Literary sketches and letters

Front matter

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Preface

publishing ths letters of Lamb on this event, eminently exalting the characters of himself and his sister, and enabling the reader to judge of the sacrifice which followed it.

I have also availed myself of the opportunity of introducing some letters, the objection to publishing which has been obviated by the same great healer. Time • and of adding others which I deemed too trivial for the public eye, when the whole of his letters lay before me, collected by Mr. Moxoii fi'om the distinguished correspondents of Lamb, who kindly responded to his request for permission to make the public sharers in their choice epistolary treasures. The appreciation which the letters already published, both in this country and America — perhaps even more remarkable in America than in England — have attained, and the interest which the lightest fragments of Lamb's correspondence, which have accidentally appeared in other quarters, have excited, convince me that some letters which I withheld, as doubting their worthiness of the public eye, will not now be unwelcome. There is, indeed, scarcely a note — a notelet — (as he used to call his very little letters) Lamb ever wrote, whrch has not some tinge of that quaint sweetness, some hint of that peculiar union of kindness and whim, which distinguish him from all other poets and humorists. I do not think the reader will complain that — with some very slight exceptions, which personal considerations still render necessary — I have made him a partaker of all the epistolary treasures which the generosity of Lamb's correspondents placed at Mr. Moxon's disposal.

When I first considered the materials of this work, I pur-

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10 PREFACE.

posed to combine them with a new edition of the former volumes ; but the consideration that such a course would be unjust to the possessors of those volumes induced me to present them to the public in a separate form. In accomplishing that object, T have felt the difficulty of connecting the letters so as to render their attendant circumstances intelligible, without falling into repetition of passages in the previous biography. My attempt has been to make these volumes subsidiary to the former, and yet complete in themselves ; but I fear its imperfection will require much indulgence from the reader. The italics and capitals used in printing the letters are always those of the writer ; and the little passages sometimes prefixed to letters, have been printed as in the originals.

In venturing to introduce some notices of Lamb's deceased companions, I have been impelled partly by a desire to explain any allusion in the letters which might be misunderstood by those who are not familiar with the fine vagaries of Lamb's affection, and partly by the hope of giving some faint notion of the entire circle with which Lamb is associated in the recollection of a few survivors.

T. N. T.

London,

FINAL MEMORIALS

OF

CHARLES LAMB

Chapter I. Letters Of Lamb To Coleridge, In The Spring And Summer Of 1796

In the year 1795, Charles Lamb resided with his father, mother, and sister, in lodgings at No. 7, Little Queen Street, Holborn. The father was rapidly sinking into dotage ; the mother suffered under an infirmity which deprived her of the use of her limbs ; and the sister not only undertook tlie office of daily and nightly attendance on her mother, but sought to add by needlework to their slender resources. Their income then consisted of an annuity which Mr. Lamb the elder derived from the old Bencher, Mr. Salt, whom he had faithfully served for many years ; Charles's salary, which, being that of a clerk of three years' standing in the India House, could have been but scanty ; and a small payment made for board by an old maiden aunt, who resided with them. In this year Lamb, being just twenty years of age, began to write verses, — partly incited by the example of his only friend, Coleridge, whom he regarded with as much reverence as affection, and partly inspired by an attachment to a young lady residing in the neighborhood of Islington, who'is commemorated in his early verses as " the fair-haired maid." How his love prospered we cannot ascertain ; but we know how nobly ihat love, and all hope of the earthly blessings attendant on such an affection, were resigned on the catastrophe which darkened the following year. In the meantime, his youth was lonely — rendered more so by the recollection of the society of Coleridge, who had just left London — of Coleridge in the first bloom of life and genius, unshaded by the mysticism which it afterwards glorified — full of boundless ambition, love, and hope ! There was a tendency to insanity in his family, which had been more than once developed in his sister ; and it was no matter of surprise that in the dreariness of his solitude it fell upon him ; and that, at the close of the year, he was subjected for a few weeks to the restraint of the insane. The wonder is that, amidst all the difficulties, the sorrows, and the excitements of his succeedin<j forty vears, it never recurred. Perhaps the true cause of this remarkable exemption — an exemption the more remarkable when his afflictions are considered in association with one single frailty — will be found in the sudden claim made on his moral and intellectual nature by a terrible exigency, and by his generous answer to that claim ; so that a life of self-sacrifice was rewarded by the reservation of unclouded reason.

The following letter to Coleridge, then residing at Bristol, which is undated, but which is proved by circumstances to have been written in the spring of 1796, and which is probably the earliest of Lamb's letters which have been preserved, contains his own account of this seizure. Allusion to the same event will be perceived in two letters of the same year, after which no reference to it appears in his correspondence, nor can any be remembered in his conversations with his dearest friends.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

Dear C , make yourself perfectly easy about May.

I paid his bill when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and I am so still to all the purposes of a single life ; so give yourself no further concern about it. The money would be superfluous to me if I had it.

When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor Milton, and publishes his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em ; a guinea a book is somewhat exorbitant, nor have J the opportunity of borrowing the work. The extracts from it in the Monthly Reviews, and the short passages in your Watchman, seem to me much superior to any thing in his partnership account with Lovell. Your poems I shall procure forthwith. There were noble lines in what you inserted in one of your numbers, from "Religious Musings;" but I thought them elaborate. I am somewhat glad you have given up that paper ; it must have been dry, unprofitable, and of dissonant mood to your disposition. I wish you success in all your undertakings, and am glad to hear you are employed about the " Evidences of Religion." There is need of multiplying such books a hundredfold in this philosophical age, to iprevent converts to atheism, for they seem too tough disputants to meddle with afterwards.

Le Grice is gone to make puns in Cornwall. He has got a tutorship to a young boy living with his mother, a widow-lady. He will, of course, initiate him quickly in " whatsoever things are lovely, honorable, and of good report." Coleridge ! I know not what suffering scenes you have ^one through at Bristol. My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks that finished last year and began this, your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse, at Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one. But mad I was ! And many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough to make a volume, if all were told. My sonnets I have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and will some day communicate to you. I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which, if I finish, I publish. White is on the eve of publishing (he took the hint from Vortigern) " Original Letters of Falstaff, Shallow," (fee, a copy you shall have when it comes out. They are without exception the best imitations I ever saw. Coleridge! it may convince you of my regards for you when I tell you my head ran on you in my madness, as much almost as on another person, who I am inclined to think was the more immediate cause of my temporary frenzy.

The Sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry ; but you will be curious to read it when T tell you it was written in my prison-house in one of my lucid intervals.

TO MY SISTER.

If from my lips some angry accents fell,

Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind,

'Twas but ihe error of a sickly mind And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well,

And waters clear, of Reason ; and for me

Let this my verse the poor atonement be —

My verse, which thou to praise wert e'er inclined

Too highly, and with a pait al eye to see No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show

Kindest affection ; and wouldst oft- times lend

An ear to the desponding love-sick lay,

Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,

Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.

With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to C , I conclude. Yours sincerely,

Labib.

Your " Conciones ad Populum*' are the most eloquent politics that ever came in my way.

Write when convenient — not as a task, for there is nothing in this letter to answer.

We cannot send our remembrances to Mrs. C, not having seen her, but, believe me, our best good wishes attend you both.

My civic and poetic compliments to Southey if at Bristol ; — why, he is a very Leviathan of Bards — the small minnow, 1 !

tn the spring of this year, Coleridge proposed the association of those first efforts of the young clerk in the India House, which he had prompted and praised, with .his own, in a new edition of his Poems, to which Mr. Charles Lloyd also proposed to contribute. The following letter comprises Sonnets transmitted to Coleridge for this purpose, accompanied by remarks so characteristic as to induce the hope that the reader will forgive the introduction of these small gems of verse which were published in due course, for the sake of the original setting.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

I am in such violent pain with the headache, that I am fit for nothing but transcribing, scarce for that. When I get your poems, and the "Joan of Arc," I will exercise my presumption in giving you my opinion of 'em. The mail does not come in before to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. The following Sonnet was composed during a walk down into Hertfordshire early in last summer : —

The Lord of Light shakes ofl'his drowsyhed,*

Fresh from his couch up springs the lusty sun.

And girds himself his mighty race to run ; Meantime, by truant love of rambling led I turn my back on thy detested walls,

Proud city, and thy sons I leave behind

A selfish, sordid, money-getting kind, Who shut their ears when holy Freedom calls. I pass not thee so lightly, humble spire,

That mindest me of many a pleasure gone,

Of merriest days of Love and Islington, Kindling anew the Hames of past desire ;

And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on. To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.

The last line is a copy of Bowles's, " To the green hamlet in the peaceful plain." Your ears are not so very fastidious ; many people would not like words so prosaic and familiar in a Sonnet as Islington and Hertfordshire. The next was written within a day or two of the last, on revisiting a spot where the scene was laid of my first Sonnet " that mocked my step with many a lonely glade."

When last I roved these winding wood-walks green. Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet ;

Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene, Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.

No more I hear her footsteps in the shade ; Her image only in these pleasant ways Meets me self- wandering, where in happier days

I held free converse with my fair-haired maid. I passed the Utile cottage which she loved,

* " Drowsyhed" I have met with, I think, in Spenser. 'Tis an old thing, but it rhymes with led, and rhyming covers a multitude of licenses. — C. Lamb's Manuscripts.

The cottage which did once my all contain ; It spake of days that ne'er must come again ;

Spake to my heart, and much my heart was moved. Now " Fair befall thee, gentle maid," said I ; And from the cottage turned me with a sigh.

The next retains a few lines from a Sonnet of mine which you once remarked had no " body of thought" in it. I agree with you, but have preserved a part of it, and it runs thus. I flatter myself you will like it : —

A timid grace sits trembling in her eye,

As loth to meet the rudeness of men's sight ; Yet shedding a delicious lunar light.

That steeps in kind oblivion's ecstasy The care-crazed mind, like some still melody :

Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess Her gentle sprite, peace and meek quietness, And innocent loves, *^ and maiden purity :

A look whereof might heal the cruel smart Of changed friends ; or Fortune's wrongs unkind ;

Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart Of him who hates his brethren of mankind : Turned are those lights from me, who fondly yet Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.

The next and last I value most of all. 'Twas composed close upon the heels of the last, in that very wood I had in mind when I wrote — " Methinks how dainty sweet."

We were two pretty babes, the youngest she. The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween. And Innocence her name. The time has been

We two did love each other's company ;

Time was, we two had wept to have been apart : But when, with show of seeming good beguil'd, I left the garb and manners of a child,

* Cowley uses this phrase with a somewhat different meaning. I meant, loves of relatives, friends, &c. — C. Lamb's Manuscripts.

And my first love for man's society,

Defiling with the world my virgin heart — My loved companion dropt a tear, and fled, And hid in deepest shades her awful head.

Beloved ! who shall tell me where thou art — In what delicious t^den to be found — That I may seek thee the wide world around ?

Since writing it, I have found in a poem by Hamilton of Bangor, these two lines to " Happiness."

Nun, sober and devout, where art thou fled To hide in shades thy meek contented head ?

Lines eminently beautiful ; but I do not remember having read them previously, for the credit of my ten and eleven lines. Parnell has two lines (which probably suggested the above) to " Contentment."

Whither, ah ! whither art thou fled To hide thy meek contented* head ?

Cowley's exquisite " Elegy on the death of his friend Harvey," suggested the phrase of " we two."

Was there a tree that did not know The love betwixt us two ?

So much for acknowledged plagiarisms, the confession of which I know not whether it has more of vanity or modesty in it. As to my blank verse, I am so dismally slow and sterile of ideas (I speak from my heart) that I much question if it will ever come to any issue. I have hitherto only hammered out a few independent, unconnected snatches, not in a capacity to be sent. I am very thankful. I have one more favor to beg of you, that you never mention Mr. May's affair in any sort, much less think of repaying. Are we not

* An odd epithet for Contentment in a poet so poetical as Parnell. — C. Lamb's Manuscripts.

flocci-nauci-what-d'ye-call-'em-ists ? We have just learned that my poor brother has had a sad accident, a large stone blown down by yesterday's high wind has bruised his leg in a most shocking manner ; he is under the care of Cruikshanks. Coleridge ! there are 10,000 objections against my paying you a visit at Bristol ; it cannot be else ; but in this world it's better not to think too much of pleasant possibles, that we may not be out of humor with present insipids. Should any thing bring you to London, you will recollect No. 7, Little Queen Street, Holboi'n.

I shall be too ill to call on Wordsworth myself, but will take care to transmit him his poem, when I have read it. I saw Le Grice the day before his departure, and mentioned incidentally his " teaching the young idea how to shoot." Knowing the probability there is of people having a propensity to pun in his company, you will not wonder that we both stumbled on the same pun at once, he eagerly anticipating me, — " he would teach him to shoot." Poor Le Grice ! if wit alone could entitle a man to respect, &c., he has written a very witty little pamphlet lately, satirical upon college declamations. When I send White's book, I will add that. I am sorry there should be any difference between you and Southey. " Between you two there should be peace," tho' I must say I have borne him no good will since he spirited you away from among us. What is become of Moschus ? You've sported some of his sublimities, I see, in your Watchman. Very decent things. So much for to-night, from your afflicted, head-achey, sore-throatey, humble servant,

C. Lamb.

Tuesday night. — Of your Watchman, the Review of Burke was the best prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some exquisite poetry interspersed.

I have re-read the extract from the " Religious Musings,'' and retract whatever invidious there was in my censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If there be any thing in it approaching to tumidity (which I meant not to infer ; by elaborate I meant simply labored,) it is the gigantic hyperbole by which you describe the evils of existing society ; '• Snakes^ lions, hyenas, and behemoths," is carrying your resentment beyond bounds. The pictures of " The Simoom," of " Frenzy and Ruin," of " The Whore of Babylon," and " The Cry of Foul Spirits disherited of Earth," and " the strange beatitude " which the good man shall recognize in heaven, as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness (I have unconsciously included every part of it), form a variety of uniform excellence. I hunger and thirst to read the poem complete. That is a capital line in your sixth number —

They are exactly such epithets as Burns would have stumbled on, whose poem on the ploughed-up daisy you seem to have had in mind. Your complaint that of your readers some thought there was too much, some too little original matter in your numbers, reminds me of poor dead Parsons in the "Critic." " Too little incident! Give me leave to tell you, sir, there is too much incident.'"' I had like to have forgot thanking you for that exquisite little morsel, the first Sclavonian Song. The expression in the second, — " more happy to be unhappy in hell;" is it not very quaint? Accept my thanks, in common with those of all who love good poetry, for "The Braes of Yarrow." I congratulate you on the enemies you must have made by your splendid invective against the barterers in human flesh and sinews. Coleridge you will rejoice to hear that Cowper is recovered from his lunacy, and is employed on his translation of the Italian, &c. poems of Milton for an edition where Fuseli presides as designer. Coleridge ! to an idler like myself, to write and receive letters are both very pleasant, but I wish not to break in upon your valuable time by expecting to hear very frequently from you. Reserve that obligation for your moments of lassitude, when you have nothing else to do ; for your loco-restive and all your idle propensities, of course, have given way to the duties of providing for a family. The mail is come in, but no parcel ; yet this is Tuesday. Farewell, then, till to-morrow, for a niche and a nook I must leave for criticisms. By the way I hope you do not send your own only copy of Joan of Arc ; I will in that case return it immediately.

Your parcel is come ; you have been lavish of your presents.

Wordsworth's poem I have hurried through, not without delight. Poor Lovell ! my heart almost accuses me for the light manner I spoke of him above, not dreaming of his death. My heart bleeds for your accumulated troubles; God send you through 'em with patience. I conjure you dream not that I will ever think of being repaid ; the very word is galling to the ears. I have read all your " Religious Musings" with uninterrupted feelings of profound admiration. You may safely rest your fame on it. The best remaining things are what I have before read, and they lose nothing by recollection of your manner of reciting them, for I too bear in mind " the voice, the look," of absent friends, and can occasionally mimic their manner for the amusement of those who have seen 'em. Your impassioned manner of recitation I can recall at any time to mine own heart and to the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had left the monody on Chatterton concluding as it did abruptly. It had more of unity. The conclusion of your " Religious Musings" I fear will entitle you to the reproof of your beloved woman, who wisely will not suffer your fancy to run riot, but bids you walk humbly with your God. The very last words, " I exercise my young noviciate thought in ministeries of heart-stirring song," though not now new to me cannot be enough admired. To speak politely, they are a well-turned compliment to Poetry. I hasten to read '' Joan of Arc," &c. I have read your lines at the beginning of second book : they are worthy of Milton ; but in my mind yield to your " Religious Musings."

I shall read the whole carefully, and in some future letter take the liberty to particularize my opinions of it. Of what is new to me among your poems next to the " Musings," that beginning " My Pensive Sara " gave me most pleasure : the lines in it I just alluded to are most exquisite ; they made my sister and self smile, as conveying a pleasing picture of Mrs. C. checking your wild wanderings, which we were so fond of hearing you indulge when among us. It has endeared us more than any thing to your good lady, and your own self- reproof that follows delighted us. 'Tis a charming poem throughout (you have well remarked that charming, admirable, exquisite are the words expressive of feelings more than conveying of ideas, else I might plead very well want of room in my paper as excuse for generalizing). I want room to tell you how we are charmed with your verses in the manner of Spenser, &c., &c., &c., 6lc., &c. I am glad you resume the Watchman. Change the name ; leave out all articles of news, and whatever things are peculiar to newspapers, and confine yourself to ethics, verse, criticism — or rather do not confine yourself. Let your plan be as difl^ise as the '' Spectator," and I'll answer for it the work prospers. If I am vain enough to think I can be a contributor, rely on my inclinations. Cole- . ridge ! in reading your " Religious Musings," I felt a transient superiority over you. I have seen Priestly. I love to see his name repeated in your writings. I love and honor him almost profanely. You would be charmed with his Sermons, if you never read them. You have doubtless read his books illustrative of the doctrine of Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his in answer to Paine, there is a preface giving an account of the man, of his services to men, written by Lindsey, his dearest friend, well worth your reading. Tuesday eve. — Forgive my prolixity, which is yet too brief for all I could wish to say. God give you comfort, and all that are of your household ! Our loves and best

good wishes to Mrs. C.

C. Lamb.

The parcel mentioned in the last letter, brought the " Joan of Arc," and a request from Coleridge, that Lamb would freely criticise his poems with a view to their selection and correction for the contemplated volume. The reply is contained in the following letter which, written on several days, begins at ihe extreme top of the first page, without any ceremony of introduction, and is comprised in three sheets and a bit of faolscap.

TO XR. COLERIDGE.

Wiih ••' Joan of Acre'"' I have been delighted, amazed ; I had not presumed to expect any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why the poem is alone sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the imputation of degenerating in Poetry, were there no such beings extant as

Burns, and Bowles. Cowper, and ; fill up the blank

how you please; I say nothing. The subject is well chosen. Jt opens well. To become more particular, I will notice in their order |a few passages that chiefly struck me on perusal .1

Page 26, " Fierce and terrible Benevolence !" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality. Tlie whole context made me feel possessed, even like Joan herself Page 28, " It is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely-fibred human frame," and what follows, pleased me mightily. In the 2nd Book, the first forty lines in particular are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed the whole vision of the Palace of Ambition and what follows are supremely excellent. Your simile of the Laplander, " By Niemi lake, or Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone of Solfar-Kapper,''" * will bear comparison with any in Milton for fullness of circumstance and loftypacedness of versification. Southey's similes, though many of them are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books, the simile of the oak in the storm occurs, I think, four times. To return ; the light in which you view the heathen deities, is accurate and" beautiful. Southfey's personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I was much pleased with your manner of accounting for the reason why monarchs take delight in war. At the 447th line you have placed Prophets and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a footing for the dignity of the former. Necessarianlike speaking, it is correct. Page 98, " Dead is the Douglas • cold their warrior frame, illustrious Buchan," &c., are of kindred excellence with Gray's " Cold is Cad wallo's tongue," &c. How famously the maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, " with all their trumpery !" The procession, the appearance of the Maid, of the Bastard Son of Orleans and of Tremouille, are full of fire and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications from line 303 to 309, m the heat of the battle, had better been omitted ; they are not very striking, and only encumber.

* Lapland mountains. The verses referred to are published in Mr. Coleridge's Poem entitled " The Destiny of Nations : a Vision."

The converse which Joan and Conrade hold on the banks of the Loire is altogether beautiful. Page 313, the conjecture that in dreams " all things are that seenn," is one of those conceits which the Poet delights to admit into his creed — a creed, by the way, more marvelous and mystic than ever Athanasius dreamed of Page 315, I need only mention those lines ending with " She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart !" They are good imitative lines, " he toiled and toiled, of toil to reap no end, but endless toil and never-ending wo ;" 347 page. Cruelty is such as Hogarth might have painted her. Page 361, all the passage about Love (where he seems to confound conjugal love with creating and preserving love) is very confused, and sickens me with a load of useless personifications ; else that ninth Book is the finest in the volume — an exquisite combination of the ludicrous and the terrible : I have never read either, even in translation, but such I conceive to be the manner of Dante or Ariosto. The tenth Book is the most languid. On the whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finished, I was astonished at the unfrequency of weak lines. I had expected to find it verbose. Joan, I think, does too little in battle ; Dunois perhaps the same ; Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the battles refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the many passages of sipmle pathos abounding throughout the poem, passages which the author of" Crazy Kate" might have written. Has not Master Southey spoke very slightingly, in his preface, and disparagingly of Cowper's Homer ? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper his fame ? And does not Southey use too often the expletives " did,'' and " does ?" They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or rather become blemishes, when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton : I already deem hini equal to Cowper, and superior to all living poets besides. What says Coleridge ? The " Monody on Henderson" is immensely good, the rest of that little volume is readable and above mediocrity. I proceed to a more pleasant task ; pleasant because the poems are yours ; pleasant because you impose the task on me ; and pleasant, let me add, because it will confer a whimsical importance on me, to sit in judgment upon your rhymes. First, though, let me thank you again and again, in my own and my sister's name, for your invitations ; nothing could give us more pleasure than to come, but (were there no other reasons) while my brother's leg is so bad it is out of the question. Poor fellow ! he is very feverish and light-headed, but Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favorable, and gives us every hope that there will be no need of amputation : God send not t We are necessarily confined with him all the afternoon and evening till very late, so that I am stealing a minute to write to you.