Mrs. Leicester's School and other writings in prose and verse, by Charles Lamb. With introduction and notes by A. Ainger

Introduction

AND NOTES BY ALFRED AINGER ILontron MACMILLAN AND CO. Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

INTRODUCTION.

. In addition to the Stories for Children with which it opens, the present volume contains a selection from various prose papers of Lamb's, printed in his lifetime, but not collected into book-form until long after his death. It was an enthusiastic lover of Charles Lamb in the United States to whom is due the credit of searching for and identifying his many outlying contributions to periodical literature, and this gentleman has as yet received scant justice from Lamb's editors in this country. It was in the year 1863 that the late Mr. J. E. Babson of Chelsea, U.S., began publishing in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine a series of Lamb's papers and essays that had remained apparently unrecognised in the various magazines and newspapers where they originally appeared. In prosecuting his researches Mr. Babson afterwards received the assistance of Mr. Alexander Ireland of Manchester, whose knowledge of the writings of Lamb and Lamb's intimate friends is probably greater than that of any other Englishman.

The series was re issued by Mr. Babson at Boston in the following year, under the title of " E liana, being the hitherto uncollected writings of Charles Lamb." The volume was at once reprinted in England, and, I believe, without any recognition of its origin, or the labours of Mr. Babson. During the twenty years that halve elapsed, a few fresh pieces by Lamb have been identified and added to Mr. Babson's collection, and have .appeared in various English editions. The shorter prose papers in the present volume are there-

INTRODUCTION.

. VI fore, for the most part, from Mr. Babson's volume, but in every case they have been compared with the originals in Leigh Hunt's Periodicals, Hone's Tablebooks, and other publications to which they were first contributed. While gratefully acknowledging my obligation to Mr. Babson, I have not been able to adopt his theory of the responsibilities of an editor. " The admirers of Elia," he boldly declares in the preface to his volume, " want to possess every scrap and fragment of his inditing. They cannot let oblivion have the least ' notelet ' or ' essay kin ' of his." I hope that I may still be reckoned among the admirers of Elia, though I refuse assent to this pro position. The truth is, that every writer of mark leaves behind him shreds and remnants of stuff, some of which are characteristic and worthy of preservation, and some are otherwise ; and it is, in my deliberate opinion, an injustice to any such writer to dilute his reputation by publishing every scrap of writing that he is known to have produced, merely because the necessity of making a choice may expose the editor to the risk of censure.

I have ventured, then, to omit some half dozen prose pieces that have appeared in the recent editions of Lamb's complete works. In the first place, there are among these certain fragments, which were left fragments not by accident, but because Lamb tired of his task or found he had misconceived his powers. He began a story called Juke Judkins, and wrote only a single chapter. He began turning into prose, under the title of " The Defeat of Time," Thomas Hood's graceful poem, the Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, but left it half finished. He once produced a weak string of conceits on an unsiivoury subject, called A Vision of Horns, of which he confessed himself, in a letter to a correspondent, thoroughly ashamed, .and which it wotdd have cut him to the quick to think might be permanently associated with his name.

Again, most recent editions have included a letter of the poet Thomson's, which Lamb had discovered in a newspaper of the last century and published in the London Magazine.

INTRODUCTION.

. VII As the letter has long ago been included in standard biographies of Thomson (for instance, the one prefixed to the Aldine Edition of his poems) there seems to be no possible reason for reprinting it once more. A version in prose of the story of Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy, Cupid's Revenge, and a farce, called The Pawnbroker's Daughter, based upon one of Lamb's early essays in Leigh Hunt's Reflector, I have also accepted the responsi bility of omitting. In taking this course I have not acted merely upon personal preference, but on a principle that I think may be claimed as sound. I have not willingly excluded any fragment, however short, which exhibited Lamb's peculiar vein of humour or his unique faculty of criticism. No lack of these will be found in the shorter papers here given.

I would point to the remarks on De Foe's Secondary Novels and on Wordsworth's Excursion ; to the delightful autobiographical details in Captain Starkey; to the comments on the acting of Miss Kelly and Dowton ; to the amazing parody on a certain well-known style of polite biography in the imaginary memoir of Liston ; to the rare and almost Shakspearian vein of imagination in the speculation on the Religion of Actors, with its wonderful image of Munden "making mouths at the invisible event ;" and lastly, to the noble tenderness of parts of the letter to Southey, and, above all, to the pathetic words upon the death of Coleridge. We should be the poorer in our knowledge and appreciation of Charles Lamb without these and other side-lights upon his mind and character. The two contributions to Godwin's Library for Children which open the volume have been often reprinted since their first appearance early in the century.

The Story of Ulysses was probably the first serious attempt to give literary form to the finest of the world's fairy tales, for the benefit of the young. In passing through Lamb's hands the classic touch must inevitably have given place to the romantic, and it was therefore a gain, rather than

INTRODUCTION.

. VIII the reverse, that he shoidd have chiefly used the version of George Chapman, whose fine Elizabethan cadence may everywhere be traced. Perhaps the A dventures of Ulysses may yet again one day be found among the standard books of the nursery. It certainly seems a pity that incidents, characters, and images that are part of the current coin of the world's intercourse should not become familiar in the years when imagination is keenest and freshest. I make no apology for printing Mrs. Leicester's School as a whole. Three of the stories composing it are by Charles Lamb, the others by his sister. He always loyally upheld the superior value of his sister's contribution • and indeed she exhibits in them qualities of humour and observation quite as notable as any corresponding gift of her brother's. " It is now several days," wrote Walter Savage Landor to Crabb Robinson in 1831, " since I read the book you recommended to me — Mrs. Leicester's School — and I feel as if I owed a debt in deferring to thank you for many hours of exquisite delight.

Never have I read anything in prose so many times over, within so short a space of time, as The Father's Wedding-Day. Most people, I understand, prefer the first tale — in truth a very admirable one — but others coidd have written it. Show me the man or woman, modern or ancient, who could have written this one sentence — ' When I was dressed in my new frock I wished poor mamma was alive, to see how fine I was on papa's wedding-day ; and I ran to my favourite station at her bedroom door.' How natural in a little girl is this incongruity — this impossibility ! Richardson would have given his Clarissa and Rousseau his Heloise to have imagined it. A fresh source of the pathetic bursts out before us, and not a bitter one. If your Germ<ans can show us anything comparable to what I have tran scribed, I would almost undergo a year's gurgle of their language for it. The story is admirable throughout — incomparable, inimitable ! "

INTRODUCTION.

. IX Of course we recognise here Landor's well-known accent of extravagant generosity, but he was not losing his critical balance. And there are others of Mary Lamb's stories that he might have instanced with enthusiasm. The Young Mahometan, delightful for its renewed memories of Blakesware House, abounds in felicities of phrase. The little girl, spending lonely hours in the library of the old mansion, finds a volume called Mahometanism Explained, and greedily devours it. " The book said that those who believed all the wonderful stories which were related of Mahomet were called Mahometans and True Believers ; — I concluded that I must be a Mahometan, for I believed every word I read." The child broods over her newly-discovered revelation, and yearns that her near relatives should awake to the truth.

She becomes so feverish with excitement that her mother comes to sleep in her room. " In the middle of the night I could not resist the strong desire I felt to tell her what preyed so on my mind. I awoke her out of a sound sleep, and begged she would be so kind as to be a Mahometan." This is exquisite; even more so are the particulars that follow of the doctor who was called in, to whom the case was, however, new, "he never having attended a little Mahometan before." The sagacious old doctor is not, however, baffled, but carries off the young lady to spend a few days with himself and his wife, that he may study the case at leisure. " In a few days he fetched me away. His wife was in the carrifige with him. Having heard what he said about her prescriptions, I expected, between the doctor and his lady, to undergo a severe course of medicine, especially as I heard him very formally ask her advice what was good for a Mahometan fever, the moment after he had handed me into the carriage.

She studied a little while, and then she said a ride to Harlow Fair would not be amiss. He said he was entirely of her opinion, because it suited him to go there to buy a horse." The Mahometan fever, as the reader will anticipate, soon passes away.

INTRODUCTION.

. X It is the sweet humour of Steele and Goldsmith that is here manifest, and the old-fashioned formality of some of the writing, due to the example of Richardson and his school, need be no obstacle to these stories keeping their place among the cherished volumes of the nursery. Mrs. Cowden Clarke tells us how she once heard Charles Lamb address his sister, "with his peculiar mood of tenderness beneath blunt, abrupt speech — 'You must die first, Mary.' She nodded with her little quiet nod aud sweet smile: 'Yes, I must die first, Charles.'" It was ordered otherwise, as we know * but in the history of faithful love and duty, as well as in that of English literature, there will be no survivorship. Should Charles and Mary Lamb ever die from the memories of men, it will be on the self-same day.

In bringing to a conclusion this collection of Lamb's writings, to be followed, as I hope, by a uniform edition of his correspondence, I have once more to thank the many friends who have aided me by information and suggestion, and notably Mr. Alexander Ireland, who never wearies in the service of literary good-fellowship, and whose great knowledge of Lamb's contemporaries has been continually of advantage to me. ALFRED AINGER. Tok Castle, Foet-William, August 1885. CONTENTS. PAGE Mrs. Leicester's School .... 1 The Sailor Uncle ... 5 The Farmhouse . . 15 The Changeling ... 22 The Father's Wedding-Day . . . .42 The Young Mahometan . . . .46 Visit to the Cousins . . . , 54 *The Witch Aunt . . . . 6_ The Merchant's Daughter . . . .71 *First Going to Church . . . .75 *The Sea- Voyage ... 82 The Adventures of Ulysses . . . .89 Guy Fatjx . . . . . .180 On the Ambiguities arising from Proper Names . 190 On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres . .192 The Good Clerk, A Character . . . 200 The Reynolds Gallery ..... 207 Wordsworth's " Excursion " .... 210 Theatrical Notices ..... 225 * The tales marked with an asterisk are hy Charles Lamb ; the others hy his sister Mary.

CONTENTS. PAGE First Fruits of Australian Poetry . . . -235 The Gentle Giantess ..... 238. On a Passage in " The Tempest " . . . 242 Letter to an old Gentleman whose Education has been neglected ..... 246 Biographical Memoir of Mr. Liston . . 253 Autobiography of Mr. Munden . . . 262 Reflections in the Pillory' .... 266 The Last Peach . . . . . .271 The Illustrious Defunct . . . 274 The Religion of Actors .... 281 The Months . . . . . .285 Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan . . 290 Captain Starkey ..... 293 The Ass . . . . . . .298 In re Squirrels ...... 302 Estimate of Defoe's Secondary Novels . . 304 Recollections of a Late Roy'al Academician . 307 Remarkable Correspondent .... 315 The Humble Petition of an Unfortunate Day •. 318 Mrs. Gilpin riding to Edmonton . . . 320 Saturday Night . . . . . . 322 Thoughts on Presents of Game . . . 325 A Popular Fallacy, that a Deformed Person is a Lord ....... 328 Charles Lamb's Autobiography . . . 331 Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esq. . . 333 Table-Talk and Fragments of Criticism . . 348 Elia to his Correspondents .... 361 On the Death of Coleridge ....

CONTENTS. XIII PROLOGUES, EPILOGUES, AND MISCELLANEOUS VFaRSE. PAGE Prologue to Coleridge's " Remorse " . . . 367 Prologue to Godwin's " Antonio " . . 369 Prologue to Godwin's " Faulkenee " . . . 371 Epilogue to Sheridan Knowles' " Wife " . . 372 To Thomas Stothard, R.A. . . . . 373 To Clara N. . . . . . .373 To my Friend the Indicator .... 374 Saint Crispin to Mr. Gifford .... 374 On Haydon's Picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem ....... 375 Translation . . ... 375 POLITICAL SQUIBS, EPIGRAMS, ETC. To Sir James Mackintosh .... 377 The Triumph of the Whale .... 377 The Three Graves . . . . .379 Epigram written in the Last Reign . . . 379 Lines suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross . 380 "One Dip" . . . • .380 Satan in Search of a Wife . . .381 OR, THE HISTORY OF SEVERAL YOUNG LADIES, RELATED BY THEMSELVES. ©rttcattou.

TO THE YOUNG LADIES AT AMWELL SCHOOL. My dear young Friends, — Though released from the business of the school, the absence of your governess confines me to Amwell during the vacation. I cannot better employ my leisure hours than in contributing to the amusement of you, my kind pupils, who, by your affectionate attentions to my instructions, have rendered a life of labour pleasant to me. On your return to school I hope to have a fair copy, ready to present to each of you, of your own biographical conversations last winter. Accept my thanks for the approbation you were pleased to express when I offered to become your amanuensis I hope you will find I have executed the office with a tolerably faithful pen, as you know I took notes each day during those conversations, and arranged my materials after you were retired to rest.

I begin from the day our school commenced. It was opened by your governess for the first time on the & B day of February. I pfiss over your several arrivals on the morning of that day. Your governess received you from your friends in her own parlour. Every carriage that drove from the door I knew had left a sad heart behind. Your eyes were red with weeping, when your governess introduced me to you as the teacher she had engaged to instruct you. She next desired me to' show you into the room which we now call the playroom. " The ladies, " said she, " may play and amuse themselves, and be as happy as they please this evening, that they may be well acquainted with each other before they enter the schoolroom to-morrow morning." The traces of tears were on every cheek, and I also was sad ; for I, like you, had parted from my friends, and the duties of my profession were • new to me, yet I felt that it was improper to give way to my own melan choly thoughts.

I knew that it was my first duty to divert the solitary young strangers ; for I considered that this was very unlike the entrance to an old-established school, where there is always some good-natured girl who will show attentions to a new scholar, and take pleasure in initiating her into the customs and amusements of the place. These, thought I, have their own amusements to invent ; their own customs to establish. How unlike, too, is this forlorn meeting to old schoolfellows returning after the holidays, when mutual greetings soon lighten the memory of parting sorrow. I invited you to draw near a bright fire which blazed in the chimney, and looked the only cheerful thing in the room. During our first solemn silence, which, you may remember, was only broken by my repeated requests that you would make a smaller and still smaller circle, till I saw the fireplace fairly enclosed round, the idea came into my mind, which has since been a source of amusement to you in the recollection, and to myself in particular has been of essential benefit, as it enabled me to form a just estimate of the dispositions of you, my young pupils, and DEDICATION. 3 assisted me to adopt my plan of future instructions to each individual temper.

An introduction to a point we wish to carry, we always feel to be an awkward affair, and generally execute it in an awkward manner ; so I believe I did then ; for when I imparted this idea to you, I think I prefaced it rather too formally for such young auditors ; for I began with telling you that I had read in old authors, that it was not unfrequent in former times, when strangers were assembled together, as we might be, for them to amuse themselves with telling stories — either of their own lives, or the adventures of others. "Will you allow me, ladies," I continued, " to persuade you to amuse yourselves in this way ? You will not then look so unsociably upon each other ; for we find that these strangers, of whom we read, were as well acquainted before the conclusion of the first story as if they had known each other many years.

Let me prevail upon you to relate some little anecdotes of your own lives. Fictitious tales we can read in books, and they were therefore better adapted to conversation in those times when books of amusement were more scarce than they are at present." After many objections of not knowing what to say or how to begin, which I overcame by assuring you how easy it would be, for that every person is naturally eloquent when they are the hero or heroine of their own tale ; — the Who should begin ? was next in question. I proposed to draw lots, which formed a little amuse ment of itself. Miss Manners, who till then had been the saddest of the sad, began to brighten, and said it was just like drawing king and queen ; and began to tell us where she passed last Twelfth-day ; but as her narration must have interfered with the more important business of the lottery, I advised her to postpone it till it came to her turn to favour us with the history of her life, when it would appear in its proper order.

The first number fell to the share of Miss Villiers, whose joy at drawing what we called the first prize was tempered with shame at appearing as the first historian in the company. She wished she had not been the very first : — she had passed all her life in a retired village, and had nothing to relate of herself that could give the least entertainment • she had not the least idea in the world where to begin. " Begin," said I, "with your name, for that at present is unknown to us. Tell us the first thing you can remember * relate whatever happened to make a great impression on you when you were very young * and if you find you can connect your story till your arrival here to day, I am sure we shall listen to you with pleasure ; and if you like to break off, and only treat us with a part of your history, we will excuse you, with many thanks for the amusement which you have afforded us ; and the young lady who has drawn the second number will, I hope, take her turn with the same indulgence, to relate either all, or any part of the events of her life, as best pleases her own fancy, or as she finds she can manage it with the most ease to herself."

Encouraged by this offer of indulgence, Miss Villiers began. If in my report of her story, or in any which follow, I shall appear to make her or you speak an older language than it seems probable that you should use, speaking in your own words, it must be remembered that what is very proper and becoming when spoken, requires to be arranged with some little difference before it can be set down in writing. Little inaccuracies must be pared away, and the whole must assume a more formal and correct appearance. My own way of thinking, I am sensible, will too often intrude itself; but I have endea voured to preserve, as exactly as I could, your own words and your own peculiarities of style and manner, and to approve myself Your faithful historiographer, as well as true friend, M. B. ELIZABETH VILLIEES.

My father is the curate of a village church about five miles from Amwell. I was born in the parsonage-house, which joins the churchyard. The first thing I can remember was my father teaching me the alphabet from the letters on a tombstone that stood at the head of my mother's grave. I used to tap at my father's study door * I think I now hear him say, "Who is there? — What do you want, little girl V ' "Go and see mamma. Go and learn pretty letters." Many times in the day would my father lay aside his books and his papers to lead me to this spot, and make me point to the letters, and then set me to spell syllables and words : in this manner, the epitaph on my mother's tomb being my primer and my spelling-book, I learned to read. I was one day sitting on a step placed across the churchyard stile, when a gentleman, passing by, heard me distinctly repeat the letters which formed my mother's name, and then say Elizabeth Villiers, with a firm tone, as if I had performed some great matter.

This gentle man was my uncle James, my mother's brother ; he was a lieutenant in the Navy, and had left England a few weeks after the marriage of my father and mother, and now, returned home from a long sea-voyage, he was coming to visit my mother — no tidings of her decease having reached him, though she had been dead more than a twelvemonth. When my uncle saw me sitting on the stile, and heard me pronounce my mother's name, he looked earnestly in my face, and began to fancy a resemblance to his sister, and to think I might be her child. I was too intent on my employment to observe him, and went spelling on. " Who has taught you to spell so prettily, my little maid V ' said my uncle. " Mamma," I replied ; for I had an idea that the words on the tombstone were somehow a part of mamma, and that she had taught me.

"And who is mamma?" asked my uncle. "Elizabeth Villiers," I replied ; and then my uncle called me his dear little niece, and said he would go with me to mamma ; he took hold of my hand, intending to lead me home, delighted that he had found out who I was, because he imagined it would be such a pleasant surprise to his sister to see her little daughter bringing home her long-lost sailor uncle. I agreed to take him to mamma, but we had a dispute about the way thither. My uncle was for going along the road which led directly up to our house ; I pointed to the churchyard, and said that was the way to mamma. Though impatient of any delay, he was not willing to contest the point with his new relation ; therefore he lifted me over the stile, aud was then going to take me along the path to a gate he knew was at the end of our garden ; but no, I would not go that way neither ; letting go his hand, I said, " You do not know the way, — I will show you;" and making what haste I could among the long grass and thistles, and jumping over the low graves, he said, as he followed what he called my wayward steps, " What a positive soul this little niece of mine is !

I knew the way to your mother's house before you were born, child." At last I stopped at my mother's grave, and pointing to the tombstone said, "Here is mamma!" in a voice of exultation, as if I had now convinced him that I knew the way best. I looked up in his face to see him acknowledge his mistake ; but oh ! what a face of sorrow did I see ! I was so frightened, that I have but an imperfect recollection of what followed. I remember I pulled his coat, and cried " Sir, sir !" and tried to move him. I knew not what to do. My mind was in a strange confusion ; I thought I had done something wrong in bringing the gentleman to mamma, to make him cry so sadly ; but what it was I could not tell. This grave had always been a scene of delight to me. In the house my father would often be weary of my prattle, and send me from him ; but here he was all my own.

I might say anything, and be as frolicsome as I pleased here; all was cheerfulness and good -humour in our visits to mamma, as we called it. My father would tell me how quietly mamma slept there, and that he and his httle Betsy would one day sleep beside mamma in that grave; and when I went to bed, as I laid my httle head on the pillow, I used to wish I was sleeping in the grave with my papa and mamma ; and in my childish dreams I used to fancy myself there ; and it was a place within the ground, all smooth, and soft, and green. I never made out any figure of mamma, but still it was the tombstone, and papa, and the smooth green grass, and my head resting upon the elbow of my father. How long my uncle remained in this agony of grief I know not — to me it seemed a very long time ; at last he took me in his arms, and held me so tight that I began to cry, and ran home to my father and told him that a gentleman was crying about mamma's pretty letters.

No doubt it was a very affecting meeting between my father and my uncle. I remember that it was the very first day I ever saw my father weep — that I was in sad trouble, and went into the kitchen and told Susan, our servant, that papa was crying ; and she wanted to keep me with her, that I might not disturb the conversation ; but I would go back to the parlour to poor papa, and I went in softly and crept between my father's knees. My uncle offered to take me in his arms, but I turned sullenly from him, and clung closer to my father, having conceived a dislike to my uncle because he had made my father cry. Now I first learned that my mother's death was a heavy affliction ; for I heard my father tell a melancholy story of her long illness, her death, and what he had suffered from her loss. My uncle said what a sad thing it was for my father to be left with such a young child ; but my father replied, his little Betsy was all his comfort, and that, but for me, he should have died with grief.

How I could be any comfort to my father, struck me with wonder. I knew I was pleased when he played and talked with me ; but I thought that was all goodness and favour done to me, and I had no notion how I could make any part of his happiness. The sorrow I now heard he had suffered was as new and strange to me. I had no idea that he had ever been unhappy ; his voice was always kind and cheerful ; I had never before seen him weep, or show any such signs of grief as those in which I used to express my little troubles. My thoughts on these subjects were confused and childish ; but from that time I never ceased pondering on the sad story of my dead mamma. The next day I went, by mere habit, to the study door, to call papa to the beloved grave ; my mind misgave me, and I could not tap at the door.