LETTER 567

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE

[March 6, 1833.]

Dear Friend—Thee hast sent a Christian epistle to me, and I should not feel clear if I neglected to reply to it, which would have been sooner if that vain young man, to whom thou didst intrust it, had not kept it back. We should rejoice to see thy outward man here, especially on a day which should not be a first day, being liable to worldly callers in on that day. Our little book is delayed by a heathenish injunction, threatened by the man Taylor. Canst thou copy and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse which in my younger days I wrote on friend Aders' pictures? Thou wilt find it in the book called the Table Book.

Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom the world calleth Mary and Emma, greet you with me.

CH. LAMB.

6th of 3d month 4th day.

[On this letter is written by Hone in pencil: "This acknowledges a note from me to C.L. written in January preceding and sent by young Will Hazlitt. Received in my paralysis. March, 1833."

On this day Lamb gave Hone two books with the same inscription in each—very tipsily written.]

LETTER 568

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. March 19, 1833.]

I shall expect Forster and two Moxons on Sunday, and hope for Procter.

I am obliged to be in town next Monday. Could we contrive to make a party (paying or not is immaterial) for Miss Kelly's that night, and can you shelter us after the play, I mean Emma and me? I fear, I cannot persuade Mary to join us.

N.B. I can sleep at a public house.

Send an Elia (mind, I insist on buying it) to T. Manning Esq. at Sir G. Tuthill's Cavendish Square.

DO WRITE.

[Miss Kelly was then giving an entertainment called "Dramatic Recollections" at the Strand Theatre.]

LETTER 569

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. ? Spring, 1833.]

One o Clock.

This instant receiv'd, this instant I answer your's—Dr. Cresswell has one copy, which I cannot just now re-demand, because at his desire I have sent a "Satan" to him, which when he ask'd for, I frankly told him, was imputed a lampoon on HIM!!! I have sent it him, and cannot, till we come to explanation, go to him or send—

But on the faith of a Gentleman, you shall have it back some day for another. The 3 I send. I think 2 of the blunders perfectly immaterial. But your feelings, and I fear pocket, is every thing. I have just time to pack this off by the 2 o Clock stage. Yours till me meet

At all events I behave more gentlemanlike than Emma did, in returning the copies.

Yours till we meet—DO COME.

Bring the Sonnets—

Why not publish 'em?—or let another Bookseller?

[Dr. Cresswell was vicar of Edmonton. Having married the daughter of a tailor—or so Mr. Fuller Russell states in his account of a conversation with Lamb in Notes and Queries—he was in danger of being ribaldly associated with Satan's matrimonial adventures in Lamb's ballad. I cannot explain to what book Lamb refers: possibly to the Last Essays of Elia, which Moxon, having found errors in, wished to withdraw, substituting another. The point probably cannot be cleared up. The sonnets would be Moxon's own, which he had printed privately (see a later letter).]

LETTER 570

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. March 30, 1833.]

D'r M. Emma and we are delighted with the Sonnets, and she with her nice Walton. Mary is deep in the novel. Come as early as you can. I stupidly overlookd your proposal to meet you in Green Lanes, for in some strange way I burnt my leg, shin-quarter, at Forster's;* it is laid up on a stool, and Asbury attends. You'll see us all as usual, about Taylor, when you come.

Yours ever

C.L.

*Or the night I came home, for I felt it not bad till yesterday. But I scarce can hobble across the room.

I have secured 4 places for night: in haste.

Mary and E. do not dream of any thing we have discussed.

[I fancy that the last sentence refers to an offer for Miss Isola's hand which Moxon had just made to Lamb.]

LETTER 571

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Spring, 1833.]

Dear M. many thanks for the Books; the Faust I will acknowledge to the Author. But most thanks for one immortal sentence, "If I do not cheat him, never trust me again." I do not know whether to admire most, the wit or justness of the sentiment. It has my cordial approbation. My sense of meum and tuum applauds it. I maintain it, the eighth commandment hath a secret special reservation, by which the reptile is exempt from any protection from it; as a dog, or a nigger, he is not a holder of property. Not a ninth of what he detains from the world is his own. Keep your hands from picking and stealing is no ways referable to his acquists. I doubt whether bearing false witness against thy neighbor at all contemplated this possible scrub. Could Moses have seen the speck in vision? An ex post facto law alone could relieve him, and we are taught to expect no eleventh commandment. The out-law to the Mosaic dispensation!—unworthy to have seen Moses' behind—to lay his desecrating hands upon Elia! Has the irriverent ark-toucher been struck blind I wonder—? The more I think of him, the less I think of him. His meanness is invisible with aid of solar microscope, my moral eye smarts at him. The less flea that bites little fleas! The great Beast! the beggarly nit!

More when we meet.

Mind, you'll come, two of you—and couldn't you go off in the morning, that we may have a daylong curse at him, if curses are not dis-hallowed by descending so low? Amen.

Maledicatur in extremis.

[Abraham Hayward's translation of Faust was published by Moxon in February, 1833. Lamb's letter of thanks was said by the late Edmund Yates to be a very odd one. I have not seen it.

We may perhaps assume that Moxon's reply to Lamb's letter stating that Taylor's claim had been paid contained the "immortal sentence."

"Not a ninth." A tailor (Taylor) is only a ninth of a man.

"The less flea." Remembering Swift's lines in "On Poetry, a Rhapsody":—

So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.]

LETTER 572

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date. ? March, 1833.]

Swallow your damn'd dinner and your brandy and water fast—

& come immediately

I want to take Knowles in to Emma's only female friend for 5 minutes only, and we are free for the even'g.

I'll do a Prologue.

[The prologue was for Sheridan Knowles' play "The Wife." Lamb wrote both prologue and epilogue (see Vol. IV.).]

LETTER 573

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. ? April 10, 1833.]

Dear M. The first Oak sonnet, and the Nightingale, may show their faces in any Annual unblushing. Some of the others are very good.

The Sabbath too much what you have written before.

You are destined to shine in Sonnets, I tell you.

Shall we look for you Sunday, we did in vain Good Friday [April 5].

[A signature was added by Mrs. Moxon for Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson, evidently from another letter:—]

Your truest friend

C. LAMB.

LETTER 574

CHARLES LAMB TO C.W. DILKE

[No date. April, 1833.]

D'r Sir, I read your note in a moment of great perturbation with my Landlady and chuck'd it in the fire, as I should have done an epistle of Paul, but as far as my Sister recalls the import of it, I reply. The Sonnets (36 of them) have never been printed, much less published, till the other day,* save that a few of 'em have come out in Annuals. Two vols., of poetry of M.'s, have been publish'd, but they were not these. The "Nightingale" has been in one of the those gewgaws, the Annuals; whether the other I sent you has, or not, penitus ignoro. But for heaven's sake do with 'em what you like.

Yours

C.L.

*The proof sheets only were in my hand about a fortnight ago.

[Moxon's sonnets were reviewed, probably by Lamb, in The Athenaeum for April 13, 1833. The sonnet to the nightingale (see above) was quoted. This review will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition.]

LETTER 575

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM AYRTON

[P.M. April (16), 1833.]

Dear Mrs. Ayrton, I do not know which to admire most, your kindness, or your patience, in copying out that intolerable rabble of panegryc from over the Atlantic. By the way, now your hand is in, I wish you would copy out for me the l3th l7th and 24th of Barrow's sermons in folio, and all of Tillotson's (folio also) except the first, which I have in Manuscript, and which, you know, is Ayrton's favorite. Then—but I won't trouble you any farther just now. Why does not A come and see me? Can't he and Henry Crabbe concert it? 'Tis as easy as lying is to me. Mary's kindest love to you both.

ELIA.

[The letter is accompanied by a note in the writing of William Scrope Ayrton, the son of William Ayrton, copied from Mrs. Ayrton's Diary:—

"March 17, 1833.—Copied a critique upon Elia's works from the Mirror of America a sort of news paper."]

LETTER 576

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. April 25, 1833.]

My dear Moxon, We perfectly agree in your arrangement. It has quite set my sister's mind at rest. She will come with you on Sunday, and return at eve, and I will make comfortable arrangem'ts with the Buffams. We desire to have you here dining unWestwooded, and I will try and get you a bottle of choice port. I have transferr'd the stock I told you to Emma. The plan of the Buffams steers admirably between two niceties. Tell Emma we thoroughly approve it. As our damnd Times is a day after the fair, I am setting off to Enfield Highway to see in a morning paper (alas! the Publican's) how the play ran. Pray, bring 4 orders for Mr. Asbury—undated.

In haste (not for neglect)

Yours ever

C. LAMB.

Thursday.

[Lamb evidently refers to Moxon's engagement to Miss Isola being now settled.

The play was Sheridan Knowles' "The Wife," produced on April 24.

The Buffams were the landladies of the house in Southampton Buildings, where Lamb lodged in town.]

LETTER 577

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. April 27, 1833.]

Dear M. Mary and I are very poorly. Asbury says tis nothing but influenza. Mr. W. appears all but dying, he is delirious. Mrs. W. was taken so last night, that Mary was obliged at midnight to knock up Mrs. Waller to come and sit up with her. We have had a sick child, who sleeping, or not sleeping, next me with a pasteboard partition between, killed my sleep. The little bastard is gone. My bedfellows are Cough and cramp, we sleep 3 in a bed. Domestic arrangem'ts (Blue Butcher and all) devolve on Mary. Don't come yet to this house of pest and age. We propose when E. and you agree on the time, to come up and meet her at the Buffams', say a week hence, but do you make the appointm't. The Lachlans send her their love.

I do sadly want those 2 last Hogarths—and an't I to have the Play?

Mind our spirits are good and we are happy in your happiness_es_.

C.L.

Our old and ever loves to dear Em.

["Mr. W." was Mr. Westwood.—I know nothing of the Lachlans.—The Play would be "The Wife" probably.—Miss Isola was, I imagine, staying with the Moxons.]

LETTER 578

CHARLES LAMB TO THE REV. JAMES GILLMAN

May 7, 1833.

By a strange occurrence we have quitted Enfield for ever. Oh! the happy eternity! Who is Vicar or Lecturer for that detestable place concerns us not. But Asbury, surgeon and a good fellow, has offered to get you a Mover and Seconder, and you may use my name freely to him. Except him and Dr. Creswell, I have no respectable acquaintance in the dreary village. At least my friends are all in the public line, and it might not suit to have it moved at a special vestry by John Gage at the Crown and Horseshoe, licensed victualler, and seconded by Joseph Horner of the Green Dragon, ditto, that the Rev. J.G. is a fit person to be Lecturer, &c.

My dear James, I wish you all success, but am too full of my own emancipation almost to congratulate anyone else. With both our loves to your father and mother and glorious S.T.C.

Yours,

C. LAMB.

[The Rev. James Gillman was the eldest son of Coleridge's physician and friend. He was born in 1808 and ordained in 1831. He thought in 1833 of standing as candidate for the vicarship of Enfield, but did not obtain it. After acting as Under Master of Highgate Grammar School he became in 1836 Rector of Barfreystone, in Kent. In 1847 he became Vicar of Holy Trinity, Lambeth. He died in 1877.

Mary Lamb having become ill again had been moved to Edmonton, to a private home for mental patients. Lamb followed her soon after, and settled in the same house. It still stands (1912) almost exactly as in the Lambs' day.]

LETTER 579

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date. May, 1833.]

D'r F. Can you oblige me by sending 4 Box orders undated for the Olympic Theatre? I suppose Knowles can get 'em. It is for the Waldens, with whom I live. The sooner, the better, that they may not miss the "Wife"—I meet you at the Talfourds' Saturday week, and if they can't, perhaps you can, give me a bed.

Yours ratherish unwell

C. LAMB.

Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton.

Or write immediately to say if you can't get em.

[Knowles' play "The Wife," produced at Covent Garden, was moved to the Olympic on May 9.]

LETTER 580

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[P.M. May 12, 1833.]

Dear Boy, I send you the original Elias, complete. When I am a little composed, I shall hope to see you and Proctor here; may be, may see you first in London.

C.L.

[In the Dyce and Forster collection, at South Kensington, are preserved some of these MSS.

Here should come a letter to Miss Rickman, dated May 23, 1833. "Perhaps, as Miss Kelly is just now in notoriety, it may amuse you to know that 'Barbara S.' is all of it true of her, being all communicated to me from her own mouth. The 'wedding' you of course found out to be Sally Burney's."]

LETTER 581

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

End of May nearly, [1833].

Dear Wordsworth, Your letter, save in what respects your dear Sister's health, chear'd me in my new solitude. Mary is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration—shocking as they were to me then. In short, half her life she is dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lookings forward to the next shock. With such prospects, it seem'd to me necessary that she should no longer live with me, and be fluttered with continual removals, so I am come to live with her, at a Mr. Walden's and his wife, who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge and board us only. They have had the care of her before. I see little of her; alas! I too often hear her. Sunt lachrymae rerum—and you and I must bear it—

To lay a little more load on it, a circumstance has happen'd, cujus pars magna fui, and which at another crisis I should have more rejoiced in. I am about to lose my old and only walk-companion, whose mirthful spirits were the "youth of our house," Emma Isola. I have her here now for a little while, but she is too nervous properly to be under such a roof, so she will make short visits, be no more an inmate. With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence, she is to be wedded to Moxon at the end of Aug'st. So "perish the roses and the flowers"—how is it?

Now to the brighter side, I am emancipated from most hated and detestable people, the Westwoods. I am with attentive people, and younger—I am 3 or 4 miles nearer the Great City, Coaches half-price less, and going always, of which I will avail myself. I have few friends left there, one or two tho' most beloved. But London Streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, tho' of the latter not one known one were remaining.

Thank you for your cordial reception of Elia. Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition it served me as illustrative

I want you in the popular fallacies to like the "Home that is no home" and "rising with the lark."

I am feeble, but chearful in this my genial hot weather,—walk'd 16 miles yesterd'y. I can't read much in Summer time. With very kindest love to all and prayers for dear Dorothy,

I remain

most attachedly yours

C. LAMB.

at mr. walden's, church street, edmonton, middlesex.

Moxon has introduced Emma to Rogers, and he smiles upon the project. I have given E. my MILTON—will you pardon me?—in part of a portion. It hangs famously in his Murray-like shop.

[On the wrapper is written:—]

D'r M[oxon], inclose this in a better-looking paper, and get it frank'd, and good by'e till Sund'y. Come early—

C.L.

["The Ariadne." See the essay on "Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty," where Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne" in the National Gallery is highly praised (see Vol. II.). Wordsworth's favourite essays in this volume were "The Wedding" and "Old China."

"My Milton." Against the reference to the portrait of Milton, in the postscript, some one, possibly Wordsworth, has pencilled a note, now only partially legible. It runs thus: "It had been proposed by L. that W.W. should be the Possessor of [? this picture] his friend and that afterwards it was to be bequeathed to Christ's Coll. Cambridge."

Lamb had given Wordsworth in 1820 a copy of Paradise Regained, 1671, with this inscription: "C. Lamb to the best Knower of Milton, and therefore the worthiest occupant of this pleasant Edition. June 2'd 1820."]

LETTER 582

CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT

[Dated at end:] Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton, May 31, 1833.

Dear Mrs. Hazlitt,—I will assuredly come, and find you out, when I am better. I am driven from house and home by Mary's illness. I took a sudden resolution to take my sister to Edmonton, where she was under medical treatment last time, and have arranged to board and lodge with the people. Thank God, I have repudiated Enfield. I have got out of hell, despair of heaven, and must sit down contented in a half-way purgatory. Thus ends this strange eventful history—

But I am nearer town, and will get up to you somehow before long—

I repent not of my resolution.

'Tis late, and my hand unsteady, so good b'ye till we meet.

Your old

C.L.

LETTER 583

CHARLES LAMB TO MARY BETHAM

June 5, 1833.

Dear Mary Betham,—I remember You all, and tears come out when I think on the years that have separated us. That dear Anne should so long have remembered us affects me. My dear Mary, my poor sister is not, nor will be for two months perhaps capable of appreciating the kind old long memory of dear Anne.

But not a penny will I take, and I can answer for my Mary when she recovers, if the sum left can contribute in any way to the comfort of Matilda.

We will halve it, or we will take a bit of it, as a token, rather than wrong her. So pray consider it as an amicable arrangement. I write in great haste, or you won't get it before you go.

We do not want the money; but if dear Matilda does not much want it, why, we will take our thirds. God bless you.

C. LAMB.

[Miss Betham's sister, Anne, who had just died, had left thirty pounds to Mary Lamb. Mr. Ernest Betham allows me to take this note from A House of Letters.]

LETTER 584

CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM

[June 5, 1833.]

Dear Miss Betham,—I sit down, very poorly, to write to you, being come to Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton, to be altogether with poor Mary, who is very ill, as usual, only that her illnesses are now as many months as they used to be weeks in duration—the reason your letter only just found me. I am saddened with the havoc death has made in your family. I do not know how to appreciate the kind regard of dear Anne; Mary will understand it two months hence, I hope; but neither she nor I would rob you, if the legacy will be of use to, or comfort to you. My hand shakes so I can hardly write. On Saturday week I must come to town, and will call on you in the morning before one o'clock. Till when I take kindest leave.

Your old Friend,

C. LAMB.

[Here should come a note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, postmarked July 10, 1833, which encloses a note from Joseph Jekyll, the Old Bencher, thanking Lamb for a presentation copy of the Last Essays of Elia ("I hope not the last Essays of Elia") and asking him to accompany Mrs. Norris and her daughters on a visit to him. Jekyll adds that "poor George Dyer, blind, but as usual chearful and content, often gives … good accounts of you."

Here should come notes to Allsop, declining an invitation to Highgate, and to a Mr. Tuff, warning him to be quick to use some theatre tickets which Lamb had sent him.]

LETTER 585

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. July 14, 1833.]

Dear M. the Hogarths are delicate. Perhaps it will amuse Emma to tell her, that, a day or two since, Miss Norris (Betsy) call'd to me on the road from London from a gig conveying her to Widford, and engaged me to come down this afternoon. I think I shall stay only one night; she would have been glad of E's accompaniment, but I would not disturb her, and Mrs. N. is coming to town on Monday, so it would not have suited. Also, C.V. Le Grice gave me a dinner at Johnny Gilpin's yesterday, where we talk'd of what old friends were taken or left in the 30 years since we had met.

I shall hope to see her on Tuesd'y.

To Bless you both

C.L.

Friday.

[Le Grice we have met. "Johnny Gilpin's" was The Bell at Edmonton.

Here should come another note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, in which Lamb says that he reached home safely and thanks her for three agreeable days. Also he sends some little books, which were, I take it, copies of Moxon's private reissue of Poetry for Children.

Mr. W.C. Hazlitt records that a letter from Lamb to Miss Norris was in existence in which the writer gave "minute and humorous instructions for his own funeral, even specifying the number of nails which he desired to be inserted in his coffin."]

LETTER 586

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. July 24, 1833.]

For god's sake, give Emma no more watches. One has turn'd her head. She is arrogant, and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old Clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time, and yet he had made her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the moment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the bird-boys ask you "Pray, Sir, can you tell us what's a Clock," and she answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking "what the time is." I overheard her whispering, "Just so many hours, minutes &c. to Tuesday—I think St. George's goes too slow"—This little present of Time, why, 'tis Eternity to her—

What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch?

She has spoil'd some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed away "half past 12," which I suppose to be the canonical hour in Hanover Sq.

Well, if "love me, love my watch," answers, she will keep time to you—

It goes right by the Horse Guards—

[On the next page:—]

Emma hast kist this yellow wafer—a hint.

DEAREST M.

Never mind opposite nonsense. She does not love you for the watch, but the watch for you.

I will be at the wedding, and keep the 30 July as long as my poor months last me, as a festival gloriously.

Your _ever

ELIA._

We have not heard from Cambridge. I will write the moment we do.

Edmonton, 24th July, 3.20 post mer. minutes 4 instants by Emma's watch.

[There used to be preserved at Rowfant (it is now in America) a letter from Lamb to Moxon, postmarked July 28, 1833, mentioning Lamb's anxiety about Martin Burney. It is unnecessary to print this.]

LETTER 587

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB TO EDWARD AND EMMA MOXON

[No date. ? July 31, 1833.]

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Moxon—

Time very short. I wrote to Miss Fryer, and had the sweetest letter about you, Emma, that ever friendship dictated. "I am full of good wishes, I am crying with good wishes," she says; but you shall see it.—

Dear Moxon, I take your writing most kindly and shall most kindly your writing from Paris—

I want to crowd another letter to Miss Fry[er] into the little time after dinner before Post time.

So with 20000 congratulations,

Yours,

C.L.

I am calm, sober, happy. Turn over for the reason.

I got home from Dover St., by Evens, half as sober as a judge. I am turning over a new leaf, as I hope you will now.

[On the next leaf Mary Lamb wrote:—]

MY DEAR EMMA AND EDWARD MOXON,

Accept my sincere congratulations, and imagine more good wishes than my weak nerves will let me put into good set words. The dreary blank of unanswered questions which I ventured to ask in vain was cleared up on the wedding-day by Mrs. W. taking a glass of wine, and, with a total change of countenance, begged leave to drink Mr. and Mrs. Moxon's health. It restored me, from that moment: as if by an electrical stroke: to the entire possession of my senses—I never felt so calm and quiet after a similar illness as I do now. I feel as if all tears were wiped from my eyes, and all care from my heart.

MARY LAMB.

[At the foot of this letter Charles Lamb added:—]

Wednesday.

DEARS AGAIN

Your letter interrupted a seventh game at Picquet which we were having, after walking to Wright's and purchasing shoes. We pass our time in cards, walks, and reading. We attack Tasso soon.

C.L.

Never was such a calm, or such a recovery. 'Tis her own words, undictated.

[The marriage of Edward Moxon and Emma Isola was celebrated on July 30. They afterwards went to Paris.

"Mrs. W."—Mrs. Walden, I imagine.

Here should come an amusing but brief account of the wedding sent by Lamb to Louisa Badams on August 20 (printed by Canon Ainger). "I am not fit for weddings or burials. Both incite a chuckle:" a sentiment which Lamb more than once expresses.

Here should come a note thanking Matilda Betham for some bridal verses written for the wedding of Edward Moxon and Emma Isola. "In haste and headake."]

LETTER 588

CHARLES LAMB TO H.F. CARY

Sept. 9th, 1833.

Dear Sir,—Your packet I have only just received, owing, I suppose, to the absence of Moxon, who is flaunting it about à la Parisienne with his new bride, our Emma, much to his satisfaction and not a little to our dulness. We shall be quite well by the time you return from Worcestershire and most most (observe the repetition) glad to see you here or anywhere.

I will take my time with Darley's act. I wish poets would write a little plainer; he begins some of his words with a letter which is unknown to the English typography.

Yours, most truly,

C. LAMB.

P.S.—Pray let me know when you return. We are at Mr. Walden's, Church-street, Edmonton; no longer at Enfield. You will be amused to hear that my sister and I have, with the aid of Emma, scrambled through the "Inferno" by the blessed furtherance of your polar-star translation. I think we scarce left anything unmadeout. But our partner has left us, and we have not yet resumed. Mary's chief pride in it was that she should some day brag of it to you. Your Dante and Sandys' Ovid are the only helpmates of translations. Neither of you shirk a word.

Fairfax's Tasso is no translation at all. It's better in some places; but it merely observes the number of stanzas; as for images, similes, &c., he finds 'em himself, and never "troubles Peter for the matter."

In haste, dear Gary, yours ever,

C. LAMB.

Has Moxon sent you "Elia," second volume? if not, he shall. Taylor and we are at law about it.

["Darley's act." Not now identifiable, I think.

"Taylor and we." The case had apparently not been settled by Procter. I have not found any report of a law-suit.]

LETTER 589

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Sept. 26, 1833.]

Thursday.

We shall be most happy to see Emma, dear to every body. Mary's spirits are much better, and she longs to see again our twelve years' friend. You shall afternoon sip with me a bottle of superexcellent Port, after deducting a dinner-glass for them. We rejoyce to have E. come, the first Visit, without Miss ——, who, I trust, will yet behave well; but she might perplex Mary with questions. Pindar sadly wants Preface and notes. Pray, E., get to Snow Hill before 12, for we dine before 2. We will make it 2. By mistake I gave you Miss Betham's letter, with the exquisite verses, which pray return to me, or if it be an improved copy, give me the other, and Albumize mine, keeping the signature. It is too pretty a family portrait, for you not to cherish.

Your loving friends

C. LAMB.

M. LAMB.

[Pindar was Cary's edition, which Moxon had just published. Miss Betham's verses I am sorry not to be able to give; but the following poem was addressed to Moxon by Lamb and printed in The Athenaeum for December 7, 1833:—

TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE

What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate? Good sense—good humour;—these are trivial things, Dear M——-, that each trite encomiast sings. But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt From every low-bred passion, where contempt, Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found A harbour yet; an understanding sound; Just views of right and wrong; perception full Of the deformed, and of the beautiful, In life and manners; wit above her sex, Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks; Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth, To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth; A noble nature, conqueror in the strife Of conflict with a hard discouraging life, Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power Of those whose days have been one silken hour, Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring; a keen sense Alike of benefit, and of offence, With reconcilement quick, that instant springs From the charged heart with nimble angel wings; While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd By a strong hand, seem burnt into her mind. If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer Richer than land, thou hast them all in her; And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon, Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.]

LETTER 590

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Oct. 17, 1833.]

Dear M.—Get me Shirley (there's a dear fellow) and send it soon. We sadly want books, and this will be readable again and again, and pay itself. Tell Emma I grieve for the poor self-punishing self-baffling Lady; with all our hearts we grieve for the pain and vexation she has encounterd; but we do not swerve a pin's-thought from the propriety of your measures. God comfort her, and there's an end of a painful necessity. But I am glad she goes to see her. Let her keep up all the kindness she can between them. In a week or two I hope Mary will be stout enough to come among ye, but she is not now, and I have scruples of coming alone, as she has no pleasant friend to sit with her in my absence. We are lonely. I fear the visits must be mostly from you. By the way omnibuses are 1's/3'd and coach insides sunk to l/6—a hint. Without disturbance to yourselves, or upsetting the economy of the dear new mistress of a family, come and see us as often as ever you can. We are so out of the world, that a letter from either of you now and then, detailing any thing, Book or Town news, is as good as a newspaper. I have desperate colds, cramps, megrims &c., but do not despond. My fingers are numb'd, as you see by my writing. Tell E. I am very good also. But we are poor devils, that's the truth of it. I won't apply to Dilke— just now at least—I sincerely hope the pastoral air of Dover St. will recruit poor Harriet. With best loves to all.

Yours ever

C.L.

Ryle and Lowe dined here on Sunday; the manners of the latter, so gentlemanly! have attracted the special admiration of our Landlady. She guest R. to be nearly of my age. He always had an old head on young shoulders. I fear I shall always have the opposite. Tell me any thing of Foster [Forster] or any body. Write any thing you think will amuse me. I do dearly hope in a week or two to surprise you with our appearance in Dover St….

[Shirley would be Dyce's edition of James Shirley, the dramatist, in six volumes, 1833.

Harriet was Harriet Isola.

"Ryle and Lowe." Ryle we have met, but I do not identify Lowe.

I have omitted some lines about family matters at the end of the letter.]

LETTER 591

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD AND EMMA MOXON

Nov. 29th, 1833.

Mary is of opinion with me, that two of these Sonnets are of a higher grade than any poetry you have done yet. The one to Emma is so pretty! I have only allowed myself to transpose a word in the third line. Sacred shall it be for any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg that you will make four lines in the room of the four last. Read "Darby and Joan," in Mrs. Moxon's first album. There you'll see how beautiful in age the looking back to youthful years in an old couple is. But it is a violence to the feelings to anticipate that time in youth. I hope you and Emma will have many a quarrel and many a make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation!) before the dark days shall come, in which ye shall say "there is small comfort in them." You have begun a sort of character of Emma in them very sweetly; carry it on, if you can, through the last lines.

I love the sonnet to my heart, and you shall finish it, and I'll be damn'd if I furnish a line towards it. So much for that. The next best is

TO THE OCEAN

"Ye gallant winds, if e'er your LUSTY CHEEKS Blew longing lover to his mistress' side, O, puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide,"

is spirited. The last line I altered, and have re-altered it as it stood. It is closer. These two are your best. But take a good deal of time in finishing the first. How proud should Emma be of her poets!

Perhaps "O Ocean" (though I like it) is too much of the open vowels, which Pope objects to. "Great Ocean!" is obvious. "To save sad thoughts" I think is better (though not good) than for the mind to save herself. But 'tis a noble Sonnet. "St. Cloud" I have no fault to find with.

If I return the Sonnets, think it no disrespect; for I look for a printed copy. You have done better than ever. And now for a reason I did not notice 'em earlier. On Wednesday they came, and on Wednesday I was a-gadding. Mary gave me a holiday, and I set off to Snow Hill. From Snow Hill I deliberately was marching down, with noble Holborn before me, framing in mental cogitation a map of the dear London in prospect, thinking to traverse Wardour-street, &c., when diabolically I was interrupted by

Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!—

Emma knows him,—and prevailed on to spend the day at his sister's, where was an album, and (O march of intellect!) plenty of literary conversation, and more acquaintance with the state of modern poetry than I could keep up with. I was positively distanced. Knowles' play, which, epilogued by me, lay on the PIANO, alone made me hold up my head. When I came home I read your letter, and glimpsed at your beautiful sonnet,

"Fair art them as the morning, my young bride,"

and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but determined not to open them till next day, being in a state not to be told of at Chatteris. Tell it not in Gath, Emma, lest the daughters triumph! I am at the end of my tether. I wish you could come on Tuesday with your fair bride. Why can't you! Do. We are thankful to your sister for being of the party. Come, and bring a sonnet on Mary's birthday. Love to the whole Moxonry, and tell E. I every day love her more, and miss her less. Tell her so from her loving uncle, as she has let me call myself. I bought a fine embossed card yesterday, and wrote for the Pawnbrokeress's album. She is a Miss Brown, engaged to a Mr. White. One of the lines was (I forget the rest—but she had them at twenty-four hours' notice; she is going out to India with her husband):—

"May your fame And fortune, Frances, WHITEN with your name!"

Not bad as a pun. I wil expect you before two on Tuesday. I am well and happy, tell E.

[Moxon subsequently published his Sonnets, in two parts, one of which was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth. There are several to his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last lines were to be altered. Mrs. Moxon's first album was an extract book in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.

I quote one of Moxon's many sonnets to Emma Moxon:—

Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride! Her freshness is about thee; like a river To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide, Humanity a livelier aspect wears. Fair art thou as the morning of that land Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned Thy grandsire oft. Thou hast not many tears, Save such as pity from the heart will wring, And then there is a smile in thy distress! Meeker thou art than lily of the spring, Yet is thy nature full of nobleness! And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so, That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know!