The Days of Lamb and Coleridge. A historical romance

Front matter

THE DAYS OF LAMB AND COLERIDGE A HISTORICAL ROMANCE BY ALICE E. LORD " If in this book, Fancy and Truth agree, If simple Nature, trained by careful Art, Through it have won a passage to thy heart, Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee." Wordsworth. NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Copyright, 1893, BY HENRY HOf/T fr CO. Drticatrt TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER, WHOSE WIDE CULTURE AND SCHOLARLY TASTES INTRODUCED ME TO THESE, HIS FRIENDS.

Preface

. In this Historical Romance, built upon the Lives of Lamb and Coleridge and their intimates, I am indebted for facts to careful study of the books mentioned below, and, perhaps, to some others read during the many years of preparation given to the subject. I have carefully acknowledged anything taken ver batim from another writer ; and all letters of my char acters, copied from their "Lives" or " Histories " are acknowledged by reference to my authorities. I have used such letters as often as possible to complete the mental photographs of my heroes. But all conversa tions, arguments, and table-talk not so marked, are, of course, my own, and are made as characteristic of the speakers as long familiarity with their writings and lives has enabled me to paint them. If in collaborating facts, events, and history, I have erred, or have been misled, as is very possible in glean ing history from so many sources, I trust to the leniency of a Public who can appreciate the difficulty of painting portraits from so many sketches — making, as it were, composite photographs of these well-known men.

The Author. SOME BOOKS ABOUT LAMB AND COLERIDGE AND THEIR TIMES Ainger (Alfred) Letters of Charles Lamb. Ashton (John) Dawn of the 19th Century in England. Brandl (Alois) and Eastlake (Lady) Coleridge and the English Romantic School. Caine (Hall) Life of Coleridge. Coleridge (S. T.) Biographia Literaria. Cottle (J.) Coleridge and Southey. Gillman (James) Life of Coleridge. Hazlitt (Wm.) Spirit of the Age. Hazlitt (W. Carew) Mary and Charles Lamb. Howitt (Wm. and Maky) Homes and Haunts of the British Poets. Hume (David) History of England. Knight (Wm.) William Wordsworth Lamb (C.) Essays of Elia. Lee (Edmund) Dorothy Wordsworth. Martin (B. E.) In the Footprints of Charles Lamb.* Mesen (R. T.) Personal Traits of British Authors. Rossetti (L. M.) Mrs. Shelley. Russell (Lord John) Thomas Moore's Diary.

Sala (George Augustus) Living London. Sandford (Mrs. H.) Thomas Poole and his Friends. Talfourd (T. N.) Essays and Letters of Charles Lamb. Talfourd (T. N.) Memorials of Charles Lamb. * Appeared after the present volume was written, but before it was published. VI CONTENTS. chapter. page. I. A Gray* Dawn 5 II. Ups and Downs 15 III. New Friends and Aspirations 24 IV. Fierce Doubts, and a Vital Answer 32 V. Contrasting Destinies 43 VI. De Scylla en Charybdis 51 VII. The Dreams of Youth 59 VIII. A Spring Song 69 IX. Dropped Stitches 74 X. Love in a Cottage 78 XI. A Tragedy 84 XII. New Scenes and Friends 96 XIII. Lonely Day's and Friendly Letters 107 XIV. Friends in Council 114 XV. New Scenes — Letters From the Old Continent 125 XVI. English Theses for German Solution 137 XVII. Estrangement — Lamb's Farewell to Tobacco 141 XVIII.

Heads or T.; ils ? 147 XIX. Eccentricities, seen through Humorous Ey-es 157 XX. He was a Man, take him for all in all, I SHALL NOT LOOK UPON HIS LIKE AGAIN. . . l68 XXI. Life's Shoals and Quicksands 180 XXII. Weighed in the Balance 184 XXIII. Uphill and Downhill 190 XXIV. Drifting 198 XXV. The Wheel of Fate 206 CONTENTS. chapter. page. XXVI. The Wanderer's Return 215 XXVII. Another Calamity 224 XXVIII. Poets and their Music 229 XXIX. The Hissed Drama— Hopes and Fears. .. 236 XXX. Amid Old Friends and Scenes 245 XXXI. The Warp and Woof of Several Lives.. 251 XXXII. Wordsworth and the Lake Country 257 XXXIII. Broken Ties 266 XXXIV. Raveled Stitches and Broken Threads. 274 XXXV. The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth 283 XXXVI. Honor to Whom Honor is Due 291 XXXYII. The Wages of Sin is Death 29S XXXVIII.

Chance and Change 311 XXXIX. Possibilities and Impossibilities 323 XL. A Prophecy Fulfilled 329 XLI. A Welcome Change 338 XLII. Evening Shadows 347 XLIII. Flotsam and Jetsam 353 XLIV. Blind Man's Holiday- 357 XL V. Death of Coleridge 367 XL VI. Breaking the Knot

Chapter I

A GRAY DAWN. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, — He sees it in his joy ; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended ; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. Wordsworth. The London of 1780 was not the present thronged, gigantic city whose streets seem wellnigh limitless, and which has incorporated all the suburban towns of the last century.

It was not blazing with gas and electric lights, and pulsating with the tramways connecting the farthest limit with the throbbing heart of the great metropolis, so much of whose busy thought and life now vibrate through its telegraph and telephone nerves. Still, it was a mighty city for those days. Fashion thronged through Bloomsbury and Piccadilly ; and misery abode in Whitechapel, just as to-day. Holborn and the Strand teemed with people hastening to the Exchange and the Bank, as now. The stately dome of new St. Paul's rose majestically above the surging streams of life coursing through these marts, and sent its vibrant tones across to the Mansion House. West minster Abbeylooked down upon St. Margaret's and St. Martin's in the Fields, and near it stood the old Parliament buildings. But the superb gothic West minster Palace, with its many towers and myriad windows, has risen since those days, as have the National Gallery, the Nelson Monument, and the lions of Trafalgar Square, and the palatial hotels flanking the square.

Quaint inns like the old " Staple Inn," and the " White Horse Cellar," and the " Three Feathers " were the centers of life, and, during the day, the busy coaches for the suburbs and provinces in the North, South, East, and West of England, bustled into the court yards under the great gateway with outriders and merry horns, deposited their tired occupants and luggage, changed horses, and dashed off again with a fresh supply of passengers and mail-bags. Beyond the old Staple Inn of Holborn and past Newgate Prison there still stands, behind an iron paling, a quaint gray-stone building with gothic windows and a great doorway. By this main entrance one passes through a churchyard, with low slabs and a few boxgraves, into the court. Had you — in the year mentioned above — walked under the arched gateway, and across the cloisters into the quadrangle, you would have seen about you the dingy walls of the Christ's Hospital, or " Blue-coat School."

Amid the furious din of "several hundred wrestling, shrieking, racing boys, kicking their footballs along the cloisters, and playing leap-frog on the flags," far off in a sunny corner crouched a couple of little fellows of eight and eleven years. The poor little lads are young enough to need home shelter, and tender enough for a mother's watchful care, but their black pates are pressed to gether over a book, and they have forgotten home, mother, and the uproar around them, so absorbed are they in their treasure. Suddenly a football sends their book sprawling upon the flags. The younger boy springs like a cat upon the foremost of a group, who are jeering at the result of the well-directed aim. "Go it! Cholley ! " "Hit 'im again!" and similar cries greet the well-aimed clawings of the little black headed imp, who has landed on the shoulders of the aggressor.

In a moment the two are rolling over and over, entangled in the long skirts of their blue coats. Meanwhile, the older of the two friends has collected the scattered leaves of the beloved book, and is looking with sorrowful gray eyes upon the scuffle. " Why don't you pitch in, Esteecee ? you're always afraid of your skin ! " " Mollycod ! " called out several interested by-standers. THE DA YS OF LAMB AND COLERIDGE. 8 But a great bell interrupts further demonstration, and the din ends in a mad rush for the entrance to the dining-hall. The old pump nearly has its handle wrung off, as dozens of boys cluster round the trough to administer hasty dabs at grimy faces. The long blue skirts are hauled out of belts, where they were tucked back to give free play to the yellow-leather covered legs. Confusion and bustle subside into stately order, as, two and two, the boys file into the long hall chanting the grace to the rather shaky twang and blare of violin and cornet.

The young voices rise in melodious cadence and the harmonies fill the fine old dining-hall of the Blue-coat School — one of the hand somest antiquities of London. Our little friends linger in the rear, Cholley mopping his curly poll with his sleeve, and giggling. " I say Es, did'nt I 1-1-lamb Jem like a h-h-hero ? I just thought I was one of those fellows at Th-Th-Ther mopylæ." " But O, Cholley, what will Boyer say to that torn Plutarch ? " said Esteecee, trembling. " N-never mind, I'll say I did it, he's always so hard on you ; and he don't lick fellows that o-o-own up half as bad as when he d-discovers," said the philosophical little Charley. The twang of violin and pipe, of clarionet and flute, interrupting, they joined in the decorous grace, chanted before meat. What a burst of harmony rose from those hundreds of young throats and echoed along the oaken beams of the roof, and vibrated frum the great gothic windows !

Truly, so rich a chant might have served for richer fare than the pease soup, brown loaf, and bitter beer in the homely wooden piggins ! Perhaps the long red sunbeams streaming through the stained-glass win dows gave a couleur de rose to the meager dole ; but methinks the Monday's tasteless milk-porridge, and the Wednesday's bowls of millet and treacle, and the Thurs day's boiled beef were scarcely flavored and seasoned by golden rays. And very, very often there were not even sunbeams in smoky, drizzly London. But empty stomachs, after hard study and harder play, found even these " unsavory messes " acceptable be cause necessary, and few were the crumbs and rem nants for those on table duty to clear away. In a twinkling the orderly sets of boys on table duty had tucked up skirts, whisked leavings into baskets, piled platters and " piggins " in, polished the oaken tables until they shone like mirrors, and, filing into the scullery, had deposited, washed up, and set away the dishes.

Lessons again after dinner. And woe to him who brought imperfect recitations to the head-master, Boyer ! He was of a furious temper, and used his cane without stint upon the idle or the listless. " What, sirrah ! are ye dreaming again ? " he would shout to poor little Esteecee, who tremblingly stumbled over the Latin verbs and Greek roots he knew so well an hour before. " Stand forward, sirrah ! " And upon the cowering form the rod or strap would fall with whistling thuds until the burly Irishman espied some fresh victim tittering over a book. He seemed to gloat over the slips and mistakes of the nervous, shambling boy, who shrank from his terrible eye. And after each thrash ing the poor, discouraged lad would fix his gaze upon his books, and try to gather his scattered wits for a fresh tussle with the slippery Latin conjugations.

THE DAYS OF LAMB AND COLERIDGE. 10 " Eh, Cholley," Esteecee said to his sympathizing little chum, at the next intermission, " if he would but wait until I can get it out. I know those stanzas as I do my own name : listen." And he repeated page after page of his Horace to his wondering friend, with out a pause, save for the sobs that shook his delicate frame. " He chases it out of me with his wild eyes, glaring like a Satan's demon." A heavy step, not heard before amid the babel of the boys' voices and games, caused the terrified chil dren to turn, just in time to catch the uplifted strap right upon their faces. " And ye two devils criticise the master, do ye ? ' A Satan's demon,' because I dare chastize the idle and laggard ! " But they had fled ere again the cruel thong could leave its marks upon the blanched faces.

The next day being the usual weekly holiday, the Blue-coat boys were turned out as iisual, to pass the time as they might, through the long hours of a gray, drizzling, winter's day. They shivered along the streets, drenched and miserable. Some were fortunate enough to have friends or relatives in London ; and let us hope the poor fellows found cordial welcomes on those frequent holidays and half-holidays, after the bare halls and dreary cloisters of the Blue-coat School. Blue-coat boys might be seen all over London and its suburbs on these half-holidays. The bare heads (for no covering is worn on the head) and the blue gown mark the Blue-coat boys to this day, and being set apart by their dress, the boys have a pride in main taining the dignity of their position. They are not charity boys, but " protege's of the nation," and have always held aloof in pride from other asylums and hospitals, considering the power and dignity of their establishment.

The system of governing by " sizars " and Grecians ; the promotion for merit, and the gradual development into Grecians with full-fledged honors, give a collegiate air to the institution, and 'tis but a step to the great Universities for a Grecian of Christ's Hospital. One sees them strolling along the Thames and loung ing about the bridges, or sauntering on Cheapside and Paternoster Row with their noses pressed against the show-windows, especially those of book-stores. They peer into the pastry shops, and after a careful study of the riches in the window, the more fortunate ones spend a penny or halfpenny in a judicious bun or a dyspeptic muffin for dinner. They throng the Tower, passing the guards fearlessly on their oft-repeated visits to the crown jewels, or shuddering over the fatal Traitor's Gate, or the stairway where the young Princes were buried, or admiring the fine old armor and the splendid arrangement of weapons with flower and vine designs.

Many happy days are passed amid these splendors. One often wonders what those homeless wanderers would do on the many rainy half-holidays, without the Tower or the British Museum. On this rainy Saturday, " Cholley " had permission from home to bring his home-sick friend to the pa ternal roof. How briskly they trotted through Fetter Lane to the Strand, and through the old arch into the Inner Temple ! There, at the end of the long, dingy brick building, with its rows of windows staring into the Temple Garden, was Crown Office Row, and there was Sister Mary waiting to welcome her boy. How warm and cosy the papered -walls, the high-backed chairs and great cushioned settle looked to the boys, after the bare walls, wooden benches, and stone floors, of Christ's Hospital ! What a world of comfort and cheer in the great kitchen fire, throwing its glare on chairs and table, and redolent with the appetizing fra grance of roast beef, suet pudding, or hot muffins !

" Eh, Cholley," said his friend, " how nice to have a mother and sister waiting for you and expecting you ! Your sister is always so glad to see you." " So would yours be if they were here, in London, Estee ; a f-f-fellow's mother kind of b-belongs to him, you know." " No, Cholley, my mother had too many to look after at home to need me. I was one too many, always ; and I was forever being sent out of the way," and the large gray eyes had a wistful look that made Charley's heart ache, young as he was. He opened the great mahogany book-case and found their favorite " Spec tator," and the two were soon curled up in a corner over its pages. After a while they got out the volume of Shakespeare, of which they never tired. Esteecee 's cheeks would flush as he read " Julius Cæsar," and Charley's black eyes flashed in responsive enthusiasm.

" How horrible for his own friend to have stabbed him ! To die with his friend's treachery before him was worse than the pain of the blow," exclaimed Esteecee with flashing eyes. " B-b-but we could never have had the Oration with out that," said Charley, doubtfully. " There were enough to kill Cæsar without Brutus's stab." "Yes, that was the most b -brutal blow of all," said Charley. " Oh, you midgets, to spend your holiday curled up over books ! Don't you have enough of them at school ? " asked Sister Mary, patting her little brother's curly locks, tenderly. " Such learned young gentlemen as these Blue-coat boys with their Latin and mathe matics ! Why, Charley is growing now beyond his sister's reach." " N-no ; only trying to catch up, sister ; you started on f-f-far ahead ; I'll have to climb on Latin and Greek to get even."

" And the poor little colts have been urged too hard," said Mary, noticing the long red welts across the boy's faces. " We were talking of Boyer, and he heard me call him, ' devil '," said Estee. "We generally know in the morning what sort of a day we'll have by old Boyer's wig. When he comes in with that wig cocked over his left ear, by jingo ! I try to find some old cloth or newspapers to put layers in my breeches and shirt ; he thrashes the very Grecians on those days." " And a f-fellow hit back, and gave him an awful black eye, last Candlemas. And d-didn't we smile ! " piped in Charley. " Old Boyer couldn't hit straight for a fortnight, and the boys slipped between the licks," said Estee, laughing. Charley's holidays were occasions for killing the fatted calf, and the steaming roast mutton and suet pudding received full justice from the hungry boys, and seemed a sumptuous repast after the meager dole at Christ's Hospital.

Charley's big brother, John, was rather a quietus to the boys' chatter when he dined at home. He was big, and "such a swell," as Charleyadmiringly termed him. Somehow the room ahvays seemed smaller and more crowded when brother John came in. His gorgeous waistcoats and neckcloths, and the shining brass buttons on his coat rather overwhelmed the boys and oppressed them with a sense of his magnificence. John represented the elegance of the family. Mary was soft-eyed and very sweet-looking, but the plain mob-caps and folded lawn neckerchiefs gave her a very demure air for a young woman of nineteen years. She was very silent, save when she and Charley were together, when she was gay and genial, and chatted as fast as her pet brother. Esteecee hovered admiringly around her, and his tongue became eloquent over some late country ramble or a new book. His holidays spent with his friend were the happiest days of his boyhood.

Chapter II. Ups And Downs

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a Bee, Both were mine ! Life went a maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy When I was young ! When I was young ? — Ah, woful when I Ah ! for the change 'twixt now and then I This breathing house not built with hands O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands. How lightly then it flashed along Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide ! Naught cared this body for wind or weather, When Youth and I lived in't together. Coleridge. One half-holiday, some weeks later, Estee burst into the house in high spirits. He hunted up his friend, Miss Mary, exclaiming breathlessly : " Oh, what do you think has happened ! I was walking along the Strand imagining I was Leander swimming the Helles pont.

I had my eyes shut and was striking out with my arms, when I struck an old gentleman's back, and got my arm twisted in his coat-tails. He grabbed me, and shook me while I was trying to explain to him, and he wanted to call a watchman. I begged him to listen, and see that I was no thief, and after a long talk he laughed at the idea of my swimming on a London street, and asked me all about Hero and Leander, and ended by taking me to King's Library, on Cheapside, and buying me a membership ticket. Oh, think of it ! think of it ! I can always have some place to go on those awful holidays, and I can read and read all day long." The boy's face glowed with the illumination of happiness until he seemed another being. Mary rejoiced in the child's pleasure, and Charley capered about in glee. " I sha'n't mind now saving half my breakfast loaf for dinner, for I can enjoy it over — oh, everything, in that library.

Addison and Pope and Chaucer and Spenser and Goldsmith are there. And you can come with me, Cholley, and I can lend you the books, too." The friends went to their dreary dormitory that night, full of -a new hope, with long vistas of delight stretch ing out before them ; so little does it take to lift a child's heart from the slough of despond to the heavenly hills of enthusiasm and hope. Life's burdens are heavy enough upon old shoulders; 'tis pitiful to see them weighing upon the young, when so little can scatter them. I wonder if that kind old man ever remembered afterwards, or knew, the stores of hap piness he had provided for the lonely Blue-coat boy, wandering penniless and friendless in the great, busy- London ? He was onlya charity boy, a Blue-coat lad with shambling gait and blowsey head ; but that fledg ling grew to be a rara avis that shall sing through the centuries, when you and I lie forgotten.

That library was indeed a blessing to the two boys. UPS AND DOWNS. 17 Estee flew from Boyer's blows and tyrannical tasks to hours of quiet and peace. He read everything with in reach ; poetry, history, metaphysics, classics, all were welcome to fill the void of loneliness and longing in the imaginative youth's heart. The works of Voltaire and Hume had recently been added, with other new writers, and our greedy Estee devoured everything, ignorant of any danger. His mind expanded to the new theories, and he felt like a young bird trying its own pinions for the first time, amid the wild flights of older birds who had flown far from the safe home nest of orthodoxy. Before long he found much to lure him into strange, new paths. The old beliefs and faith of his father, and the safe dogmas of the Church as incul cated daily in the school routine, grew too narrow for the tempted fledgling.

So months and y-ears went by. Charley was less tempted by these dry metaphysi cians. He was too young to venture into the unknown regions. Besides his beloved Shakespeare, he read dili gently the earlier English dramatists and the minor Elizabethan poets, and upon such models his taste was formed. They were the dear friends of his boyhood in these King's Library days ; and they ever remained the richest treasures of his life. Charley would coax Esteecee into the Tower, after they had been reading of the Lollards or of Henry VIII. and his wives; of the sorrows of Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, or of Cromwell and his times. They would hunt up the historic rooms, and picture the celebrated prisoners who had chafed and pined there, or find the spot where they had forfeited their lives. They would imagine themselves confined prisoners in those gloomy cells, and follow the sufferings of the heroes, and imagine they, too, were prisoners of state, until, in trembling and terror, they would rush past the keepers and beyond the gates, only breathing freely when, safe outside, they could look across to the walls and towers from the opposite hill.

Upon these holidays Charley shared with Esteecee the home spoils of cold mutton or veal-pie which old Aunt Hetty had smuggled into the school for her boy. Poor Aunt Hetty used to come hobbling into the play yard at noon, peering amongst the noisy horde for her little curly-pate. " Hello, auntie ! " shouted several large boys, " let's see what's in that basket," and they would flock around her, and lift the cover of the bowl containing the coveted morsels, whilst she would mumble and snarl and strike out with her cane, giving many a sharp rap upon inquiring knuckles. The ungrateful Charleywould sneak shamefacedly up, and hustling the old dame into some quiet corner, hastily gobble all he could cram into his mouth, stuff the rest into his coat-pocket, or tuck it under his gown for future use, striking out at inquisitive groups of boys who tried to follow and tease.

" Why don't you come just before recess, auntie ? I would meet you behind that gate ; the boys jeer so at thy cane and call me ' mollycoddle.' " So youth criti cises age and appropriates kindness as its just due, little thinking how empty the stomach would be, after por ridge and blue skim-milk, if poor old auntie did not hobble up with extras from the home-table. Charley was fond enough of the edibles, but liked not the ridicule and importunities of his comrades. The broken hot loaf and bowl of pudding would be but a UPS AND DOWNS. 19 crumb if shared with all that noisy crowd. They often snatched the greater portion from him ; but Charley was as wiry as he was diminutive, and could defend his rights against a reasonable number of assailants by darting between their legs, or twining himself around their shoulders, and many such cat-like maneuvers.

Poor fastidious Esteecee would have grown even more starved and lean over the boiled beef and bitter beer and millet, if Charley had not always shared his home spoils with his friend. Aunt Hetty came almost daily, and the boys knew where and when to watch for the little hobbling dame with her basket. They often changed the rendezvous, as the other boys discovered the clandestine meetings and demanded their share of the feast. Many bloody noses and bruised heads were the results of these surreptitious feasts, while Aunt Hetty learned to snub her tormentors, and Charlie learned to improvise corners and hiding-places for his goodies as a dog learns to hide a bone. " Poor Estee was always building imaginary castles of gingerbread and plum-cake, and eating out rooms and corridors, during these long, hungry, Christ's Hospital days." * The long holidays came year after year, and Esteecee went home to Ottery St. Mary to visit his family.

But the kind father was dead, and the elder brother, who had the living and the little parish school, had a family of his own, and dreaded the irregular habits and inde pendent ideas of the London school-boy. Esteecee would go off into the woods and forget to come home at meal-time, or would return dripping from a swim- * " Life of Coleridge." — Hall Caine. ming expedition, where he had worn his clothes into the water, from very indolence. He was a visionary dreamer beyond the ordinary rules of well-organized families, and his relatives did not know what to do with him. The tired mother had nursed and reared eleven children ; and the queer pranks of this alien, who had left her for the city school, wearied her. He compared his chilly welcome with the love and tenderness Charley found in his home, and the oppression would tighten round the young heart, and the yearning, " Why, why ?

" kept eating into his very soul. He would throw himself down on the soft grass and watch the drifting clouds speed over the blue dome above him; he' would peer into the mirror of the quiet little brook that meandered through the meadows, but nowhere could he read an answer. " Why was life so hard for him ? " Other boys had kind fathers and loving mothers who lavished tenderness upon them; what had he done to miss all this from his life ? He saw other lads driv ing in gay coaches with happy faces and fine clothes ; he had no coach; no fine dinner was awaiting him — onlya scolding for not knowing the time, and this would re mind him that he was late again, and he would run home breathlessly. After a few weeks of rambling through these pleasant fields, hc must go back to those stone walls and bare floors, and mingle again with that wild herd.