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 SKETCHES AID LETTERS? ''"^^ 
 
 BEING THE 
 
 FINAL MEMORIALS 
 
 OF 
 
 / 
 
 CHARLES LAMB, 
 
 NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS NOON.TALFOURD, 
 
 ONE OF HIS EXECUTORS. 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 t). APPLETON &L COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 GEO. S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLVIII, 
 
s'N 
 
 :\ 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esa., D.C.L., 
 
 POET LAUREATE, 
 
 THESE FINAL MEMOHIALS 
 
 OF ONE WHO CHERISHED HIS FRIENDSHIP AS A COMFORT AMIDST 
 GRIEFS, AND A GLORY AMIDST DEPRESSIONS, 
 
 ARE, WITH AFFECTION AND RESPECT, 
 
 KnscrfOetr 
 
 BY ONE WHOSE PRIDE IS TO HAVE BEEN IN OLD TIME HIS 
 
 EARNEST ADMIRER, 
 
 AND ONE OF WHOSE FONDEST WISHES IS 
 
 THAT HE MAY BE LONG SPARED TO ENJOY FAME, RARELY ACCORDED 
 
 TO THE LIVING; 
 
 ^ 
 
 U/ M 
 
 ^|K-^ 
 
 *K^ 
 
 V 
 
/ 
 
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 ^# 
 
 ,/\ 
 
 i 
 
? 
 
 Nearly twelve years have elapsed since the Letters of 
 Charles Lamb, accompanied by such slight sketches of his 
 Life as might link them together, and explain the circum- 
 
 -^ stances to which they refer, were given to the world. In 
 the Preface to that work, reference was made to letters yet 
 remaining unpublished, and to a period when a more com- 
 plete estimate might be formed of the singular and delight- 
 ful character of the writer than was there presented. That 
 >s period has arrived. Several of his friends, who might pos- 
 
 / sibly have felt a moment's pain at the publication of some of 
 those effusions of kindness, in which they are sportively 
 mentioned, have been removed by death ; and the dismissal 
 of the last, and to him the dearest of all, his sister, while it 
 has brought to her the repose she sighed for ever since she 
 lost him, has released his biographer from a difficulty which 
 
 -3 has hitherto prevented a due appreciation of some of his 
 noblest qualities. Her most lamentable, but most innocent 
 
 i^ agency in the event which consigned her for life to his pro= 
 tection, forbade the introduction of any letter, or allusion to 
 any incident, which might ever, in the long and dismal 
 
 /' 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 twilight of consciousness which she endured, shock her by 
 the recurrence of long past and terrible sorrows ; and the 
 same consideration for her induced the suppression of every 
 passage which referred to the malady with which she was 
 through life at intervals afflicted. Although her death had 
 removed the objection to a reference to her intermittent suf- 
 fering, it still left a momentous question, whether even then, 
 when no relative remained to be affected by the disclosure, 
 it would be right to unveil the dreadful calamity which 
 marked one of its earliest visitations, and which, though 
 known to most of those who were intimate with the surviv- 
 ing sufferers, had never been publicly associated with their 
 history. When, however, I reflected that the truth, while in 
 no wise affecting the gentle excellence of one of them, casts 
 new and solemn lights on the character of the other ; that 
 while his frailties have received an ample share of that in- 
 dulgence which he extended to all human weaknesses, their 
 chief exciting cause has been hidden ; that his moral strength 
 and the extent of his self-sacrifice have been hitherto un- 
 known to the world ; I felt that to develope all which is es- 
 sential to the just appreciation of his rare excellence, was 
 due both to him and to the public. While I still hesitated as 
 to the extent of disclosure needful for this purpose, my linger- 
 ing doubts were removed by the appearance of a full state- 
 ment of the melancholy event, with all the details capable of 
 being collected from the newspapers of the time, in the 
 " British -Quarterly Review," and the diffusion of the pas- 
 sage, extracted thence, through several other journals. After 
 this publication, no doubt could remain as to the propriety of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 publishing ths letters of Lamb on this event, eminently ex- 
 alting 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 introduc- 
 ing some letters, the objection to publishing which has been ob- 
 viated 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 appre- 
 ciation 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 distin- 
 guish 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 neces- 
 sary — I have made him a partaker of all the epistolary trea- 
 sures which the generosity of Lamb's correspondents placed 
 at Mr. Moxon's disposal. 
 
 When I first considered the materials of this work, I pur- 
 
 1* 
 
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 pre- 
 sent them to the public in a separate form. In accomplish- 
 ing that object, T have felt the difficulty of connecting the 
 letters so as to render their attendant circumstances intelli- 
 gible, without falling into repetition of passages in the pre- 
 vious biography. My attempt has been to make these 
 volumes subsidiary to the former, and yet complete in them- 
 selves ; but I fear its imperfection will require much indul- 
 gence 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 print- 
 ed as in the originals. 
 
 In venturing to introduce some notices of Lamb's de- 
 ceased companions, I have been impelled partly by a desire 
 to explain any allusion in the letters which might be misun- 
 derstood 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 associ- 
 ated in the recollection of a few survivors. 
 
 T. N. T. 
 
 London, 
 
 July, 1848. 
 
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 
 
12 FINaL BIEMORIALS of CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 excite- 
 ments of his succeedin<j forty vears, it never recurred. Per- 
 haps the true cause of this remarkable exemption — an ex- 
 emption the more remarkable when his afflictions are con- 
 sidered in association with one single frailty — will be found 
 in the sudden claim made on his moral and intellectual na- 
 ture 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 pro- 
 bably the earliest of Lamb's letters which have been preserv- 
 ed, 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 corres- 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 13 
 
 pondence, 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 pro- 
 cure forthwith. There were noble lines in what you insert- 
 ed 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, unpro- 
 fitable, 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 
 
14 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 al- 
 most 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. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 15 
 
 With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remem- 
 brances to C , I conclude. Yours sincerely, 
 
 Labib. 
 
 Your " Conciones ad Populum*' are the most eloquent po- 
 litics 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 hav- 
 ing seen her, but, believe me, our best good wishes attend 
 you both. 
 
 My civic and poetic compliments to Southey if at Bris- 
 tol ; — why, he is a very Leviathan of Bards — the small min- 
 now, 1 ! 
 
 tn the spring of this year, Coleridge proposed the as- 
 sociation 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 pre- 
 sumption in giving you my opinion of 'em. The mail does 
 not come in before to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. The 
 
16 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 ham- 
 let in the peaceful plain." Your ears are not so very fasti- 
 dious ; many people would not like words so prosaic and fa- 
 miliar 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. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 17 
 
 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. 
 
18 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 ques- 
 tion 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. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 19 
 
 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 Cruik- 
 shanks. 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 pro- 
 pensity 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. 
 
20 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 disposi- 
 tion 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 — 
 
 " This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month." 
 
 They are exactly such epithets as Burns would have stum- 
 bled 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? Ac- 
 cept 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 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 21 
 
 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. Fare- 
 well, 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 admira- 
 tion. You may safely rest your fame on it. The best re- 
 maining 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 
 
22 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 more of unity. The conclusion of your " Religious Mu- 
 sings" 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 " Reli- 
 gious Musings." I shall read the whole carefully, and in 
 some future letter take the liberty to particularize my opin- 
 ions 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 convey- 
 ing a pleasing picture of Mrs. C. checking your wild wan- 
 derings, 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 re- 
 marked 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 what- 
 ever 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 tran- 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 23 
 
 sient 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, writ- 
 ten 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 selec- 
 tion 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 
 
24 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 lofty- 
 pacedness 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 inti- 
 mate a footing for the dignity of the former. Necessarian- 
 like 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 pro- 
 cession, 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." 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 25 
 
 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 pre- 
 serving 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, consider- 
 ing 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 anec- 
 dotes 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 
 
 2 
 
26 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 besides. What says Coleridge ? The " Monody on Hen- 
 derson" is immensely good, the rest of that little volume is 
 readable and above mediocrity. I proceed to a more plea- 
 sant 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 sis- 
 ter'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. 
 
 Thank you for your frequent letters ; you are the only 
 correspondent, and, I might add, the only friend I have in 
 the world. I go nowhere, and have no acquaintance. Slow 
 of speech, and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares 
 for my society ; and I am left alone. A- calls only oc- 
 casionally, as though it were a duty rather, and seldom stays 
 ten minutes. Then judge how thankful I am for your let- 
 ters ! Do not, however, burthen yourself with the corres- 
 pondence. I trouble you again so soon, only in obedience 
 to your injunctions. Complaints apart, proceed we to our 
 task. I am called away to tea ; thence must wait upon my 
 brother ; so must delay till to-morrow. Farewell. Wednesday. 
 
 Thursday. — I will first notice what is new to me. Thir- 
 teenth page : " The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul" 
 is a nervous line, and the six first lines of page fourteen are 
 very pretty ; the twenty-first effusion a perfect thing. That 
 in the manner of Spenser is very sweet, particularly at the 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 27 
 
 close : the thirty-fifih efFusion is most exquisite ; that line in 
 particular, ''■ And, tranquil, muse upon tranquillity." It is 
 the very reflex pleasure that distinguishes the tranquillity of 
 a thinking being from that of a shepherd, a modern one I 
 would be understood to mean, a Damsetas, one that keeps 
 other people's sheep. Certainly, Coleridge, your letter from 
 Shurton Bars has less merit than most things in your volume ; 
 personally it may chime in with your own feelings, and 
 therefore you love it best. Jt has, however, great merit. In 
 your fourth epistle that is an exquisite paragraph, and fancy- 
 full, of " A stream there is which rolls in lazy flow," &c., 
 &c. " Murmurs sweet unisons 'mid jasmin bowers" is a 
 sweet line, and so are the three next. The concluding 
 simile is far-fetched — " tempest-honored" is a quaintish 
 phrase. 
 
 Yours is a poetical family. I was much surprised and 
 pleased to see the signature of Sara to that elegant composi- 
 tion, the fifth epistle. I dared not criticise the " Religious 
 Musings ;" I like not to select any part, where all is excel- 
 lent. I can only admire, and thank you for it in the name 
 of a Christian, as well as a lover of good poetry ; only let me 
 ask, is not that thought and those words in Young, " stands 
 in the sun," — or is it only such as Young, in one of his hetler 
 moments, might have writ ? — 
 
 *•' Believe thou, O my soul, 
 Life is a vision shadowy of truth ; 
 And vice, and anguish, and the vv^ormy grave. 
 Shapes of a dream !" 
 
 I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian, and 
 for what follows in next paragraph, in the name of a child 
 of fancy. After all, you cannot, nor ever will, write any 
 thing with which I shall be so delighted as what I have 
 heard yourself repeat. You came to town, and I saw you 
 
28 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAxMB. 
 
 at a time when your heart was yet bleeding with recent 
 wounds. Like yourself, I was sore galled with disappointed 
 hope ; you had 
 
 " many an holy lay 
 
 That, mourning, soothed the mourner on his way ;" 
 
 I had ears of sympathy to drink them in, and they yet 
 vibrate pleasant on the sense. When I read in your little 
 volume, your nineteenth effusion, or the twenty-eighth, or 
 twenty-ninth, or what you call the " Sigh," I think I 
 hear you again. I imagine to myself the little smoky room 
 at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together 
 through the winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with 
 Poesy. When you left London, I felt a dismal void in my 
 heart. I found myself cut off, at one and the same time, 
 from two most dear to me. ^ " How blest with ye the path 
 could I have trod of quiet life !" In your conversation you 
 had blended so many pleasant fancies that they cheated me 
 of my grief. But in your absence the tide of melancholy 
 rushed in again and did its worst mischief by overwhelming 
 my reason. I have recovered, but feel a stupor that makes 
 me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I some- 
 times wish to introduce a religious turn of mind, but habits 
 are strong things, and my religious fervors are confined, 
 alas ! to some fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion. 
 A correspondence, opening with you, has roused me a little 
 from my lethargy and made me conscious of existence. In- 
 dulge me in it : I will not be very troublesome ! At some 
 future time I will amuse you with an account, as full as my 
 memory will permit, of the strange turns my phrensy took. 
 I look back upon it at times with a gloomy kind of envy ; 
 for while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happi- 
 ness. Dream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all the gran- 
 deur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad ! All 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 29 
 
 now seems to me vapid, comparatively so. Excuse this self- 
 ish digression. Your "Monody" is so superlatively excel- 
 lent, that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feel- 
 ing it is not quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures ; what 
 I am going to propose would make it more compressed, and, 
 I think, more energetic, though I am sensible at the expense 
 of many beautiful lines. Let it begin '• Is this the land of 
 song-ennobled line ?" and proceed to " Otway's famished 
 form;" then, " The Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim;" 
 then, " clad in Nature's rich array," to "orient day ;" then 
 " but soon the scathing lightning" to " blighted land;" then, 
 " sublime of thought," to " his bosom glows ;" then, 
 
 " But soon upon his poor unsheltered head 
 Did Penury her sickly mildew shed ; 
 And soon are fled the charms of early grace, 
 And joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er his face." 
 
 Then "youth of tumultuous soul" to " sigh" as before. The 
 rest may all stand down to " gaze upon the waves below." 
 What follows now may come next as detached verses, sug- 
 gested by the Monody, rather than a part of it. They are, 
 indeed, in themselves very sweet. 
 
 " And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, 
 Hanging enraptured on thy stately song !" 
 
 in particular, perhaps. If I am obscure, you may understand 
 me by counting lines : I have proposed omitting twenty-four 
 lines : I feel that thus compressed it would gain energy, but 
 think it most likely you will not agree with me ; for who 
 shall go about to bring opinions to the bed of Procrustes, and 
 introduce among the sons of men a monotony of identical 
 feelings? I only propose with diffidence. Reject you, if 
 you please, with as little remorse as you would the color of 
 a coat or the pattern of a buckle, where our fancies differed. 
 
30 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 '' The " Pixies" is a perfect thing, and so are the " Lines 
 on Spring," page 28. The " Epitaph on an Infant," like a 
 Jack-o'-lanthorn, has danced about (or like Dr. Forster's 
 scholars) out of the Morning Chronicle into the Watchman, 
 and thence back into your collection. It is very pretty, and 
 you seem to think so, but, may be, overlooked its chief merit, 
 that of filling up a whole page. I had once deemed Sonnets 
 of unrivalled use that way, but your Epitaphs, I find, are 
 the more diffuse. " Edmund" still holds its place among 
 your best verses. " Ah ! fair delights" to " roses round," 
 in your Poem called " Absence," recall (none more forcibly) 
 to my mind the tones in which you recited it. I will not no- 
 tice, in this tedious (to you) manner, verses which have been 
 so long delightful to me, and which you already know my 
 opinion of. Of this kind are Bowles, Priestly, and that most 
 exquisite and most Bowles-like of all, the nineteenth effusion. 
 It would have better ended with " agony of care :" the two 
 last lines are obvious and unnecessary, and you need not 
 now make fourteen lines of it ; now it is rechristened from a 
 Sonnet to an Effusion. Schiller might have written the 
 twentieth effusion : 'tis worthy of him in any sense. I was 
 glad to meet with those lines you sent me when my sister 
 was so ill ; I had lost the copy, and felt not a li' tie proud at 
 seeing my name in your verse. The complaint of Nina- 
 thoma (first stanza in particular) is the best, or only good 
 imitation, of Ossian I ever saw — your " Restless Gale" ex- 
 cepted. " To an Infant" is most sweet ; is not " foodful," 
 though, very harsh? Would not "dulcet" fruit be less 
 harsh, or some other friendly bi-syllable ? In " Edmund," 
 " Frenzy ! fierce-eyed child" is not so well as " frantic," 
 though that is an epithet adding nothing to the meaning. 
 Slander couching was better than " squatting." In the " Man 
 of Ross" it was a better line thus : 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 31 
 
 " If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheered moments pass," 
 
 than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile 
 me to the concluding five lines of *' Kosciusko :" call it 
 any thing you will but sublime. In my twelfth effusion I 
 had rather have seen what I wrote myself, though they bear 
 no comparison with your exquisite lines — 
 
 " On rose-leaf-beds amid your faery bowers," &c. 
 
 I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images 
 of my own feelings at different times. To instance, in the 
 thirteenth — 
 
 " How reason reeled," &c., 
 
 are good lines, but must spoil the whole with me, who know 
 it is only a fiction of yours, and that the " rude dashings" 
 in fact did not " rock me to repose." I grant the same ob- 
 jection applies not to the former sonnet ; but still I love my 
 own feelings ; they are dear to memory, though they now 
 and then wake a sigh or a tear. " Thinking on divers things 
 foredone," I charge you, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs ; 
 and though a gentleman may borrow six lines in an epic 
 poem (I should have no objection to borrow five hundred, and 
 without acknowledging), still, in a sonnet, a personal poem, 
 I do not " ask my friend the aiding verse ;" I would not 
 wrong your feelings, by proposing any improvements in such 
 personal poems as " Thou bleedest, my poor heart," — 'od so, 
 — I am caught — I have already done it; but that simile I 
 propose abridging, would not change the feeling or introduce 
 any alien ones. Do you understand me ? In the twenty- 
 eigth, however, and in the " Sigh," and that composed at 
 Clevedon, things that come from the heart direct, not by the 
 medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an alteration. 
 When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poem, 
 " propono tibi alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridgandum," 
 
32 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB, 
 
 just what you will with it ; but spare my ewe-lambs ! That 
 "To Mrs. Siddons," now, you were welcome to improve, if it 
 had been worth ; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, spare 
 my ewe-lambs ! 1 must confess, were they mine, I should 
 omit, in edUione secundd, effusions two and three, because 
 satiric, and below the dignity of the poet of " Religious Mu- 
 sings," fifth, seventh, half of the eighth, that " Written in 
 early youth," as far as "thousand eyes," — though I part not 
 unreluctantly with that lively line — 
 
 " Chaste joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes," 
 
 and one or two just thereabouts. But I would substitute for 
 it that sweet poem called " Recollection," in the fifth number 
 of the Watchman, better, I think, than the remainder of this 
 poem, though not differing materially : as the poem now 
 stands it looks altogether confused ; and do not omit those 
 lines upon the " Early Blossom," in your sixth number of 
 the Watchman ; and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what 
 would do better, alter and improve the last four lines. In 
 fact, I suppose, if they were mine, I should not omit 'em ; 
 but your verse is, for the most part, so exquisite, that I like 
 not to see aught of meaner matter mixed with it. Forgive 
 my petulance, and often, I fear, ill-founded criticisms, and 
 forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and 
 head ache with my long letter; but I cannot forego hastily 
 the pleasure and pride of thus conversing with you. You 
 did not tell me whether I was to include the " Conciones ad 
 Populum " in my remarks on your poems. They are not 
 unfrequcntly sublime, and I think you could not do better 
 than to turn 'em into verse — if you have nothing else to do. 
 
 A , I am sorry to say, is a confirmed x\theist ; S , a 
 
 cold-hearted, well-bred, conceited disciple of Godwin, docs 
 him no good. 
 
 How I sympathize with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 33 
 
 and heartily damn with you Ned E and the Prosodist. 
 
 I shall, however, wait impatiently for the articles in the Criti- 
 cal Review, next month, because they are yours. Young 
 E. (W. Evans, a branch of a family you were once so inti- 
 mate with) is come into our office, and sends his love to you ! 
 Coleridge ! I devoutly wish that Fortune, who has made 
 sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you 
 into London, or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for 
 life. It is a selfish, but natural wish for me, cast as I am 
 "on life's wide plain, friendless." Are you acquainted with 
 Bowles ? I see, by his last Elegy, (written at Bath,) you are 
 near neighbors. Thursday. 
 
 I do not know that I entirely agree with you in your 
 stricture upon my sonnet " To Innocence." To men whose 
 hearts are not quite deadened by their commerce with the 
 world, innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an awful idea. 
 So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified 
 and sweetened, though, with praises somewhat extravagant) 
 I perfectly coincide with ; yet I choose to retain the word 
 " lunar " — indulge a " lunatic " in his loyalty to his mistress 
 the moon ! I have just been reading a most pathetic copy of 
 verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged and burnt for 
 coining. One of the strokes of pathos (which are very many, 
 all somewhat obscure,) is, " She lifted up her guilty forger 
 to heaven." A note explains, by •' forger," her right hand, 
 with which she forged or coined the base metal. For pathos 
 read bathos. You have put me out of conceit with my blank 
 verses by your " Religious Musings." I think they will 
 come to nothing. I do not like 'em enough to send them. 
 I have just been reading a book, which I may be too partial 
 to, as it was the delight of my childhood ; but I will recom- 
 mend it to you ; — it is Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler." 
 All the scientific part you may omit in reading. The dia- 
 logue is very simple, full of pastoral beauties, and will charm 
 
 2* 
 
34 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 you. Many pretty old verses are inserted. This letter, 
 which would be a week's work reading only, I do not wish 
 you to answer it in less than a month. I shall be richly 
 content with a letter from you some day early in July ; 
 though, if you get any how settled before then, pray let me 
 know it immediately ; it would give me much satisfaction. 
 Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the salary is the only scru- 
 ple that the most rigid moralist would admit as valid. Con- 
 cerning the tutorage, is not the salary low, and absence from 
 your family unavoidable ? London is the only fostering soil 
 for genius. Nothing more occurs just now ; so I will leave 
 you, in mercy, one small white spot empty below, to repose 
 your eyes upon, fatigued as they must be, with the wilder- 
 ness of words they have by this time painfully traveled 
 through. God love you, Coleridge, and prosper you through 
 life ; though mine will be loss if your lot is to be cast at 
 Bristol, or at Nottingham, or anywhere but London. Our 
 
 loves to Mrs. C . 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Friday, lOiA June, 1796. 
 
 Coleridge, settled in his melancholy cottage, invited 
 Lamb to visit him. The hope — the expectation — the disap- 
 pointment, are depicted in the following letter, written in 
 the summer of the eventful year 1796. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 The first moment I can come, I will ; but my hopes of 
 coming yet a while, hang on a ticklish thread. The coach 
 I come by is immaterial, as I shall so easily, by your direc- 
 tion, find ye out. My mother is grown so entirely helpless 
 (not having any use of her limbs) that Mary is necessarily 
 confined from ever sleeping out, she being her bed-fellow. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 35 
 
 She thanks you though, and will accompany me in spirit. 
 Most exquisite are the lines from Withers. Your own lines, 
 introductory to your poem on " Self," run smoothly and 
 pleasurably, and I exhort you to continue 'em. What shall 
 I say to your " Dactyls ?" They are what you would call 
 good per se, but a parody on some of 'em is just now sug- 
 gesting itself, and you shall have it rough and unlicked ; I 
 mark with figures the lines parodied : — 
 
 4. — Sorely your Dactyls do drag along limp-footed. 
 
 5. — Sad is the measure that hangs a clog round 'em so. 
 
 6. — Meagre and languid, proclaiming its wretchedness. 
 
 1. — Weary, unsatisfied, not a little sick of 'em. 
 11. — Cold is my tired heart, I have no charity. 
 
 2. — Painfully traveling thus over the rugged road. 
 
 7. — O begone, measure, half Latin, half English, then. 
 12. — Dismal your Dactyls are, God help ye, rhyming ones! 
 
 I possibly may not come this fortnight ; therefore, all 
 thou hast to do is not to look for me any particular day, only 
 to write word immediately, if at any time you quit Bristol, 
 lest I come and Taffy be not at home. I hope I can come 
 
 in a day or two ; but young S , of my office, is suddenly 
 
 taken ill in this very nick of time, and I must officiate for 
 him till he can come to work again : had the knave gone 
 sick, and died, and been buried at any other lime, philosophy 
 might have afforded one comfort, but just now I have na 
 patience with him. Quarles I am as great a stranger to as 
 I was to Withers. I wish you would try and do something 
 to bring our elder bards into more general fame. I writhe 
 with indignation when, in books of criticism, where common- 
 place quotation is heaped upon quotation, I find no mention 
 of such men as Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, men 
 with whom succeeding dramatic writers (Otway alone ex- 
 
36 PINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 cepted)* can bear no manner of comparison. Stupid Knox 
 hath noticed none of 'em among his extracts. 
 
 Thursday. — Mrs. C can scarcely guess how she has 
 
 gratified me by her very kind letter and sweet little poem. 
 I feel that I should thank her in rhyme, but she must take 
 my acknowledgment, at present, in plain honest prose. The 
 uncertainty in which I yet stand, whether I can come or no, 
 damps my spirits, reduces me a degree below prosaical, and 
 keeps me in a suspense that fluctuates between hope and 
 fear. Hope is a charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, and I 
 am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the 
 visitor she brings with her — her younger sister, Fear, a 
 white-livered, lily-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward 
 hussy, that hangs, like a green girl, at her sister's apron- 
 strings, and will go with her wherever she goes. For the 
 life and soul of me, I could not improve those lines in your 
 poem on the Prince and Princess, so I changed them to what 
 you bid me, and left them at Perry's.f I think them alto- 
 gether good, and do not see why you were solicitous about 
 any alteration. I have not yet seen, but will make it my 
 business to see, to-day's Chronicle, for your verses on Home 
 
 * An exception he certainly would not have made a few years after- 
 wards ; for he used to mention two pretty lines in the " Orphan," 
 
 " Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains, 
 With all his fleecy flock at feed beside him," 
 
 as a redeeming passage amidst mere stage trickeries. The great merit 
 which lies in the construction of " Venice Preserved," was not in his 
 line of appreciation ; and he thought Thompson's reference to Otway's 
 ladies — 
 
 " poor Monimia mourns, 
 
 And Belvidera pours her soul in love," 
 
 worth both heroines. 
 
 - t Some " occasional " verses of Coleridge's written to order for the 
 Morning Chronicle. 
 
LETTEKS TO COLERIDGE. 37 
 
 Tooke. Dyer stanza'd him in one of the papers of this day, 
 but, I think, unsuccessfully. Tooke's friends meeting was, 
 I suppose, a dinner of condolence."*' I am not sorry to find 
 you (for all Sara) immersed in clouds of smoke and meta- 
 physics. You know I had a sneaking kindness for this last 
 noble science, and you taught me some smattering of it. I 
 look to become no mean proficient under your tuition. Cole- 
 ridge, what do you mean by saying you wrote to me about 
 Plutarch and Porphyry ? I received no such letter, nor 
 remember a syllable of the matter, yet am not apt to forget 
 any part of your epistles, least of all, an injunction like that. 
 I will cast about for 'em tho'. I am a sad hand to know 
 what books are worth, and both these worthy gentlemen are 
 alike out of my line. To-morrow I shall be less suspensive, 
 and in better cue to write, so good bye at present. 
 
 Friday Evening. — That execrable aristocrat and knave 
 
 R has given me an absolute refusal of leave. The 
 
 poor man cannot guess at my disappointment. Is it not hard, 
 "this dread dependance on the low-bred mind?" Continue 
 to write to me tho', and I must be content. Our loves and 
 
 best good wishes attend upon you both. 
 
 Lamb. 
 
 S did return, but there are two or three more ill and 
 
 absent, vvhich was the plea for refusing me. I shall never 
 have heart to ask for holidays again. The man next him in 
 office, C — — , furnished him with the objections. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The little copy of verses in which Lamb commemorated 
 and softened his disappointment, bearing date (a most unusual 
 circumstance with Lamb), 5th July, 1796, was inclosed in a 
 
 * This was jusl after the Westminster Election, in which Mr. Tooke 
 was defeated. 
 
38 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 letter of the following day, which refers to a scheme Cole- 
 ridge had formed of settling in London on an invitation to 
 share the Editorship of the Morning Chronicle. The poem 
 includes a lamentation over a fantastical loss — that of a 
 draught of the Avon " which Shakespeare drank ;" some- 
 what strangely confounding the Avon of Stratford with that 
 of Bristol. It may be doubted whether Shakespeare knew the 
 taste of one Avon more than of the other, or whether Lamb 
 would not have found more kindred with the world's poet in 
 a glass of sack, than in the water of either stream. Cole- 
 ridge must have enjoyed the misplaced sentiment of his 
 friend, for he was singularly destitute of sympathy with local 
 associations, which he regarded as interfering with the pure 
 and simple impression of great deeds or thoughts ; denied a 
 special interest to the Pass of Thermopylae ; and instead of 
 subscribing to purchase " Shakespeare's House," would 
 scarcely have admitted the peculiar sanctity of the spot which 
 enshrines his ashes. 
 
 TO SARA AND HER SAMUEL. 
 
 Was it so hard a thing 1 — I did but ask 
 A fleeting holiday. One little week, 
 Or haply two, had bounded my request. 
 
 What if the jaded steer, who all day long 
 
 Had borne the heat and labor of the plough, 
 
 When evening came, and her sweet cooling hour, 
 
 Should seek to trespass on a neighbor copse. 
 
 Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams 
 
 Invited him to slake his burning thirst ? 
 
 That man were crabbed, who should say him nay ; 
 
 That man were churlish, who should drive him thence ! 
 
 A blessing light upon your heads, ye good, 
 Ye hospitable pair ! I may not come 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 39 
 
 To catch on Clifiden's heights the summer gale ; 
 I may not come a pilgrim to the vales 
 Of Avon, lucid stream, to taste the waves 
 Which Shakspeare drank, our British Helicon : 
 Or with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers, 
 To muse in tears on that mysterious youth. 
 Cruelly slighted, who to London walls, 
 In evil hour, shaped his disastrous course. 
 With better hop6s, I trust, from Avon's vales, 
 Another " minstrel" cometh ! Youth endear'd, 
 God and good angels guide thee on thy road, 
 And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The letter accompanying these verses begins cheerfully 
 thus : 
 
 What can I do till you send word what priced and placed 
 house you should like ? Islington, possibly, you would not 
 like ; to me 'tis classical ground. Knightsbridge is a desira- 
 ble situation for the air of the parks ; St. George's Fields is 
 convenient for its contiguity to the Bench. Choose ! But 
 are you really coming to town ? The hope of it has entirely 
 disarmed my petty disappointment of its nettles, yet I rejoice 
 so much on my own account, that I fear I do not feel enough 
 pure satisfaction on yours. Why, surely, the joint editorship 
 of the Chronicle must be very comfortable and secure living 
 for a man. But should you not read French, or do you ? and 
 can you write with sufficient moderation, as 'tis called, when 
 one suppresses the one-half of what one feels or could say 
 on a subject, to chime in the better with popular lukewarm- 
 ness ? White's " Letters " are near publication ; could you 
 review 'em or get 'em reviewed ? Are you not connected 
 with ■ the Critical Review ? His frontispiece is a good con- 
 ceit — Sir John learning to dance to please Madame Page, a 
 dress of doublet, &c., invests his upper half, and modern 
 
40 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 pantaloons with shoes, &c., of the eighteenth century, his 
 lower half; and the whole work is full of goodly quips and 
 rare fancies, " all deftly masqued like hoar antiquity " — 
 much superior to Dr. Kenrick's " FalstafF's Wedding," 
 
 which you may have seen. A sometimes laughs at 
 
 superstition, and religion, and the like. A living fell vacant 
 lately in the gift of the hospital : White informed him that 
 he stood a fair chance for it. He scrupled and scrupled 
 about it, and at last, to use his own words, " tampered " with 
 Godwin to know whether the thing was honest or not. God- 
 win said nay to it, and A rejected the living ! Could 
 
 the blindest poor papist have bowed more servilely to his 
 priest or casuist ? Why sleep the Watchman's answers to 
 that Godwin ? I beg you will not delay to alter, if you mean 
 to keep those last lines I sent you. Do that, and read these 
 for your pains : — 
 
 TO THE POET COWPER. 
 
 Cowper, I thank my God that thou art heal'd ! 
 Thine was the sorest malady of all ; 
 And I am sad to thhik that it should light 
 Upon the worthy head ! But thou art heal'd. 
 And thou art yet, we trust, the destined man, 
 Born to reanimate the lyre, whose chords 
 Have slumber'd, and have idle lain so long ; 
 To the immortal sounding of" whose strings 
 Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse ; 
 Among whose verses with light finger playing, 
 Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentle name, 
 The lady Muses' dearest darling child. 
 Elicited the deftest tunes yet heard 
 In hall or bower, taking the delicate ear 
 ■ Of Sidney and his peerless Maiden Queen. 
 
 Thou, then, take up the mighty epic strain, 
 Cowper, of England's Bards, the wisest and the best. 
 1796. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 41 
 
 I have read your climax of praises in those three Re- 
 views. These mighty spouters out of panegyric waters 
 have, two of them, scattered their spray even upon me, and 
 the waters are cooling and refreshing. Prosaically, the 
 Monthly reviewers have made indeed a large article of it, 
 and done you justice. The Critical have, in their wisdom, 
 selected not the very best specimens, and notice not, except 
 as one name on the muster-roll, the " Religious Musings." 
 I suspect Master D to have been the writer of that arti- 
 cle, as the substance of it was the very remarks and the very 
 language he used to me one day. I fear you will not accord 
 entirely with my sentiments of Cowper, as expressed above 
 (perhaps scarcely just) ; but the poor gentleman has just 
 recovered from his lunacies, and that begets pity, and pity 
 love, and love admiration ; and then it goes hard with people 
 but they lie ! Have you read the Ballad called " Leonora," 
 in the second number of the Monthly Magazine ? If you 
 have ! ! ! ! There is another fine song, from the same author 
 (Burger), in the third number, of scarce inferior merit ; and 
 (vastly below these) there are some happy specimens of 
 English hexameters, in an imitation of Ossian, in the fifth 
 number. For your Dactyls — I am sorry you are so sore 
 about 'em — a very Sir Fretful ! In good troth, the Dactyls 
 are good Dactyls, but their measure is naught. Be not your- 
 self " half anger, half agony," if I pronounce your darling 
 lines not to be the best you ever wrote in all your life — you 
 have written much. 
 
 Have a care, good Master Poet, of the Statute de Contu- 
 melid. What do you mean by calling Madame Maras, — 
 harlots, and naughty things?* The goodness of the verse 
 
 * " I detest 
 
 These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng, 
 Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast 
 In intricacies of laborious song." 
 
 Lines composed in a Concert Boom by S. T. C. 
 
42 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 would not save you in a court of justice. But are you really 
 coming to town, Coleridge ? A gentleman called in London 
 lately, from Bristol, and inquired whether there were any of 
 the family of a Mr. Chambers living : this Mr. Chambers, he 
 said, had been the making of a friend's fortune, who wished 
 to make some return for it. He went away without seeing 
 her. Now, a Mrs. Reynolds, a very intimate friend of ours, 
 whom you have seen at our house, is the only daughter, and 
 all that survives, of Mr. Chambers ; and a very little supply 
 would be of service to her, for she married very unfortunate- 
 ly, and has parted with her husband. Pray find out this Mr. 
 Pember (for that was the gentleman's name) ; he is an attor- 
 ney, and lives at Jristol. Find him out, and acquaint him with 
 the circumstances of the case, and offer to be the medium of 
 supply to Mrs. Reynolds, if he chooses to make her a present. 
 She is in very distressed circumstances. Mr. Pember, attor- 
 ney, Bristol. Mr. Chambers lived in the Temple; Mrs. 
 Reynolds, his daughter, was my schoolmistress, and is in the 
 room at this present writing. This last circumstance in- 
 duced me to write so soon again. I have not further to add. 
 Our loves to Sara. Thursday. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 LETTERS OF LAMB TO COLERIDGE, CHIEFLY RELATING TO THE DEATH OF 
 MRS. LAMB, AND MISS LAMB'S SUBSEQUENT CONDITION. 
 
 The autumn of 1796 found Lamb engaged all the morn- 
 ing in task-work at the India House, and all the evening in 
 attempting to amuse his father by playing cribbage ; some- 
 times snatching a few minutes for his only pleasure, writing 
 to Coleridge ; while Miss Lamb was worn down to a state of 
 extreme nervous misery, by attention to needlework by day, 
 and to her mother by night, until the insanity, which had 
 been manifested more than once, broke out into frenzy, 
 which, on Thursday, 22nd of September, proved fatal to her 
 mother. The following account of the proceedings on the 
 inquest, copied from the Times of Monday, 26th September, 
 1796, supplies the details of this terrible calamity, doubtless 
 with accuracy, except that it would seem, from Lamb's en- 
 suing letter to Coleridge, that he, and not the landlord, took 
 the knife from the unconscious hand. 
 
 " On Friday afternoon, the coroner and a jury sat on the 
 body of a lady in the neighborhood of Hoi born, who died in 
 consequence of a wound from her daughter the preceding 
 day. It appeared, by the evidence adduced, that, while the 
 family were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a 
 case-knife lying on the table, and in a menacing manner 
 pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room. On 
 the calls of her infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her 
 
44 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 first object, and, with loud shrieks, approached her parent. 
 The child, by her cries, quickly brought up the landlord of 
 the house, but too late. The dreadful scene presented to 
 him the mother lifeless, pierced to the heart, on a chair, her 
 daughter yet wildly standing over her with the fatal knife, 
 and the old man, her father, weeping by her side, himself 
 bleeding at the forehead from the effects of a severe blow he 
 received from one of the forks she had been madly hurling 
 about the room. 
 
 " For a few days prior to this, the family had observed 
 some symptoms of insanity in her, which had so much in- 
 creased on Wednesday evening, that her brother, early the 
 next morning, went to Dr. Pitcairn, but that gentleman was 
 not at home. 
 
 " It seems the young lady had been once before de- 
 ranged. 
 
 " The jury, of course, brought in their verdict — Lu- 
 nacy.''' * 
 
 The foUowins; is Lamb's account of the event to Cole- 
 ridge : — 
 
 My dearest Friend, 
 
 White, or some of my friends, or the public 
 papers, by this time may have informed you of the terrible 
 
 * A statement nearly similar lo this will be found in several other 
 journals of the day, and in the Annual Register for the year. The 
 " True Briton" adds: — " It appears she had been before, in the earlier 
 part of her life, deranged, from the harassing fatigues of too much bu- 
 siness. As her carriage towards her mother had always been affection- 
 ate in the extreme, it is believed her increased attachment to her, 
 as her infirmities called for it by day and by night, caused her loss 
 of reason at this time. It has been stated in some of the morning 
 papers that she has an insane brother in confinement ; but this is with- 
 out foundation." None of the accounts give the names of the sufferers ; 
 but in the index to the Annual Register, the anonymous account is re- 
 ferred to with Mrs. Lamb's name. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 45 
 
 calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give 
 you the outlines : — My poor dear, dearest sister, in a fit of 
 insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at 
 hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. 
 She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she 
 must be removed to an hospital. God has preserved me my 
 senses, — I eat, and drink, and sleep, and have my judgment 
 I believe, very sound. My poor father was slightly wound- 
 ed, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr. 
 Norris, of the Blue-coat School, has been very very kind to 
 us, and we have no other friend ; but, thank God, I am very 
 calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to 
 do. Write as religious a letter as possible, but no mention 
 of what is gone and done with. With me " the former 
 things are passed away," and I have something more to do 
 than to feel. 
 
 God Almighty have us well in His keeping. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Mention nothing of poetry. I have destroyed every ves- 
 tige of past vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if 
 you publish, publish mine ([ give free leave) without name 
 or initial, and never send me a book, I charge you. 
 
 Your own judgment will convince you not to take any 
 
 notice of this yet to your dear wife. You look after your 
 
 family, — I have my reason and 'strength left to take care of 
 
 mine. I charge you, don't think of conjing to see me — 
 
 write. I will not see you if you come. God Almighty love 
 
 you and all of us. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 After the inquest, Miss Lamb was placed in an Asylum, 
 where she was, in a short time, restored to reason. The fol- 
 lowing is Lamb's next letter. 
 
46 FINAL BIEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 My DEAREST Friend, 
 
 Your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It 
 will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects 
 are somewhat brighter. My poor dear, dearest sister, the 
 unhappy and unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judg- 
 ments on our house, is restored to her senses ; to a dreadful 
 sense and recollection of what has past, awful to her mind 
 and impressive (as it must be to the end of life), but tem- 
 pered with religious resignation and the reasonings of a sound 
 judgment, which, in this early stage, knows how to distin- 
 guish between a deed committed in a transient fit of frenzy, 
 and the terrible guilt of a mother's murderer. I have seen 
 her. I found her, this morning, calm and serene ; far, very 
 far from an indecent forgetful serenity ; she has a most af- 
 fectionate and tender concern for what has happened. In- 
 deed, from the beginning, frightful and hopeless as her dis- 
 order seemed, I had confidence enough in her strength of 
 mind, and religious principle, to look forward to a time when 
 even she might recover tranquillity. God be praised, Cole- 
 ridge, wonderful as it is to tell, I have never once been 
 otherwise than collected and calm ; even on the dreadful 
 day, and in the midst of the terrible scene, I preserved a 
 tranquillity which bystanders may have construed into indif- 
 ference — a tranquillity not ^r despair. Is it folly or sin in 
 me to say that it was a religious principle that most supported 
 me? I allow much to other favorable circumstances. I felt 
 that I had something else to do than to regret. On that first 
 evening, my aunt was lying insensible, to all appearance like 
 one dying, — my father, with his poor forehead plastered 
 over, from a wound he had received from a daughter dearly 
 loved by him, and who loved him no less dearly, — my mo- 
 ther a dead and murdered corpse in the next room — yet was 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 I wonderfully supported. I closed not my eyes in sleep that 
 night, but lay without terrors and without despair. I have 
 lost no sleep since. I had been long used not to rest in 
 things of sense, — had endeavored after a comprehension of 
 mind, unsatisfied with the " ignorant present time," and this 
 kept me up. I had the whole weight of the family thrown 
 on me ; for my brother, little disposed (1 speak not without 
 tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old age and 
 infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from 
 such duties, and I was now left alone. One little incident 
 may serve to make you understand my way of managing 
 my mind. Within a day or two after the fatal one, we 
 dressed for dinner a tongue which we had had salted for 
 some weeks in the house. As I sat down, a feeling like re- 
 morse struck me ; — this tongue poor Mary got for me, and 
 I can partake of it now, when she is far away ! A thought 
 occurred and relieved me, — if I give into this way of feeling, 
 there is not a chair, a room, an object in our rooms, that will 
 not awaken the keenest griefs ; I must rise above such weak- 
 nesses. I hope this was not want of true feeling. I did not 
 let this carry me, though, too far. On the very second day 
 (I date from the day of horrors), as is usual in such cases, 
 there were a matter of twenty people, I do think, supping in 
 our room ; they prevailed with me to eat with them (for to 
 eat I never refused). They were all making merry in the 
 room ! Some had come from friendship, some from busy cu- 
 riosity, and some from interest ; I was going to partake with 
 them ; when my recollection came that my poor dead mo- 
 ther was lying in the next room — the very next room ; — a 
 mother who, through life, wished nothing but her children's 
 welfare. Indignation, the rage of grief, something like re- 
 morse, rushed upon my mind. In an agony of emotion I 
 found my way mechanically to the adjoining room, and fell 
 on my knees by the side of her coffin, asking forgiveness of 
 
48 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 heaven, and sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon. 
 Tranquillity returned, and it was the only violent emotion 
 that mastered me, and I think it did me good. 
 
 I mention these things because I hate concealment, and 
 love to give a faithful journal of what passes within me. 
 Our friends have been very good. Sam Le Grice, who was 
 then in town, was with me the three or four first days, and 
 was a brother to me, gave up every hour of his time, to the 
 very hurting of his health and spirits, in constant attendance 
 and humoring my poor father ; talked with him, read to 
 him, played at cribbage with him (for so short is the old 
 man's recollection, that he was playing at cards, as though 
 nothing had happened, while the coroner's inquest was sitting 
 over the way) ! Samuel wept tenderly when he went away, 
 for his mother w^rote him a very severe letter on his loitering 
 so long in town, and he was forced to go. Mr. Norris, of 
 Christ's Hosnital, has been as a father to me — Mrs. Norris 
 as a mother ; though we had few claims on them. A gentle- 
 man, brother to my godmother, from whom we never had 
 right or reason to expect any such assistance, sent my father 
 twenty pounds \ and to crown all these God's blessings to 
 our family at such a time, an old lady, a cousin of my father 
 and aunt's, a gentlewoman of fortune, is to take my aunt and 
 make her comfortable for the short remainder of her days. 
 My aunt is recovered, and as well as ever, and highly pleas- 
 ed at thoughts of going — and has generously given up the 
 interest of her little money (which was formerly paid my 
 father for her board) wholely and solely to my sister's use. 
 Reckoning this, we have. Daddy and I, for our two selves 
 and an old maid-servant to look after him, when I am out, 
 which will be necessary, 170/. or rather 180Z. a-year, out of 
 which we can spare 50Z. or 60Z. at least for Mary while she 
 stays at Islington, where she must and shall stay during her 
 father's life, for his and her comfort. I know John will 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 49 
 
 make speeches about it, but she shall not go into an hospital. 
 The good lady of the madhouse, and her daughter, an elegant 
 sweet-behaved young lady, love her, and are taken with 
 her amazingly ; and I knew from her own mouth she loves 
 them, and longs to be with them as much. Poor thing, they 
 say she was but the other morning saying, she knew she 
 must go to Bethlem for life ; that one of her brothers would 
 have it so, but the other would wish it not, but be obliged to 
 go with the stream ; that she had often as she passed Beth= 
 lem thought it likely, '' here it may be my fate to end my 
 days," conscious of a certain flightiness in. her poor head 
 oftentimes, and mindful of more than one severe illness of 
 that nature before. A legacy of 100/., which my father will 
 have at Christmas, and this 201. I mentioned before, with 
 what is in the house, will much more than set us clear. If 
 my father, an old servant-maid, and I, can't live, and live 
 comfortably, on 130/. or 120/. a-year, we ought to burn by 
 slow fires ; and I almost would, that Mary might not go into 
 an hospital. Let me not leave an unfavorable impression on 
 your mind respecting my brother. Since this has happened, 
 he has been very kind and brotherly ; but I fear for his mind, 
 — he has taken his ease in the world, and is not fit himself 
 to struggle with difficulties, nor has much accustomed him- 
 self to throw himself into their way ; and I know his Ian- 
 guage is already, "Charles, you must take care of yourself, 
 you must not abridge yourself of a single pleasure you have 
 been used to," &c., &c., in that style of talking. But you, 
 a necessarian, can respect a difference of mind, and love 
 what is amiable in a character not perfect. He has been 
 very good, — but I fear for his mind. Thank God, I can 
 unconnect myself with him, and shall manage all my father's 
 moneys in future myself, if I take charge of Daddy, which 
 poor John has not even hinted a wish, at any future time 
 even, to share with me. The lady at this madhouse assures 
 
 3 
 
50 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 me that I may dismiss immediately both doctor and apothe- 
 cary, retaining occasionally a composing draught or so for a 
 while ; and there is a less expensive establishment in her 
 house, where she will only not have a room and nurse to 
 herself, for 50/. or guineas a-year — the outside would be 60Z. — 
 you know, by economy, how much more even I shall be able 
 to spare for her comforts. She will, I fancy, if she stays, 
 make one of the family, rather than of the patients; and the 
 old and young ladies I like exceedingly, and she loves dearly ; 
 and they, as the saying is, take to her very extraordinarily, 
 if it is extraordinary that people who see my sister should 
 love her. Of all the people 1 ever saw in the world, my 
 poor sister was most and thoroughly devoid of the least tinc- 
 ture of selfishness. I will enlarge upon her qualities, poor 
 dear, dearest soul, in a future letter, for my own comfort, for 
 I understand her thoroughly ; and, if I mistake not, in the 
 most trying situation that a human being can be found in, 
 she will be found (I speak not with sufficient humility, I fear, 
 but humanly and foolishly speaking), she will be found, I 
 trust, uniformly great and amiable. God keep her in her 
 present mind, to whom be thanks and praise for all His dis- 
 pensations to mankind ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 These mentioned good fortunes and change of prospects 
 had almost brought my mind over to the extreme, the very 
 opposite to despair. I was in danger of making myself too 
 happy. Your letter brought me back to a view of things 
 which 1 had entertained from the beginning. I hope (for 
 Mary I can answer) — but I hope that /shall through life never 
 have less recollection, nor a fainter impression, of what has 
 happened than I have now. It is not a light thing, nor meant 
 by the Almighty to be received lightly. I must be serious, 
 circumspect, and deeply religious through life ; and by such 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 51 
 
 means may both of us escape madness in future, if it so 
 please the Almighty ! 
 
 Send me word how it fares with Sam. I repeat it, your 
 letter was, and will be, an inestimable treasure to me. You 
 have a view of what my situation demands of me, like my 
 own view, and I trust a just one. 
 
 Coleridge, continue to write ; but do not for ever offend 
 me by talking of sending me cash. Sincerely, and on my 
 soul, we do not want it. God love you both. 
 
 I will write again very soon. Do you write directly. 
 
 As Lamb recovered from the shock of his own calamity, 
 he found comfort in gently admonishing his friend on that 
 imbecility of purpose which attended the development of his 
 mighty genius. His next letter, commencing with this office 
 of friendship, soon reverts to the condition of that sufferer, 
 who was endeared to him the more because others shrank 
 from and forsook her. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 My DEAREST Friend, 
 
 I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your 
 plans of life, veering about from this hope to the other, and 
 settling nowhere. Is it an untoward fatality (speaking hu- 
 manly) that does this for you — a stubborn, irresistible con- 
 currence of events — or lies the fault, as I fear it does, in your 
 own mind ? You seem to be taking up splendid schemes of 
 fortune only to lay them down again ; and your fortunes are 
 an ignis fatuus that has been conducting you, in thought, from 
 Lancaster-court, Strand, to somewhere near Matlock ; then 
 jumping across to Dr. Somebody's, whose son's tutor you 
 
52 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 were likely to be ; and, would to God, the dancing demon 
 may conduct you at last, in peace and comfort, to the " life 
 and labors of a cottager." You see, from the above awk- 
 ward playfulness of fancy, that my spirits are not quite de- 
 pressed. I should ill deserve God's blessings, which, since 
 the late terrible event, have come down in mercy upon us, 
 if I indulged regret or querulousness. Mary continues 
 serene and cheerful. 1 have not by me a little letter she 
 wrote to me ; for, though I see her almost every day, yet we 
 delight to write to one another, for we can scarce see each 
 other but in company with some of the people of the house. 
 I have not the letter by me, but will quote from memory 
 what she wrote in it : "I have no bad terrifying dreams. 
 At midnight, when I happen to awake, the nurse sleeping by 
 the side of me, with the noise of the poor mad people around 
 me, I have no fear. The spirit of my mother seems to de- 
 scend and smile upon me, and bid me live to enjoy the life 
 and reason which the Almighty has given me. I shall see 
 her again in heaven ; she will then understand me better. 
 My grandmother, too, will understand me better, and will 
 then say no more, as she used to do, ' Polly, what are those 
 poor crazy moythered brains of yours thinking of always V " 
 Poor Mary ! my mother indeed never understood her right. 
 She loved her, as she loved us all, with a mother's love ; but 
 in opinion, in feeling, and sentiment, and disposition, bore so 
 distant a resemblance to her daughter, that she never under- 
 stood her right ; never could believe how much she loved 
 her ; but met her caresses, her protestations of filial affection, 
 too frequently with coldness and repulse. Still she was a 
 good mother. God forbid I should think of her but most res- 
 pectfully, most affectionately. Yet she would always love 
 my brother above Mary, who was not worthy of one-tenth of 
 that affection which Mary had a right to claim. But it is 
 my sister's gratifying recollection, that every act of duty and 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 53 
 
 of love she could pay, every kindness, (and I speak true, 
 when I say to the hurting of her health, and most probably 
 in great part to the derangement of her senses,) through a 
 long course of infirmities and sickness, she could show her, 
 she ever did. I will, some day, as I promised, enlarge to you 
 upon my sister's excellences ; it will seem like exaggeration, 
 but I will do it. At present, short letters suit my state of 
 mind best. So take my kindest wishes for your comfort and 
 establishment in life, and for Sara's welfare and comfort with 
 you. God love you. God love us all. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Two months, though passed by Lamb in anxiety and labor, 
 but cheered by Miss Lamb's continued possession of reason, so 
 far restored the tone of his mind, that his interest in the vol- 
 ume which had been contemplated to introduce his first 
 verses to the world, in association with those of his friend, 
 was enkindled anew. While cherishing the hope of reunion 
 with his sister, and painfully wresting his leisure hours from 
 poetry and Coleridge to amuse the dotage of his father, he 
 watched over his own returning sense of enjoyment with a 
 sort of holy jealousy, apprehensive lest he should forget too 
 soon the terrible visitation of Heaven. At this time he thus 
 writes : — 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 I have delayed writing thus long, not having by me my 
 copy of your poems, which I had lent. I am not satisfied 
 with all your intended omissions. Why omit 40, 63, 84 ? 
 above all, let me protest strongly against your rejecting the 
 " Complaint of Ninathoma," 86. The words, I acknow- 
 ledge, are Ossian's, but you have added to them the " music 
 of Caril." If a vicarious substitute be wanting, sacrifice 
 (and 'twill be a piece of self-denial too) the " Epitaph on an 
 
54 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Infant,'' of which its author seems so proud, so tenacious. 
 Or, if your heart be set on perpetuating the four-line wonder, 
 I'll tell you what do ; sell the copyright of it at once to a 
 country statuary ; commence in this manner Death's prime 
 poet-laureate ; and let your verses be adopted in every vil- 
 lage round, instead of those hitherto famous ones : — 
 
 " Afflictions sore long time I bore, 
 Physicians were in vain." * 
 
 I have seen your last very beautiful poem in the Monthly 
 Magazine : write thus, and you most generally have written 
 thus, and I shall never quarrel with you about simplicity. 
 With regard to my lines — 
 
 " Laugh all that weep," &c., 
 
 I would willingly sacrifice them ; but my portion of the vol- 
 ume is so ridiculously little, that, in honest truth, I can't 
 spare them : as things are, I have very slight pretensions to 
 participate in the title-page. White's book is at length re- 
 viewed in the Monthly; was it your doing, or Dyer's, to 
 whom I sent him — or, rather, do you not write in the Critical ? 
 — for I observed, in an article of this month's, a line quoted 
 out of that sonnet on Mrs. Siddons, 
 
 " With eager wondering, and perturb'd delight." 
 And a line from that sonnet would not readily have occurred 
 
 * This epitaph, which, notwithstanding Lamb's gentle banter, occu- 
 pied an entire page in the book, is curious — " a miracle instead of wit" 
 — for it is a common-place of Coleridge, who, investing ordinary things 
 with a dreamy splendor, or weighing them down with accumulated 
 thought, has rarely if ever written a stanza so smoothly vapid— so de- 
 void of merit or offence — (unless it be an offence to make fade do duty 
 as a verb active) as the following : — 
 
 " Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, 
 Death came with friendly care ; 
 The opening bud to Heaven convey'd, 
 And bade it blossom there." 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 55 
 
 • 
 
 to a stranger. That sonnet, Coleridge, brings afresh to my 
 nnind the time when you wrote those on Bowles, Priestly, 
 Burke ; — 'twas two Christmases ago, and in that nice little 
 smoky room at the Salutation, which is ever now continually 
 presenting itself to my recollection, with all its associate 
 train of pipes, tobacco, egg-hot, welsh-rabbits, metaphysics, 
 and poetry. — Are we never to meet again ? How differently 
 I am circumstanced now ! I have never met with any one 
 — never shall meet with any one — who could or can compen- 
 sate me for the loss of your society. I have no one to talk 
 all these matters about to ; I lack friends, I lack books 
 to suplpy their absence : but these complaints ill become 
 me. Let me compare my present situation, prospects, 
 and state of mind, with what they were but two months back 
 — but two months ! O my friend, I am in danger of for- 
 getting the awful lessons then presented to me ! Remind me 
 of them ; remind me of my duty ! Talk seriously with me 
 when you do write ! I thank you, from my heart I thank 
 you, for your solicitude about my sister. She is quite 
 well, but must not, I fear, come to live with us yet a good 
 while. In the first place, because, at present, it would hurt 
 her, and hurt my father, for them to be together: secondly, 
 from a regard io the world's good report, for, I fear, tongues 
 will be busy whenever that event takes place. Some have 
 hinted, one man has pressed it on me, that she should be in 
 perpetual confinement ; what she has done to deserve, or where 
 is the necessity of such hardship, I see not ; do you ? I am 
 starving at the India House, — near seven o'clock without my 
 dinner, and so it has been, and will be, almost all the week. 
 I get home at night o'erwearied, quite faint, and then to cards 
 with my father, who will not let me enjoy a meal in peace ; 
 but I must conform to my situation, and I hope I am, for the 
 most part, not unthankful. 
 
 I am got home at last, and, after repeated games at 
 
56 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 T" 
 
 cribbage, have not my flither's leave to write awhile ; with 
 difficulty got it, for when I expostulated about playing any 
 more, he aptly replied, " If you won't play with me, you 
 might as well not come home at all." The argument was 
 unanswerable, and I set to afresh. I told you I do not ap- 
 prove of your omissions, neither do I quite coincide witii you 
 in your arrangements. I have not time to point out a better, 
 and I suppose some self-associations of your own have deter- 
 mined their place as they now stand. Your beginninn-, in- 
 deed, with the " Joan of Arc" lines I coincide entirely with. 
 I love a splendid outset— a magnificent portico, — and the dia- 
 pason is grand. When I read the '• Religious Musings," 
 I think how poor, how unelevated, unoriginal, my blank 
 verse is—" Laugh all that weep," especially where the sub- 
 ject demanded a grandeur of conception ; and I ask what 
 business they have among yours ? but friendship covereth a 
 multitude of defects. I want some loppings made in the 
 " Chatterton ;" it wants but a little to make it rank among 
 the finest irregular lyrics I ever read. Have you time and 
 inclination to go to work upon it — or is it too late — or do vou 
 think it needs none ? Don't reject those verses in one of 
 your Watchmen, " Dear native brook," &c. ; nor I think 
 those last lines you sent me, in which " all efTortless" is 
 without doubt to be preferred to " inactive." If I am writing- 
 more than ordinarily dully, 'tis that I am stupefied with a tooth- 
 ache. Hang it ! do not omit 48, 52, and 53 : what you do 
 retain, though, call sonnets, for heaven's sake, and not efFu- 
 sions. Spite of your ingenious anticipations of ridicule in 
 your preface, the five last lines of 50 are too good to be lost, 
 the rest is not much worth. My tooth becomes importunate 
 — I must finish. Pray, pray, write to me : if you knew 
 with what an anxiety of joy I open such a long packet as 
 you last sent me, you would not grudge giving a few minutes 
 now and then to this intercourse (the only intercourse I fear 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 57 
 
 we two shall ever have) — this conversation with your friend 
 — such I boast to bo called. God love you and yours ! Write 
 me when you move, lest I direct wrong. Has Sara no poems 
 to publish ? Those lines, 129. are probably too light for the 
 volume where the " Religious Musings" are, but I remem- 
 ber some very beautiful lines, addressed by somebody at 
 Bristol to somebody in London. God bless you once more. 
 Thursday-night. C. Lamb. 
 
 In another letter, about this time (December, 1796), 
 Lamb transmitted to Coleridge two poems for the volume — 
 one a copy of verses " To a Young Lady going out to India," 
 which were not inserted, and are not worthy of preservation ; 
 the other, entitled, " The Tomb of Douglas," which was 
 inserted, and which he chiefly valued as a memorial of his 
 impression of Mrs. Siddons' acting in Lady Randolph. The 
 following passage closes the sheet. 
 
 At length I have done with verse-making ; not that I 
 relish other people's poetry less ; theirs comes from 'em 
 without effort, mine is the difficult operation of a brain scanty 
 of ideas, made more difficult by disuse. I have been read- 
 ing " The Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you love 
 Cowper : I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but 
 I would not call that man my friend who should be offended 
 with the "divine chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me. God 
 love you and yours. C. L. 
 
 An addition to Lamb's household-cares is thus mentioned 
 in a letter to Mr. Coleridge. 
 
 In truth, Coleridge, I am perplexed, and at times almost 
 cast down. I am beset with perplexities. The old hag of a 
 wealthy relation, who took my aunt off our hands in the be- 
 ginning of trouble, has found out that she is " indolent and 
 
 •5* 
 
58 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 mulish,'*' I quote her own words, and that her attachment to 
 us is so strong that she can never be happy apart. The lady, 
 with delicate irony, remarks, that if I am not an hypocrite, 
 I shall rejoice to receive her again ; and that it will be a 
 means of making me more fond of home to have so dear a 
 friend to come home to ! The fact is, she is jealous of my 
 aunt's bestowing any kind recollections on us, while she en- 
 joys the patronage of her roof. She says she finds it incon- 
 sistent with her own " ease and tranquillity," to keep her 
 any longer ; and, in fine, summons me to fetch her home. 
 Now, much as I should rejoice to transplant the poor old 
 creature from the chilling air of such patronage, yet I know 
 how straitened we are already, how unable already to answer 
 any demand which sickness or any extraordinary expense 
 may create. I know this, and all unused as I am to struggle 
 with perplexities, I am somewhat nonplussed, to say no 
 worse. This prevents me from a thorough relish of what 
 Lloyd's kindness and yours have furnished me with. I 
 thank you though from my heart, and feel myself not quite 
 alone in the earth. 
 
 The following long letter, bearing date on the outside, 7th 
 January, 1797, is addressed to Mr. Coleridge at Stowey, 
 near Bridgewater, whither he had removed from Bristol, to 
 enjoy the society and protection of his friend Mr. Poole. The 
 original is a curious specimen of clear compressed penman- 
 ship ; being contained in three sides of a sheet of foolscap. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Sunday morning. — You cannot surely mean to degrade 
 the Joan of Arc into a pot-girl. You are not going, I hope, 
 to annex to that most splendid ornament of Southey's poem 
 all his cock-and-a-bull story of Joan, the publican's daughter 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 59 
 
 of Neufchatel, with the lamentable episode of a wagoner, 
 his wife, and six children. The texture will be most lamen- 
 tably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these 
 addenda are, no doubt, in their way, admirable, too ; but 
 many would prefer the Joan of Southey. 
 
 " On mightiest deeds to brood 
 
 Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart 
 Throb fast ; anon I paused, and in a state 
 Of half expectance listened to the wind ;" 
 
 " They wondered at me, who had known me once 
 A cheerful careless damsel ;" 
 
 " The eye, 
 That of the circling throng and visible world 
 Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy ;" 
 
 I see nothing in your description of the maid equal to those. 
 There is a fine originality certainly in those lines — 
 
 " For she had lived in this bad world 
 As in a place of tombs, 
 And touched not the pollutions of the dead ;" 
 
 but your " fierce vivacity" is a faint copy of the " fierce and 
 terrible benevolence" of Southey ; added to this, that it 
 would look like rivalship in you, and extort a comparison 
 with Southey, — ^I think to your disadvantage. And the lines 
 considered in themselves as an addition to what you had be= 
 fore written, (strains of a far higher mood,) are but such as 
 Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods, 
 at such times as she has met Noll Goldsmith, and walked 
 and talked with him, calling him " old acquaintance." 
 Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with you in the 
 sublime of poetry ; but he tells a plain tale better than you. 
 I will enumerate some woeful blemishes, some of them sad 
 
60 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHAT7LES LAMB. 
 
 deviations from that simplicity vvhicli was your aim. " Hailed 
 who might be near" (the " canvas-coverture moving," by 
 the bye, is laughable); " a woman and six children" (by 
 the way, — why not nine children ? It would have been just 
 half as pathetic again) : " statues of sleep they seemed" : 
 ^' frost-mangled wretch" : " green putridity" : " hailed him 
 immortal" (rather ludicrous again): "voiced a sad and 
 simple tale" (abominable!): " improvendered" : "such his 
 tale" : " Ah ! sufferinoj to the height of what was suffered" 
 (a most insufferable line)'. " amazement of affright ' : " the 
 hot sore bram aUributes its own hues of ghastliness and tor- 
 ture" (what shocking confusion of ideas) ! 
 
 In these delineations of common and natural feelings, in 
 the familiar walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montau- 
 ban dancing with Roubigne's tenants, " much of his native 
 loftiness remained in the execution.^' 
 
 I was reading your " Religious Musings" the other day, 
 and sincerely think it the noblest poem in the language, next 
 after the " Paradise Lost," and even that was not made the 
 vehicle of such grand truths. " There is one mind," &c. 
 down to " Almighty's throne." are without a rival in the 
 whole compass of my poetical reading. 
 
 " Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze, 
 Views all creation." 
 
 I wish I could have written those lines. I rejoice that I am 
 able to relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your 
 proper region. There you have no compeer in modern times. 
 Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in possession of such men as 
 Cowper and Southey. Thus am T pouring balsam into the 
 vyounds I may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity. 
 In your notice of Southey's new volume, you omit to 
 mention the most pleasing of all, the " Miniature" — 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 61 
 
 " There were those 
 Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee, 
 Young Robert !" 
 
 " Spirit of Spenser ! — was the wanderer wrong V 
 
 Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson, 
 in his " Life of Waller," gives a most delicious specimen of 
 him, and adds, in the true manner of that delicate critic, as 
 well as amiable man, " It may be pronounced that this old 
 version will not be much read after the elegant translation 
 of my friend, Mr. Hoole." I endeavored — I wished to gain 
 some idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and 
 ornament of the India House, but soon desisted. 1 found him 
 more vapid than smallest small beer " sun-vinegared." Your 
 " Dream," down to that exquisite line — 
 
 " I can't tell half his adventures," 
 
 is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is 
 so so. The best line, I think, is, " He belongeth, I believe, 
 to the witch Melancholy." By the way, when will our vo- 
 lume come out ? Don't delay it till you have written a new 
 Joan of Arc. Send what you please by me, in any way 
 you choose, single or double. The India Company is better 
 adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's 
 correspondents — such poor and honest dogs as John Thel- 
 wall, particularly. I cannot say I know Colson, at least in- 
 timately ; I once supped with him and Allen ; I think his 
 manners very pleasing. I will not tell you what I think of 
 Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see this letter, and that 
 thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think what subject 
 would suit your epic genius ; some philosophical subject, I 
 conjecture, in which shall be blended the sublime of poetry 
 and of science. Your proposed " Hymns" will be a fit 
 preparatory study wherewith " to discipline your young no- 
 
62 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 viciate soul." I grow dull; I'll go walk myself out of my 
 dullness. 
 
 Sunday night. — You and Sara are very good to think so 
 kindly and so favorably of poor Mary ; I would to God all 
 did so too. But I very much fear she must not think of 
 coming home in my father's lifetime. It is very hard upon 
 her ; but our circumstances are peculiar, and we must sub- 
 mit to them. God be praised she is so well as she is. She 
 bears her situation as one who has no right to complain. My 
 poor old aunt, whom you have seen, the kindest, goodest 
 creature to me when I was at school ; she used to toddle 
 there to bring me good things, when I, school-boy like, only 
 despised her for it, and used to be ashamed to see her come 
 and sit herself down on the old coal-hole steps as you went 
 into the old grammar-school, and open her apron, and bring 
 out her bason, with some nice thing she had caused to be 
 saved for me ; the good old creature is now lying on her 
 death-bed. 1 cannot bear to think on her deplorable state. 
 To the shock she received on that our evil day, from which she 
 never completely recovered, I impute her illness. She says, 
 poor thing, she is glad she is come home to die with me. I 
 was always her favorite : 
 
 " No after friendship e'er can raise 
 The endearments of our early days : 
 Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove, 
 As when it first began to love." 
 
 Lloyd has kindly left me, for a keep-sake, " John Wool- 
 man." You have read it, he says, and like it. Will you 
 excuse one short extract ? I think it could not have escaped 
 you. " Small treasure to a resigned mind is sufficient. How 
 happy is it to be content with a Utile, to live in humility, and 
 feel that in us which breathes out this language — Abba, 
 Father !" I am almost ashamed to patch up a letter in 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 63 
 
 this miscellaneous sort — but I please myself in the thought, 
 that any thing from me will be acceptable to you. I am 
 rather impatient, childishly so, to see our names affixed to 
 the same common volume. Send me two when it does come 
 out ; two will be enough — or indeed one — but two better. I 
 have a dim recollection that, when in town, you were talk- 
 ing of the Origin of Evil as a most prolific subject for a long 
 poem ; — why not adopt it, Coleridge ? — there would be room 
 for imagination. Or the description (from a Vision or Dream, 
 suppose) of a Utopia in one of the planets (the moon for in- 
 stance). Or a Five Days' Dream, which shall illustrate, in 
 sensible imagery. Hartley's five Motives for Conduct: — 1. 
 Sensation ; 2. Imagination ; 3. A.mbition ; 4. Sympathy ; 5. 
 Theopathy : — First. Banquets, music, &;c., effeminacy, — 
 and their insufficiency. Second. " Beds of hyacinths and 
 roses, where young Adonis oft reposes;" " Fortunate Isles;" 
 " The pagan Elysium," &c. ; poetical pictures ; antiquity 
 as pleasing to the fancy; — their emptiness; madness, &c. 
 Third. Warriors, Poets ; some famous, yet more forgotten ; 
 their fame or oblivion now alike indifferent ; pride, vanity, 
 &c. Fourth. All manner of pitiable stories, in Spenser-like 
 verse ; love ; friendship, relationship, &c. • Fifth. Hermits ; 
 Christ and his apostles; martyrs; heaven, &c. And an 
 imagination like yours, from these scanty hints, may expand 
 into a thousand great ideas, if indeed you at all comprehend 
 my scheme, which I scarce do myself. 
 
 Monday morn. — " A London letter — Nine-pence half- 
 penny !" Look you, master poet, I have remorse as well as 
 another man, and my bowels can sound upon occasion. But 
 1 must put you to this charge, for I cannot keep back my pro- 
 test, however ineffectual, against the annexing your latter 
 lines to those former — this putting of new wine into old bottles. 
 This my duty done, I will cease from writing till you invent 
 some more reasonable mode of conveyance. Well may the 
 
64 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 " ragged followers of the Nine !" set up for flocci-nauci-what- 
 do-you-call-'em-ists ! and I do not wonder that in their splen- 
 did visions of Utopias in America, they protest against the 
 admission of those ?/e//oz^-complexioned, copper-colored, white- 
 livered gentlemen, who never prove themselves their friends! 
 Don't you think your verses on a " Young Ass" too trivial 
 a companion for the "Religious Musings?" — "scoundrel 
 monarchs," alter that ; and the " Man of Ross" is scarce 
 admirable, as it now stands, curtailed of its fairer half: re- 
 claim its property from the " Chatterton," which it does but 
 encumber, and it will be a rich little poem. I hope you ex- 
 punge great part of the old notes in the new edition : that, in 
 particular, most barefaced, unfounded, impudent assertion, 
 that Rogers is indebted for his story to Locke and a poem by 
 Bruce ! I have read the letter. I scarce think you have. 
 Scarce any thing is common to them both. The author of 
 the " Pleasures of Memory" was sorely hurt, Dyer says, by 
 the accusation of unoriginality ; he never saw the poem. I 
 long to read your poem on Burns — I retain so indistinct a 
 memory of it. In what shape and how does it come into 
 public ? Do you leave off writing poetry till you finish your 
 Hymns ? I suppose you print, now, all you have got by you. 
 You have scarce enough unprinted to make a second volume 
 with Lloyd ? What is become of Cowper ? Lloyd told me 
 of some verses on his mother. If you have them by you, 
 pray send 'em me. I do so love him ! Never mind their 
 merit. May be J may like 'em, as your taste and mine do 
 not always exactly identify. Yours, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Soon after the date of this letter, death released the father 
 from his state of imbecility, and the son from his wearisome 
 duties. With his life, the annuity he had derived from the 
 old bencher he had served so faithfully, ceased ; while the 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 65 
 
 aunt continued to linger still with Lamb in his cheerless 
 lodging. His sister still remained in confinement in the 
 asylum to which she had been consigned on her mother's 
 death — perfectly sensible and calm, — and he was passion- 
 ately desirous of obtaining her liberty. The surviving mem- 
 bers of the family, especially his brother John, who enjoyed 
 a fair income in the South Sea House, opposed her discharge ; 
 and painful doubts were suggested by the authorities of the 
 parish where the terrible occurrence happened, whether 
 they were not bound to institute proceedings, which must 
 have placed her for life at the disposition of the Crown, 
 especially as no medical assurance could be given against 
 the probable recurrence of dangerous frenzy. But Charles 
 came to her deliverance ; he satisfied all the parties who had 
 power to oppose her release, by his solemn engagement that 
 he would take her under his care for life ; and he kept his 
 word. Whether any communication Mith the Home Secre- 
 tary occurred before her release, 1 have been unable to as- 
 certain ; it was the impression of Mr. Lloyd, from whom my 
 own knowledge of the circumstances, which the letters do 
 not ascertain, was derived, that a communication took place, 
 on which a similar pledge was given ; at all events, the 
 result was, that she left the asylum and took up her abode 
 for life with her brother Charles. For her sake, at the same 
 time, he abandoned all thoughts of love and marriage ; and 
 with an income of scarcely more than 100/. a-year, derived 
 from his clerkship, aided for a little while by the old aunt's 
 small annuity, set out on the journey of life at twenty-two 
 years of age, cheerfully, with his beloved companion, en- 
 deared to him the more by her strange calamity, and the 
 constant apprehension of a recurrence of the malady which 
 had caused it ! 
 
 The illness of the poor old aunt brought on the confirma- 
 tion of Lamb's fears respecting his sister's malady. After 
 
66 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 lingering a short tinne, she died ; but before this, Miss Lamb's 
 incessant attendance upon her produced a recurrence of in- 
 sanity ; Lamb was obliged to place her under medical care ; 
 and, left alone, wrote the following short and miserable 
 letter : 
 
 to mr. coleridge. 
 
 My dear Coleridge, 
 
 I don't know why I write, except from the propen- 
 sity misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty died on Friday 
 night, about eleven o'clock, after her long illness ; Mary, in 
 consequence of fatigue and anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I 
 was obliged to remove her yesterday. I am left alone in a 
 house with nothing but Hetty's dead body to keep me com- 
 pany. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite 
 alone, with nothing but a cat, to remind me that the house 
 has been full of living beings like myself. My heart is quite 
 sunk, and I don't know where to look for relief. Mary will 
 get better again, but her constantly being liable to such re- 
 lapses is dreadful ; nor is it the least of our evils that her 
 case and all our story is so well known around us. We are 
 in a manner marked. Excuse my troubling you, but I have 
 nobody by me to speak to me. 1 slept out last night, not 
 being able to endure the change and the stillness. But I did 
 not sleep well, and I must come back to my own bed. I am 
 going to try and get a friend to come and be with me to-mor- 
 row. I am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. 
 I almost wish that Mary were dead. — God bless you. Love 
 to Sara and Hartley. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE AND MANNING IN LAMB's FIRST YEARS OF LIFE 
 WITH HIS SISTER. 1797 TO 1800. 
 
 The anxieties of Lamb's new position were assuaged 
 during the spring of 1797, by frequent communications with 
 Coleridge respecting the anticipated volume, and by some 
 additions to his own share in its pages. He was also cheered 
 by the company of Lloyd, who, having resided for a few 
 months with Coleridge, at Stowey, came to London in some 
 perplexity as to his future course. Of this visit Lamb 
 speaks in the following letter, probably written in March. 
 It contains some verses expressive of his delight at Lloyd's 
 visit, which, although afterwards inserted in the volume, are 
 so vvell fitted to their frame-work of prose, and so indicative 
 of the feelings of the writer at this crisis of his life, that I 
 may be excused for presenting them with the context. 
 
 to mr. coleridge. 
 
 Dear Col, 
 
 You have learned by this time, with surprise, no 
 doubt, that Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt 
 on his coming so unlooked for, are not ill expressed in what 
 follows, and what, if you do not object to them as too personal, 
 and to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in worth, I 
 should wish to make a part of our little volume. I shall be 
 sorry if that volume comes out, as it necessarily must do, 
 
68 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 unless you print those very school-boyish verses I sent you 
 on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last summer. I 
 shall be sorry that I have addressed you in nothing which 
 can appear in our joint volume ; so frequently, so habitually, 
 as you dwell in my thoughts, 'tis some wonder those thoughts 
 came never yet in contact with a poetical mood. But you 
 dwell in my heart of hearts ; I love you in all the naked 
 honesty of prose. God bless you, and all your little domestic 
 circle — my tenderest remembrances to your beloved Sara, 
 and a smile and a kiss from me to our dear, dear little Hart- 
 ley. The verses I refer to above, slightly amended, I have 
 sent (forgetting to ask your leave, tho' indeed I gave them 
 only your initials), to the Monthly Magazine, where they 
 may possibly appear next month, and where I hope to recog- 
 nise your poem on Burns. 
 
 TO CHARLES LLOYD, AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. 
 
 Alone, obscure, without a friend, 
 
 A cheerless solitary thing. 
 Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out ? 
 
 What offering can the stranger bring, 
 
 Of social scenes, home-bred delights. 
 
 That him in aught compensate may 
 For Stowey's pleasant winter nights, 
 
 For loves and friendships far away. 
 
 In brief oblivion to forego 
 
 Friends, such as thine, so justly dear, 
 
 And be awhile with me content 
 To stay, a kindly loiterer, here ? 
 
 For this a gleam of random joy 
 
 Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek ; 
 
 And, with an o'er-charged bursting heart, 
 I feel the thanks, I cannot speak. 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 69 
 
 O ! sweet are all the Muse's lays, 
 
 And sweet the charm of matin bird — 
 
 'Twas long since these estrang-ed ears 
 The sweeter voice of friend had heard. 
 
 The voice hath spoke : the pleasant sounds. 
 
 In memory's ear, in after time 
 Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear. 
 
 And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme. 
 
 For when the transient charm is fled, 
 
 And when the little week is o'er. 
 To cheerless, friendless solitude 
 
 When I return, as heretofore — 
 
 Long, long, within my aching heart 
 The grateful sense shall cherish'd be ; 
 
 I'll think less meanly of myself, 
 
 That Lloyd will sometimes think on me. 
 
 O Coleridge, would to God you were in London with us, 
 
 or we two at Stowey with you all. Lloyd takes up his 
 
 abode at the Bull and Mouth Inn ; the Cat and Salutation 
 
 would have had a charm more forcible for me. O nodes 
 
 ccBTiceque Deum ! Anglice — Welch rabbits, punch, and 
 
 poesy. Should you be induced to publish those very school- 
 
 boy-ish verses, print them as they will occur, if at all, in the 
 
 Monthly Magazine ; yet I should feel ashamed that to you I 
 
 wrote nothing better : but they are too personal, and almost 
 
 trifling and obscure witlial. Some lines of mine to Cowper 
 
 were in last Monthly Magazine ; they have not body of 
 
 thought enough to plead for the retaining of them. My 
 
 sister's kind love to you all. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The next letter to Coleridge, apparently the following 
 April, begins with a transcript of Lamb's Poem, entitled " A 
 Vision of Repentance," which was inserted in the Addenda 
 
70 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 to the volume, and is preserved among his collected poems, 
 and thus proceeds : 
 
 The above you will please to print immediately before 
 the blank verse fragments. Tell me if you like it. 1 fear 
 the latter half is unequal to the former, in parts of which I 
 think you will discover a delicacy of pencilling not quite un- 
 Spenser-like. The latter half aims at the measure, but has 
 failed to attain the poetry of Milton in his " Comus," and of 
 Fletcher in that exquisite thing ycleped the " Faithful Shep- 
 herdess," where they both use eight-syllable lines. But this 
 latter half was finished in great haste, and as a task, not 
 from that impulse which affects the name of inspiration. 
 
 By the way, I have lit upon Fairfax's " Godfrey of Sul- 
 len," for half-a-crown. Rejoice with me. 
 
 Poor dear Lloyd ! I had a letter from him yesterday ; 
 his state of mind is truly alarming. He has, by his own 
 confession, kept a letter of mine unopened three weeks, afraid, 
 he says, to open it, lest I should speak upbraid ingly to him ; and 
 yet this very letter of mine was in answer to one, wherein he 
 informed me that an alarming illness had alone prevented 
 him from writing. You will pray with me, I know, for his 
 recovery, for surely, Coleridge, an exquisiteness of feeling 
 like this must border on derangement. But I love him more 
 and more, and will not give up the hope of his speedy re- 
 covery, as he tells me he is under Dr. Darwin's regimen.* 
 
 * Poor Charles Lloyd ! These apprehensions were sadly realized. 
 Delusions of the most melancholy kind thickened over his latter days — 
 yet left his admirable intellect free for the finest processes of severe rea- 
 soning. At a time when, like Cowper, he believed himself the especial 
 subject of Divine wrath, he could bear his part in the most subtle disquisi- 
 tion on questions of religion, morals, and poetry, with the nicest accuracy 
 of perception and the most exemplary candor ; and, after an argument of 
 hours, revert, with a faint smile, to his own despair ! 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 71 
 
 God bless us all, and shield us from insanity, which is 
 
 "the sorest malady of all." 
 
 My kind love to your wife and child. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 Pray write soon. 
 
 As summer advanced, Lamb discerned a hope of com- 
 pensation for the disappointment of last year, by a visit to 
 Coleridge, and thus expressed his wishes. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 I discern a possibility of my paying you a visit next week. 
 May I, can 1, shall I, come as soon ? Have you room for me, 
 leisure for me, and are you all pretty well ? Tell me all 
 this honestly — immediately. And by what rfav-coach could 
 I come soonest and nearest to Stowey ? A few months hence 
 may suit you better ; certainly me, as well. If so, say so. 
 I long, I yearn, with all the longings of a child do I desire 
 to see you — to come among you — to see the young philoso- 
 pher, to thank Sara for her last year's invitation in person — 
 to read your tragedy — to read over together our little book — 
 to breathe fresh air — to revive in me vivid images of " Salu- 
 tation scenery." There is a sort of sacrilege in my letting 
 such ideas slip out of my mind and memory. Still that 
 
 R remaineth — a thorn in the side of Hope, when she 
 
 would lean towards Stowey. Here I will leave off, for I dis- 
 like to fill up this paper, which involves a question so con- 
 nected with my heart and soul, with meaner matter or sub- 
 jects to me less interesting. I can talk, as I can think, 
 
 nothing else. Thursday. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The visit was enjoyed ; the book was published ; and 
 Lamb was once more left to the daily labors of the India 
 
FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 House and the unceasing anxieties of his home. His feel- 
 ings, on the recurrence of the season, which had, last year, 
 been darkened by his terrible calamity, will be understood 
 from the first of two pieces of blank verse, which fill the two 
 first sheets of a letter to Coleridge, written under an appre- 
 hension of some neglect on the part of his friend, which had 
 its cause in no estrangement of Coleridge's affections, but in 
 the vicissitudes of the imaginative philosopher's fortune and 
 the constancy of his day-dreamings. 
 
 WRITTEN A TWELVEMONTH AFTER THE EVENTS. 
 
 [Friday next, Coleridge, is the day on which my mother died.] 
 
 Alas ! how am I chang'd ! where be the tears, 
 
 Tlie sobs, and forc'd suspensions of the breath, 
 
 And all the dull desertions of the heart ■«^^^ 
 
 With which I hung o'er my dear mother's corse ? 
 
 Where be the blest subsidings of the storm 
 
 Within ; the sweet resignedness of hope 
 
 Drawn heavenward, and strength of filial love, 
 
 In which I bow'd me to my Father's will 1 
 
 My God and my Redeemer, keep not thou 
 
 My heart in brute and sensual thanklessness 
 
 Seal'd up, oblivious ever of that dear grace, 
 
 And health restor'd to my long-loved friend. 
 
 Long lov'd, and worthy known ! Thou didst not keep 
 
 Her soul in death. keep not now, my Lord, 
 
 Thy servant's in far worse — in spiritual death 
 
 And darkness — blacker than those feared shadows 
 
 Of the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms. 
 
 Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul. 
 
 And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds 
 
 With which the world hath pierc'd us thro' and thro' ! 
 
 Give us new flesh, new birth ; elect of heaven 
 
 May we become, in thine election sure 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 73 
 
 Contnin'cl,and to our purpose steadfast drawn — 
 Our souls" salvation. 
 
 Thou and T, dear friend. 
 With filial recognition sweet, shall know 
 One day the face of our dear mother in heaven. 
 And her remember'd looks of love shall greet 
 With answering looks of love, her placid smiles 
 Meet with a smile as placid, and her hand 
 With drops of fondness wet, nor fear repulse.* 
 
 Be witness for me, Lord, I do not ask 
 Those days of vanity to return again, 
 (Nor fitting me to ask, nor thee to give,) 
 Vain loves, and " wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid :" 
 .(Child of the dust as I am,) who so long 
 My foolish heart steep'd in idolatry. 
 And creature-loves. Forgive it, O my Maker ! 
 If in a mood of grief, I sin almost 
 In sometimes brooding on the days long past, 
 {And from the grave of time wishing them back,) 
 Days of a mother's fondness to her child — 
 Her little one ! Oh, where be now those sports 
 And infant play-games? Where the joyous troops 
 Of children, and the haunts I did so love ? 
 
 my companions ! O ye loved names 
 
 Of friend, or playmate dear, gone are ye now. 
 Cone divers ways ; to honor and credit some; 
 And some, I fear, to ignominy and shame !t 
 
 1 only am left, with unavailing grief 
 
 Am left, with a few friends, and one above 
 The rest found faithful in a length of years. 
 Contented as I may to bear me on, 
 r the not unpeaceful evening of a day 
 Made black by morning storms. 
 
 * [Note in the margin of MS.] '•' This is alniost literal from a let- 
 ter of my sister's — less than a year ago,'' 
 
 t [Note in the margin of MS.] " Alluding to someof my old play- 
 fellows being, literally, ' on the town,' and some otherwise wretched." 
 
FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 The following I wrote when I had returned from C. 
 Lloyd, leaving hinn behind at Burton, with Southey. To 
 understand some of it, you must remember that at that time 
 he was very much perplexed in mind. 
 
 A stranger, and alone, I prist those scenes 
 
 We past so late together ; and my heart 
 
 Felt something like desertion, as I look'd 
 
 Around me, and the pleasant voice of friend 
 
 Was absent, and the cordial look was there 
 
 No more to smile on me. I thought on Lloyd — 
 
 All he had been to me ! And now I go 
 
 Again to mingle with a world impure ; 
 
 With men who make a mock of holy things, 
 
 Mistaken, and on man's best hope think scorn. 
 
 The world does much to warp the heart of man ; 
 
 And I may sometimes join its idiot laugh : 
 
 Of this I now complain not. Deal with me. 
 
 Omniscient Father, as thou judgest best. 
 
 And in thy season soften thou my heart. 
 
 I pray not for mys If: I pray for him 
 
 Whose soul is sore perplexed. Shine thou on him. 
 
 Father of lights ! and in the difficult paths 
 
 Make plain his way before him : his own thoughts 
 
 May he not think — his own ends not pursue — 
 
 So shall he best perform thy will on earth. 
 
 Greatest and Best, Thy will be ever ours \ 
 
 The former of these poems I wrote with unusual celerity 
 t'other morning at office. I expect you to like it better than 
 any thing of mine ; Lloyd does, and I do myself. 
 
 You use Lloyd very ill, never writing to him. I tell 
 you again that his is not a mind with which you should play 
 tricks. He deserves more tenderness from you. 
 
 For myself, I must spoil a little passage of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher to adapt it to my feelings : — 
 
 " I am prouder 
 That I was once your friend, tho' now forgot. 
 Than to have had another true to me." 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 75 
 
 If you don't write to me now, as I told Lloyd, I shall get 
 angry, and call you hard names — Manchineel and I don't 
 know what else. I wish you would send me my great-coat. 
 The snow and the rain season is at hand, and I have but a 
 wretched old coat, once my father's, to keep 'em off, and 
 that is transitory. 
 
 " When time drives flocks from field to fold, 
 When ways grow foul and blood gets cold," 
 
 I shall remember where I left my coat. Meet emblem wilt 
 thou be, old Winter, of a friend's neglect — cold, cold, cold • 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 At this time, the only literary man whom Lamb knew in 
 London was George Dyer, who had been noted as an accom- 
 plished scholar, in Lamb's early childhood, at Christ's Hos- 
 pital. For him Lamb cherished all the esteem that his 
 guileless simplicity of character and gentleness of nature 
 could inspire ; in these qualities the friends were akin ; but 
 no two men could be more opposite than they were to each 
 other, in intellectual qualifications and tastes — Lamb, in all 
 things original, and rejoicing in the quaint, the strange, the 
 extravagant ; Dyer, the quintessence of learned common- 
 place ; Lamb wildly catching the most evanescent spirit of 
 wit and poetry ; Dyer, the wondering disciple of their esta- 
 blished forms. Dyer officiated as a revering High Priest at 
 the Altar of the Muses — such as they were in the staid, an- 
 tiquated trim of the closing years of the eighteenth century, 
 before they formed sentimental attachments in Germany, or 
 flirted with revolutionary France, or renewed their youth by 
 drinking the Spirit of the Lakes. Lamb esteemed and loved 
 him so well, that he felt himself entitled to make sport with 
 his peculiarities ; but it was as Fielding might sport with his 
 own idea of Parson Adams ; or Goldsmith with his Dr. Prim- 
 
76 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 rose. The following passage occurs in a letter of November? 
 1798, addressed — 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 I showed my " Witch," and " Dying Lover," to Dyer 
 last night, but George could not comprehend how that could 
 be poetry which did not go upon ten feet, as George and his 
 predecessors had taught it to do ; so George read me some 
 lectures on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the Epi- 
 gram, and the Epic, and went home to illustrate his doc- 
 trine, by correcting a proof sheet of his own Lyrics. George 
 writes odes wliere the rhymes, like fashionable man and wife, 
 keep a comfortable distance of six or eight lines apart, and 
 calls that " observing the laws of verse." George tells you, 
 before he recites, that you must listen with great attention, 
 or you '11 miss the rhymes. I did so, and found them pretty 
 exact. George, speaking of the dead Ossian, exclaimeth, 
 " Dark are the poet's eyes." 1 humbly represented to him 
 that his own eyes were dark, and many a living bard's be- 
 sides, and suggested to him, " Clos'd are the poet's eyes." 
 But that would not do. I found there was an antithesis be- 
 tween the darkness of his eyes and the splendor of his genius ; 
 and I acquiesced. 
 
 The following passage on the same subject occurs in a 
 letter about the same time, addressed 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Now I am on the subject of poetry, I must announce to 
 you, who, doubtless, in your remote part of the island, have 
 not heard tidings of so great a blessing, that George Dyer 
 hath prepared two ponderous volumes full of poetry and criti- 
 cism. They impend over the town and are threatened to fall 
 in the winter. The first volume contains every sort of 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 77 
 
 poetry, except personal satire, which George, in his truly 
 original prospectus, renounceth for ever, whimsically foisting 
 the intention in between the price of his book and the pro- 
 posed number of subscribers. (If I can, I will get you a 
 copy of his liandhill.) He has tried his verse in every species 
 besides — the Spenserian, Thomsonian, Masonic and Aken- 
 sidish more especially. The second volume is all criticism ; 
 wherein he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the lite- 
 rary world, in a way that must silence all reply for ever, 
 that the Pa^toral was introduced by Theocritus and polished 
 by Virgil and Pope — that Gray and Mason (who always 
 hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good deal of poeti- 
 cal fire and true lyric genius — that Cowley was ruined by 
 excess of wit (a warning to all moderns) — that Charles 
 Lloyd, Charles Lamb, and William Wordsworth, in later 
 days, have struck the true chords of poesy. O George, 
 George ! with a head uniformly wrong, and a heart uni- 
 formly right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes ; 
 then would I call the gentry of thy native island, and they 
 should come in troops, flocking at the sound of thy prospec- 
 tus-trumpet, and crowding who should be first to stand on 
 thy list of subscribers ! I can only put twelve shillings into 
 thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will not stick 
 there long), out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. Is it 
 not a pity so much fine writing should be wasted ? But, to 
 tell the truth, I began to scent that I was getting into that 
 sort of style which Longinus and Dionysius Halicarnassus 
 fitly call "the affected." 
 
 In 1799, Coleridge seemed to attain a settled home by 
 accepting an invitation 1o become the minister of a Unitarian 
 congregation at Shrewsbury; a hope of short duration. 
 The following letter was addressed by Lamb to him at this 
 time, as "S.T.Coleridge" — as if the Mr. were dropped 
 
78 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 and the " Reverend " not quite adopted — " at the Reverend 
 A. Rowe's, Shrewsbury, Shropshire." The tables are. 
 turned here ; — Lamb, instead of accusing Coleridge of neg- 
 lect, takes the charge to himself in deep humility of spirit, 
 and regards the effect of Miss Lamb's renewed illnesses on 
 his mind as inducing indifference, with an affecting self- 
 jealousy. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered 
 none of them. 1 don't deserve your attentions. An unnatu- 
 ral indifference has been creeping on me since my last mis- 
 fortunes, or I should have seized the first opening of a cor- 
 respondence with you. To you I owe much, under God. In 
 my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversa- 
 tions won me to the better cause, and rescued me from the 
 polluting spirit of the world. I might have been a worthless 
 character without you ; as it is, I do possess a certain im- 
 provable portion of devotional feelings, tho' when I view 
 myself in the light of divine truth, and not according 
 to the common measures of human judgment, I am alto- 
 gether corrupt and sinful. This is no cant. I am very 
 sincere. 
 
 These last afflictions, Coleridge, have failed to soften and 
 bend my will. They found me unprepared. My former 
 calamities produced in me a spirit of humility and a spirit of 
 prayer. I thought they had sufficiently disciplined me ; 
 but the event ought to humble me ; if Goal's judgments now 
 fail to take away from me the heart of stone, what more 
 grievous trials ought I not to expect 1 I have been very 
 querulous, impatient under the rod — full of little jealousies 
 and heart burnings. — I had well nigh quarreled with Charles 
 Lloyd — and for no other reason, I believe, than that the good 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 79 
 
 creature did all he could to make me hajopy. The truth is, 
 1 thought he tried to force my mind from its natural and 
 proper bent ; he continually wished me to be from home, he 
 was drawing me from the consideration of my poor dear 
 Mary's situation, rather than assisting me to gain a proper 
 view of it with religious consolations. I wanted to be left 
 to the tendency of my own mind, in a solitary state, which, 
 in times past, I knew had led to a quietness and a patient 
 bearing of the yoke. He was hurt that I was not more con- 
 stantly with him, but he was living with White, a man to 
 whom I had never been accustomed to impart my dearest 
 feelings^ tho' from long habits of friendliness, and many a 
 social and good quality, 1 loved him very much. I met 
 company there sometimes — indiscriminate company. Any 
 society almost, when I am in affliction, is sorely painful to 
 me. I seem to breathe more freely, to think more collect- 
 edly, to feel more properly and calmly, when alone. All 
 these things the good creature did with the kindest intentions 
 in the world, but they produced in me nothing but soreness 
 and discontent. I became, as he complained, ''jaundiced" 
 towards him . . . but he has forgiven me — and his smile, I 
 hope, will draw all such humors from me. I am recover- 
 ing, God be praised for it, a healthiness of mind, something 
 like cahnness — but I want more religion — I am jealous of 
 human helps and leaning places. I rejoice in your good 
 fortunes. May God at last settle you ! — You have had many 
 and painful trials; humanly speaking, they are going to 
 end ; but we should rather pray that discipline may attend 
 
 us thro' the whole of our lives A careless and a 
 
 dissolute spirit has advanced upon me witli large strides — 
 pray Go I that my present afflictions may be sanctified tome! 
 Mary is recovering ; but I see no opening yet of a situation 
 for us or her; your invitation went to my very heart, but 
 you have a power of exciting interest, leading all hearts 
 
80 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's being with you. I 
 consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness. I 
 think, you would almost make her dance within an inch of 
 the precipice ; she must be with duller fancies, and cooler 
 intellects. In answer to your suggestions of occupation for 
 me, I must say that I do not think my capacity altogether 
 suited for disquisitions of that kind. ... I have read little, 
 I have a very weak memory, and retain little of what I read ; 
 am unused to compositions in which any methodizing is re- 
 quired ; but I thank you sincerely for the hint, and shall re- 
 ceive it as far as I am able, that is, endeavor to engage my 
 mind in some constant and innocent pursuit. 1 know my 
 capacities better than you do. 
 
 Accept my kindest love, and believe me yours, as ever. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The prospect of obtaining a residence more suited to the 
 peculiar exigencies of his situation than that which he then 
 occupied at Pentonville, gave Lamb comfort, which he ex- 
 pressed in the following short letter : — 
 
 to mr. manning. 
 
 Dear Manning, 
 
 I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for 
 your kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for 
 the choice poetry and the kind honest prose which it con- 
 tained. It was just such a letter as I should have expjected 
 from Manning, 
 
 I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last. I 
 have had a very eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. 
 He will have rooms to let at midsummer, by which time I 
 hope my sister will be well enough to join me. It is a great 
 object to me to live in town, where we shall be much more 
 private, and to quit a house and a neighborhood where poor 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 81 
 
 Mary's disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort 
 of marked people. We can be nowhere private except in 
 the midst of London. We shall be in a family whom we 
 visit very frequently ; only my landlord and I have not yet 
 come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am 
 still on the tremble, for I do not know where we could go 
 into lodgings that would not be, in many respects, highly 
 exceptionable. Only God send Mary well again, and I hope 
 all will be v/ell ! The prospect, such as it is, has made me 
 quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it 
 will give you pleasure. — Farewell. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 This hope was accomplished, as appears from the follow- 
 ing letter : — 
 
 to mr. coleridge. 
 
 Dear Coleridge, 
 
 Soon after 1 wrote to you last, an offer was made 
 
 me by G {jou must remember him, at Christ's, — you 
 
 saw him, slightly, one day with Thomson at our house — 
 to come and lodge with him, at his house in Southamp- 
 ton Buildings, Chancery-lane. This was a very comfort- 
 able offer to me, the rooms being at a reasonable rent, 
 and including the use of an old servant, besides being infi- 
 nitely preferable to ordinary lodgings in our case, as you 
 must perceive. As G knew all our story, and the per- 
 petual liability to a recurrence in my sister's disorder, pro- 
 bably to the end of her life, I certainly think the offer very 
 generous and very friendly. I have got three rooms (in- 
 cluding servant) under 34/. a-year. Here I soon found my- 
 self at home ; and here, in six weeks after, Mary was well 
 enough to join me. So we are once more settled. I am 
 afraid we are not placed out of the reach of future interrup- 
 
 4* 
 
82 FINAL 3IEIMORIALS OF CHAKLKS LaMB. 
 
 tions. But I am determined to take what snatches of plea- 
 sure we can between the acts of our distressful drama . . . 
 I have passed two days at Oxford, on a visit which I have 
 
 long put off, to G 's family. The sight of the Bodleian 
 
 Library, and, above all, a fine bust of Bishop Taylor, at All 
 Souls', were particularly gratifying to me ; unluckily, it was 
 not a family where I could take Mary with me, and I am 
 afraid there is something of dishonesty in any pleasures 1 
 take without her. She never goes any where. I do not 
 know what I can add to this letter. I hope you are better 
 by this time ; and I desire to be afTectionately remembered 
 to Sara and Hartley. 
 
 1 expected before this to have had tidings of another little 
 philosopher. Lloyd's wife is on the point of favoring the 
 world. 
 
 Have you seen the new edition of Burns? his posthu- 
 mous works and letters ? I have only been able to procure 
 the first volume, which contains his life — very confusedly and 
 badly written, and interspersed with dull pathological and med- 
 ical discussions. It is written by a Dr. Currie. Do you know 
 the well-meaning doctor? Alas, ne sutor ultra crepidamf 
 
 I hope to hear again from you very soon. Godwin is 
 gone to Ireland on a visit to Grattan. Before he went t 
 passed much time with him, and he has showed me particu- 
 lar attention : N. B. A thinor I much like. Your books are 
 all safe ; only I have not thought it necessary to fetch away 
 your last batch, which I understand are at Johnson's, the 
 bookseller, who has got quite as much room, and will take as 
 much care of them as myself — and you can send for them 
 immediately from him. 
 
 I wish you would advert to a letter I sent you at Grass- 
 mere about Christabel, and comply with my request con- 
 tained therein. 
 
 Love to all friends round Skidd aw. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS TO MANNING, COLERIDGE, AND WORDSWORTH, FROM 
 
 1800 TO 1805. 
 
 It would seem from the letters of 1800, that the natural 
 determination of Lamb " to take what pleasure he could be- 
 tween the acts of his distressful drama," had led him into a 
 wider circle of companionship, and had prompted sallies of 
 wilder and broader mirth, which afterwards softened into deli- 
 cacy, retaining all its whim. The following passage, which 
 concludes a letler to Manning, else occupied with merely 
 personal details, proves that his apprehensions for the diminu- 
 tion of his reverence for sacred things were not wholly un- 
 founded ; while, amidst its grotesque expressions, may be 
 discerned the repugnance to the philosophical infidelity of 
 some of his companions he retained through life. The pas- 
 sage, may, perhaps, be regarded as a sort of desperate com- 
 promise between a wild gaiety and religious impressions ob- 
 scured but not effaced ; and intimating his disapprobation of 
 infidelity, with a melancholy sense of his own unworthiness 
 seriously to express it. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 Coleridge inquires after you pretty often. I wish to be 
 the pander to bring you together again once before I die. 
 When we die, you and I must part ; the sheep, you know, 
 take the right hand, and the goats the left. Stripped of its 
 
84 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 allegory, you must know, the sheep are 7, and the Apostles 
 and the Martyrs, and the Popes, and Bishop Taylor and 
 Bishop Horsely, and Coleridge, &c. &c. ; the goats are the 
 Atheists and the Adulterers, and dumb dogs, and Godwin 
 
 and M g, and that Thyestsean crew — yaw ! how my 
 
 saintship sickens at the idea ! 
 
 You shall have my play and the Falstaff letters in a day 
 or two. I will write to Lloyd by this day's post. 
 
 God bless you, Manning. Take my trifling as trijiing — 
 
 and believe me seriously and deeply your well-wisher and 
 
 friend, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Tn the following letter. Lamb's fantastic spirits find scope 
 freely, though in all kindness, in the peculiarities of the 
 learned and good George Dyer. 
 
 to mr. manning. 
 
 Dear Manning, 
 
 You needed not imagine any apology necessary. Your 
 fine hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our 
 kitchen blaze), discourse most eloquent music in your justi- 
 fication. You just nicked my palate. For, with all due de- 
 corum and leave may it be spoken, my worship hath takea 
 physic to-day, and being low and puling, requireth to be pam- 
 pered. Fob! how beautiful and strong those buttered onions 
 come to my nose. For you must know we extract a divine 
 spirit of gravy from those materials, which, duly compounded 
 with a consistence of bread and cream (y'clept bread-sauce), 
 each to each, giving double grace, do mutually illustrate and 
 set off" (as skillful gold foils to rare jewels) your partridge, 
 pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other lesser 
 daughters of the ark. Mrs. Friendship, struggling with my 
 carnal and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird or 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 85 
 
 man is the proper allotment in such cases), yearneth some- 
 times to have thee here to pick a wing or so. I question if 
 your Norfolk sauces match our London cookery. 
 
 George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agree- 
 able old gentleman, Dr. A , who gives hot legs of mutton 
 
 and grape pies at his sylvan lodge at Isleworth ; where, in 
 the middle of a street, he has shot up a wall most preposter- 
 ously before his small dwelling, which, with the circumstance 
 of his taking seven panes of glass out of bedroom windows 
 (for air), causeth his neighbors to speculate strangely on the 
 state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives un- 
 der the reputation of being deranged. George does not mind 
 this circumstance ; he rather likes him the better for it. The 
 Doctor, in his pursuits, joins agricultural to poetical science, 
 and has set George's brains mad about the old Scotch writers, 
 Barbour, Douglas's ^neid, Blind Harry, &c. We returned 
 home in r. return postchaise (having dined with the Doctor), 
 and George kept wondering and wondering, for eight or nine 
 turnpike miles, what was the name, and striving to recollect 
 the name of a poet anterior to Barbour. I begged to know 
 what was I'emaining of his works. " There is nothing extant 
 of his works, Sir, but by all accounts, he seems to have been 
 a fine genius !" This fine genius, without any thing to show 
 for it, or any title beyond George's courtesy, without even a 
 name ; and Barbour, and Douglas, and Blind Harry, now 
 are predominant sounds in George's pia mater, and their buz- 
 zino-s exclude politics, criticism, and algebra — the late lords 
 of that illustrious lumber-room. Mark, he has never read 
 any of these bucks, but is impatient till he reads them all at 
 the Doctor's suggestion. Poor Dyer ! his friends should be 
 careful what speeches they let fall into such inflammable 
 matter. 
 
 Could I have my will of the heathen, I would lock him 
 up from all access of new ideas ; I would exclude all critics 
 
86 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 that would not swear first (upon their Virgil) that they would 
 feed him with nothing but the old, safe, familiar notions and 
 sounds (the rightful aborigines of his brain) — Gray, Aken- 
 side, and Mason. In these sounds, reiterated as often as pos- 
 sible, there could be nothing painful, nothing distracting. 
 
 God bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot ! 
 
 All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight ! 
 
 Avaunt friendship, and all memory of absent friends ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 In the following letter, the exciting subjects of Dr. A 
 
 and Dyer are further played on. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily 
 acquainted with ; the oftener I see him, the more deeply I 
 admire him. He is goodness itself If I could but calcu- 
 late the precise date of his death, I would write a novel on 
 purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off to a 
 hair.* George brought a Dr. A to see me. The Doc- 
 tor is a very pleasant old man, a great genius for agricul- 
 ture, one that ties his breeches-knees with a packthread, and 
 boasts of having had disappointments from ministers. Tlie 
 Doctor happened to mention an epic poem by one Wilkie, 
 called the " Epigoniad," in which he assured us there is not 
 one tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the charac- 
 ters, incidents, &c., verbally copied from Homer. George, 
 who had befen sitting quite inattentive to the Doctor's criti- 
 
 * This passage, thus far, is printed in the former volumes ; the re- 
 mainder was ihen suppressed (with other passages now for the first time 
 published) relating to Mr. Dyer, lest they should give pain to that ex- 
 cellent person then living. 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. -87 
 
 cism, no sooner felt the sound of Homer strike his pericran- 
 icks, than up he gets, and declares he must see that poem 
 immediately : where was it to be had ? An epic poem of 
 8000 lines, and he not hear of it ! There must be some 
 things good in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for 
 he had touched pretty deeply upon that subject in his criti- 
 cism on the Epic. George has touched pretty deeply upon 
 the Lyric, I find ; he has also prepared a dissertation upon 
 the Drama and the comparison of the English and German 
 theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the lat- 
 ter, knowing that his peculiar turn lies in the lyric species 
 of composition, I questioned George what English plays he 
 had read. I found that he had read Shakspeare (whom he 
 calls an original, but irregular, genius) ; but it was a good 
 while ago ; and he has dipped into Rowe and Otway, I sup- 
 pose having found their verses in " Johnson's Lives" at full 
 length ; and upon this slender ground he has undertaken the 
 task. He never seemed even to have heard of Fletcher, 
 Ford, Marlowe, Massinger, and the worthies of Dodsley's 
 Collection ; but he is to read all these, to prepare him for 
 bringing out his " Parallel" in the winter. I find he is also 
 determined to vindicate Poetry from the shackles which Aris- 
 totle and some others have imposed upon it, which is very 
 good-natured of him, and very necessary just now. Now \ 
 am touching so deeply upon poetry, can I forget that 1 have 
 
 just received from D a magnificent copy of his Guinea 
 
 Epic. Four-and-twenty books to read in the dog-days ! I 
 got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, and fainted. Mr. 
 
 D 's genius strongly points him to the Pastoral, but his 
 
 inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He 
 imitates Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his " Good 
 morrow to ye ; good master Lieutenant." Instead of a man, 
 a woman, a daughter, he constantly writes one a man, one a 
 woman, one his daughter. Instead of the king, the hero, he 
 
88 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 constantly writes, he the king, he the hero ; two flowers 
 
 of rhetoric, palpably from the "Joan." But Mr. D 
 
 soars a higher pitch ; and when he is original, it is in a most 
 original way indeed. His terrific scenes are indefatigable. 
 Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made 
 of nothing, with adders' tongues for bannisters — Good Hea- 
 ven ! what a brain he must have. He puts as many plums 
 in his pudding as my grandmother used to do ; — and then his 
 emerging from Hell's horrors into light, and treading on pure 
 flats of this earth — for twenty-three Books together ! 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The following letter, obviously written about the same 
 time, pursues the same theme. There is some iteration in 
 it ; but even that is curious enough to prevent the excision 
 of the reproduced passages. 
 
 to mr. manning. 
 
 Dear Manning, 
 
 I am going to ask a favor of you, and am at a 
 loss how to do it in the most delicate manner. For this pur- 
 pose I have been looking into Pliny's Letters, who is noted 
 to have had the best grace in begging of all the ancients (I 
 read him in the elegant translation of Mr. Melmoth,) but not 
 finding any case there exactly similar with mine, I am con- 
 strained to beg in my own barbarian way. To come to the 
 point then, and hasten into the middle of things ; have you a 
 copy of your Algebra to give away ? I do not ask it for 
 myself; I have too much reverence for the Black Arts, ever 
 to approach thy circle, illustrious Trismegist ! But that 
 worthy man, and excellent poet, George Dyer, made me a 
 visit yesternight, on purpose to borrow one, supposing, ration- 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 89 
 
 ally enough, I must say, that you had made me a present 
 of one before this ; the omission of which I take to have pro- 
 ceeded only from negligence ; but it is a fault. I could lend 
 him no assistance. You must know he is just now diverted 
 from the pursuit of the Bell Letters by a paradox, which 
 he has heard his friend,* (that learned mathematician) main- 
 tain, that the negative quantities of mathematicians were 
 mercE, nugce, things scarcely m rerum naiurd, and smacking 
 too much of mystery for gentlemen of Mr. Frend's clear 
 Unitarian capacity. However, the dispute once set a-going, 
 has seized violently on George's pericranicks ; and it is 
 necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a 
 resolution of his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends 
 with his new mathematics; he even frantically talks of pur- 
 chasing Manning's Algebra, which shows him far gone, for, 
 to my knowledge, he has not been master of seven shillings 
 
 a good time. George's pockets and 's brains are two 
 
 things in nature which do not abhor a vacuum 
 
 Now, if you could step in, on this trembling suspense of his 
 reason, and he should find on Saturday morning, lying for 
 him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's Irm, — his safest address 
 — Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscription in the blank 
 leaf, running thus, " From the Author !" it might save his 
 wits and restore the unhappy author to those studies of poetry 
 and criticism, which are at present suspended, to the infinite 
 regret of the wb.ole literary world. N. B. — Dirty covers, 
 smeared leaves, and dog's ears, will be rather a recommen- 
 dation than otherwise. N. B. — He must have the book as 
 soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly 
 purchasing the book on tick . . . Then shall we see him 
 
 * Mr Fiend, many years the Actuary of the Rock Insurance Office, 
 in early life the champion of Unitarianism at Cambridge ; the object of 
 a great University's displeasure ; in short, the " village Hampden" of 
 the day. 
 
90 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 sweetly restored to the chair of Longinus — to dictate in 
 smooth and modest phrase the laws of verse ; to prove that 
 Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, and Virgil and Pope 
 brought it to its perfection ; that Gray and Mason (who 
 always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a 
 great deal of poetical fire in their lyric poetry ; that Aristotle's 
 rules are not to be servilely followed, which George has 
 shown to have imposed great shackles upon modern genius. 
 His poems, I find, are to consist of two vols. — reasonable 
 octavo ; and a third book will exclusively contain criticisms, 
 in which he has gone pretty deeply into the laws of blank 
 verse and rhyme — epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral ditto — 
 all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all 
 he has touched most deeply upon the Drama, comparing the 
 English with the modern German stage, their merits and 
 defects. Apprehending that his studies (not to mention his 
 turn, which I take to be chiefly towards the lyrical poetry) 
 hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I modestly in- 
 quired what plays he had read ? I found George's reply 
 was that he had read Shakspeare, but that was a good while 
 since : he calls him a great, irregular genius, which I think 
 to be an original and just remark. Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe, Ford, and the 
 worthies of Dodsley's Collection — he confessed he had read 
 none of them, but professed his intention of looking through 
 them all, so as to be able to touch upon them in his book. 
 So Shakspeare, Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was 
 naturally directed by Johnson's Lives, and these not read 
 lately, are to stand him instead of a general knowledge of 
 the subject. God bless his dear absurd head ! 
 
 By the by, did I not write you a letter with something 
 about an invitation in it ? — but let that pass ; I suppose it is 
 not agreeable. 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 91 
 
 N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany 
 your present with a dissertation on negative quantities. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The "Algebra" arrived ; and Lamb wrote the following 
 invitation, in hope to bring the author and the presentee 
 together. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 George Dyer is an Archimedes and an Archimagus, and 
 a Tycho Brahe, and a Copernicus ; and thou art the darling 
 of the Nine, and midwife to their wandering babe also ! We 
 take tea with that learned poet and critic on Tuesday night, 
 at half-past five, in his neat library ; the repast will be light 
 and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel 
 up thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us 
 on tripe, kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. 
 Clare may be willing to pour out on the occasion, might we 
 not adjourn together to the heathen's — thou with thy Black 
 Backs, and I with some innocent volume of the Bell Letters, 
 Shenstone, or the like : it would make him wash his old 
 flannel gown (that has not been washed, to my knowledge, 
 since it has been his — Oh, the long time !) with tears 
 of joy. Thou shouldst settle his scruples, and unravel his 
 cobwebs, and sponge off the sad stuff that weighs upon his 
 dear wounded pia mater; thou wouldst restore light to his 
 eyes, and him to his friends and the public ; Parnassus 
 should shower her civic crowns on thee for saving the wits 
 of a citizen ! I thought I saw a lucid interval in George the 
 other night — he broke in upon my studies just at tea-time, 
 
 and brought with him Dr. A , an old gentleman who ties 
 
 his breeches' knees with packthread, and boasts that he has 
 been disappointed by ministers. The Doctor wanted to see 
 
92 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 me ; for I being a post, he thought I might furnish him with 
 a copy of verses to suit his Agricultural Magazine. The 
 Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem 
 called the " Epigoniad " by one Wilkie, an epic poem, in 
 which there is not one tolerable line all through, but every 
 incident and speech borrowed from Homer. George had 
 been sitting inattentive, seemingly, to what was going on — 
 hatching of negative quantities — when, suddenly, the name 
 of his old friend, Homer, stung his pericranicks, and, jumping 
 up, he begged to know where he could meet with Wilkie's 
 works. " It was a curious fact that there should be such an 
 epic poem and he not know of it ; and he must get a copy of it, 
 as he was going to touch pretty deeply upon the subject of 
 the Epic — and he was sure there must be some things good 
 in a poem of 8000 lines!" I was pleased with this transient 
 return of his reason and recurrence to his old ways of think- 
 ing : it gave me great hopes of a recovery, which nothing 
 but your book can completely insure. Pray come on Mon- 
 day, if you can, and stay your own time. I have a good, 
 large room, with two beds in it, in the handsomest of which 
 thou shalt repose a night, and dream of Spheroids. I hope 
 you will understand by the nonsense of this letter that 1 am 
 not melancholy at the thoughts of thy coming : 1 thought it 
 necessary to add this, because you love precision. Take 
 notice that our stay at Dyer's will not exceed eight o'clock, 
 after which our pursuits will be our own. But, indeed, I 
 think a little recreation among the Bell Letters and poetry 
 will do you some service in the interval of severer studies. 
 I hope we shall fully discuss with George Dyer what I have 
 never yet heard done to my satisfaction, the reason of Dr. 
 Johnson's malevolent strictures on the higher species of the 
 Ode. 
 
 Manning could not come : and Dyer's subsequent symp- 
 toms are described in the following letter — 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 93 
 
 TO MR. MANxNING. 
 
 At length George Dyer's phrenesis has come to a crisis ; 
 he is raging and furiously mad. I waited upon the heathen, 
 Thursday se'nnight ; the first symptom which struck my eye, 
 and gave me incontrovertible proof of the fatal truth, was a 
 pair of nankeen pantaloons, four times too big for him, which 
 the said heathen did pertinaciously affirm to be new. They 
 were absolutely ingrained with the accumulated dirt of ages; 
 but he affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a 
 lady that was nice about those things, and that's the reason 
 he wore nankeen that day. And he danced, and capered, 
 and fidgeted, and pulled up his pantaloons, and hugged his 
 intolerable flannel vestment closer about his poetic loins ; 
 anon he gave it loose to the zephyrs which plentifully in- 
 sinuated their tiny bodies through every crevice, door, win- 
 dow, or wainscot, expressly formed for the exclusion of such 
 impertinents. Then he caught at a proof sheet, and catched 
 up a laundress's bill instead — made a dart at Bloomfield's 
 Poems, and threw them in agony aside. I could not bring 
 him to one direct reply ; he could not maintain his jumping 
 mind in a right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's 
 Inn clock. He must go to the printer's immediately — the 
 most unlucky accident — he had struck off* five hundred im- 
 pressions of his Poems, which were ready for delivery to 
 subscribers, and the Preface must all be expunged ; there 
 were eighty pages of Preface, and not till that morning had 
 he discovered, that in the very first page of the said Preface 
 he had set out with a principle of Criticism fundamentally 
 wrong, which vitiated all his following reasoning ; the Pre- 
 face must be expunged, although it cost him £30, the lowest 
 calculation, taking in paper and printing ! In vain have his 
 real friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness. 
 George is as sturdy in his resolution as a Primitive Christian 
 
94 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 — and wards and parries off all our thrusts with one un- 
 answerable fence; — "Sir, it's of great consequence that the 
 world is not misled /" 
 
 I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, before doubt, 
 and propositions, and corollaries got into the world. Now^ as 
 
 Joseph D , Bard of Nature, sings, going up Malvern 
 
 Hills, 
 
 " How steep ! how painful the ascent ! 
 It needs the evidence of close deduction 
 To know that ever I shall gain the top." 
 
 You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some 
 reason for so saying. These two lines, I assure you, are 
 taken totidem Uteris from a very popular poem. Joe is also 
 an Epic poet as well as a Descriptive, and has written a 
 tragedy, though both his drama and epopceia are strictly 
 descriptive, and chiefly of the heautie-i of Nature, for Joe 
 thinks man, with all his passions and frailties, not a proper 
 subject of the Drama. Joe's tragedy hath the following sur- 
 passing speech in it. Some king is told that his enemy has 
 engaged twelve archers to come over in a boat from an 
 enemy's country, and way-lay him ; he thereupon patheti- 
 cally exclaims — 
 
 " Twelve, dost thou say ? Curse on those dozen villains !" 
 
 D read two of the acts out to us very gravely on both 
 
 sides till he came to this heroic touch, and then he asked 
 what we laughed at ? I had no more muscles that day. A 
 poet who chooses to read out his own verses has but a limited 
 power over you. There is a bound where his authority 
 ceases. 
 
 The following letter, written some time in 1801, shows 
 that Lamb had succeeded in obtaining occasional employ- 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 95 
 
 ment as a writer of epigrams for newspapers, by which he 
 added something to his slender income. The disparaging 
 reference to Sir James Mackintosh must not be taken as ex- 
 pressive of Lamb's deliberate opinion of that distinguished 
 person. Mackintosh, at this time., was in great disfavor for 
 his supposed apostacy from the principles of his j'outh, with 
 Lamb's philosophic friends, whose minds were of tempera- 
 ment less capable than that of the author of the Vindicice 
 GaUicce of being diverted from abstract theories of liberty by 
 the crimes and sufferings which then attended the great 
 attempt to reduce them to practice. Lamb, through life 
 utterly indifferent to politics, was always ready to take part 
 with his friends, and probably scouted, with them, Mackintosh 
 as a deserter. 
 
 to mr. manning. 
 
 Dear Manning, 
 
 I have forborne writing so long (and so have you 
 for the matter of that), until I am almost ashamed either to 
 write or to forbear any longer. But as your silence may 
 proceed from some worse cause than neglect — from illness, 
 or some mishap which may have befallen you, I begin to be 
 anxious. You may have been burnt out, or you may have 
 married, or you may have broken a limb, or turned country 
 parson ; any of these w^ould be cause sufficient for not coming 
 to my supper. I am not so unforgiving as the nobleman in 
 Saint Mark. For me, nothing new has happened to me, 
 unless that the poor Albion died last Saturday of the world's 
 neglect, and with it the fountain of my puns is choked up 
 for ever. 
 
 All the Lloyds wonder that you do not write to them. 
 They apply to me for the cause. Relieve me from this 
 weight of ignorance, and enable me to give a truly oracular 
 response. 
 
96 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 I have been confined some days with swelled cheek and 
 rheumatism — they divide and govern me with a viceroy- 
 headache in the middle. I can neither write nor read with- 
 out great pain. It must be something like obstinacy that I 
 choose this time to write to you after many months interrup- 
 tion. 
 
 I will close my letter of simple inquiry with an epigram 
 on Mackintosh, the VindlcicB GaUick-msin. — who has got a 
 place at last — one of the last I did for the Albion : 
 
 " Though thou 'rt like Judas, an apostate black, 
 In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack ; 
 When he had gotten his ill-purchas'd pelf. 
 He went away, and wisely hang'd himself: 
 This thou may do at last, yet much I doubt 
 If thou hast any Bowels to gush out !" 
 
 Yours, as ever, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Some sportive extravagance which, however inconsistent 
 with Lamb's early sentiments of reverent piety, was very 
 far from indicating an irreligious purpose, seems to have 
 given offence to Mr. Walter Wilson, and to have induced 
 the following letter, illustrative of the writer's feelings at this 
 time, on the most momentous of all subjects. 
 
 to mr. walter wilson. 
 
 Dear Wilson, 
 
 I am extremely sorry that any serious difTerence 
 should subsist between us, on account of some foolish beha- 
 vior of mine at Richmond ; you knew me well enough be- 
 fore, that a very little liquor will cause a considerable 
 alteration in me. 
 
 I beg you to impute my conduct solely to that, and not to 
 any deliberate intention of ofTending you, from whom I have 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 97 
 
 received so many friendly attentions. I know that you think 
 a very important difference in opinion with respect to some 
 more serious subjects between us makes me a dangerous 
 companion ; but do not rashly infer, from some slight and 
 light expressions which I may have made use of in a moment 
 of levity, in your presence, without sufficient regard to your 
 feelings — do not, I pray you, conclude that I am an invete- 
 rate enemy to all religion. I have had a time of seriousness, 
 and I have known the importance and reality of a religious 
 belief. Latterly, I acknowledge, much of my seriousness has 
 gone off, whether from new company, or some other new asso- 
 ciations ; but I still retain at bottom a conviction of the truth, 
 and a certainty of the usefulness of religion. I will not pretend 
 to more gravity or feeling than I at present possess ; my inten- 
 tion is not to persuade you that any great alteration is pro- 
 bable in me ; sudden converts are superficial and transitory ; 
 I only want you to believe that I have stamina of seriousness 
 within me, and that I desire nothing more than a return of 
 that friendly intercourse which used to subsist between us, 
 but which my folly has suspended. 
 
 Believe me, very affectionately, yours, 
 
 C. Labib. 
 Friday, Uth August, 1801. 
 
 In 1803 Coleridge visited London, and at his departure 
 left the superintendence of a new edition of his poems to Lamb. 
 The following letter, written in reply to one of Coleridge's, 
 giving a mournful account of his journey to the north with 
 an old man and his influenza, refers to a splendid smoking- 
 cap which Coleridge had worn at their evening meetings. 
 
 to mr. coleridge. 
 
 My dear Coleridge, 
 
 Things have gone on better with me since you left 
 rne. I expect to have my old housekeeper home again in a 
 
 5 
 
98 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 week or two. She has mended most rapidly. My health 
 too has been better since you took away that Montero cap. 
 I have left ofFcayenned eggs and such bolsters to discomfort. 
 There was death in that cap. I mischievously wished that 
 by some inauspicious jolt the whole contents might be shaken, 
 and the coach set on fire ; for you said they had that proper- 
 ty. How the old gentleman, who joined you at Grantham, 
 would have clapt his hands to his knees, and not knowing 
 but it was an immediate visitation of Heaven that burnt him, 
 how pious it would have made him ; him, I mean, that 
 brought the influenza with him, and only took places for one 
 — an old sinner ; he must have known what he had got with 
 him ! However, I wish the cap no harm for the sake of the 
 head it jits, and could be content to see it disfigure my healthy 
 side-board again. 
 
 What do you think of smoking? I want your sober, 
 average, noon opinion of it. 1 generally am eating my din- 
 ner about the time I should determine it. 
 
 Morning is a girl, and can't smoke — she's no evidence 
 one way or the other ; and Night is so bought over, that he 
 can't be a very upright judge. May be the truth is, that 
 one pipe is wholesome ; two pipes toothsome ; three pipes 
 noisome; four pipes fulsome, five pipes quarrelsome, and 
 that's the su7)i on't. But that is deciding rather upon rhyme 
 than reason. . . . After all, our instincts ?nay be best. 
 Wine I am sure, good, mellow, generous Port, can hurt no- 
 body, unless those who take it to excess, which they may 
 easily avoid if they observe the rules of temperance. 
 
 Bless you, old sophist, who next to human nature taught 
 me all the corruption I was capable of knowing ! And bless 
 your Montero cap, and your trail (which shall come after 
 you whenever you appoint), and your wife and children' — 
 Pipes especially. 
 
 When shall we two smoke again ? Last night I had 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 99 
 
 been in a sad quandary of spirits, in what they call the 
 evening, but a pipe, and some generous Port, and King Lear 
 (being alone), had their effects as solacers. I went to bed 
 pot-valiant. By the way, may not the Ogles of Somerset- 
 shire be remotely descended from King Lear ? 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The next letter is prefaced by happy news. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Mary sends love from home. 
 
 Dear C, 
 
 I do confess that I have not sent your books as I 
 ought to have done ; but you know how the human free-will 
 is tethered, and that we perform promises to ourselves no 
 better than to our friends. A watch is come for you. Do 
 you want it soon, or shall I wait till some one travels your 
 way ? You, like me, reckon the lapse of time from the 
 waste thereof, as boys let a cock run to waste ; too idle to 
 stop it, and rather amused with seeing it dribble. Your 
 poems have begun printing ; Longman sent to me to arrange 
 them, the old and the new together. It seems you have left 
 it to him ; so I classed them, as nearly as I could, accord- 
 ing to dates. First, after the Dedication, (which must march 
 first,) and which I have transplanted from before the Pre- 
 face, (which stood like a dead wall of prose between,) to be 
 the first Poem — then comes " The Pixies," and the things 
 most juvenile — then on " To Chatterton," &c. — on, lastly, 
 to the " Ode on the Departing Year," and " Musings," — 
 which finish. Longman wanted the Ode first, but the ar- 
 rangement I have made is precisely that marked out in the 
 Dedication, following the order of time. I told Longman I 
 was sure that you would omit a good portion of the first edi- 
 
100 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 tion. I instanced several sonnets, (fee. — but that was not his 
 plan, and, as you have done nothing in it, all I could do was 
 to arrange them on the supposition that all were to be re- 
 tained. A few I positively rejected ; such as that of" The 
 Thimble," and that of " Flicker and Flicker's wife," and 
 that not in the naanner of Spenser, which you yourself had 
 stigmatized — and " The Man of Ross," — I doubt whether I 
 should this last. It is not too late to save it. The first proof 
 is only just come. I have been forced to call that Cupid's 
 Elixer, " Kisses." It stands in your first volume, as an Ef- 
 fusion, so that, instead of prefixing The Kiss to that of" One 
 Kiss, dear Maid," &c., I have ventured to entitle it " To 
 Sara." I am aware of the nicety of changing even so mere 
 a trifle as a title to so short a piece, and subverting old asso- 
 ciations ; but two called " Kisses" would have been abso- 
 lutely ludicrous, and " Effusion" is no name, and these poems 
 come close together. I promise you not to alter one word 
 in any poem whatever, but to take your last text, where two 
 are. Can you send any wishes about the book ? Longman, 
 I think, should have settled with you ; but it seems you have 
 left it to him. Write as soon as you possibly can ; for, with- 
 out making myself responsible, I feel myself, in some sort, 
 accessary to the selection, which I am to proof-correct ; but I 
 decidedly said to Biggs that I was sure you would omit more. 
 Those I have positively rubbed off, I can swear to, individu- 
 ally, (except the " Man of Ross," which is too familiar in 
 Pope,) but no others, — you have your cue. For my part, I 
 had rather all the Juvenilia were kept — memoricB causa. 
 
 Robert Lloyd has written me a masterly letter, containing 
 a character of his father ; — see how different from Charles 
 he views the old man ! [Literatim.) " My father smokes, re- 
 peats Homer in Greek, and Virgil, and is learning, when 
 from business, with all the vigor of a young man, Italian. 
 He is, really, a wonderful man. He mixes public and pri- 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 101 
 
 vate business, the intricacies of disordering life witii his reli- 
 gion and devotion. No one more rationally enjoys the ro- 
 mantic scenes of nature, and the chit-chat and little vagaries 
 of his children ; and, though surrounded with an ocean of 
 affairs, the very neatness of his most obscure cupboard in the 
 house passes not unnoticed. I never knew any one view 
 with such clearness, nor so well satisfied with things as they 
 are, and make such allowance for things which must appear 
 perfect Syriac to him." By the last he means the Lloydisms 
 of the younger branches. His portrait of Charles, as far as 
 he has had opportunities of noting him, is most exquisite. 
 "Charles is become steady as a church, as straightforward 
 as a Roman road. It would distract him to mention any 
 thing that was as plain as sense ; he seems to have run the 
 whole scenery of life, and now rests as the formal precisian 
 of non-existence." Here is genius I think, and 'tis seldom a 
 young man, a Lloyd, looks at a father (so differing) with 
 such good nature while he is alive. Write — 
 
 I am in post-haste, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 Love, &c., to Sara, P. and H. 
 
 The next letter, containing a further account of Lamb's 
 superintendence of the new edition, bears the date of Satur- 
 day, 27th Miiy, 1803. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Saturday, Qlth May. 
 
 My DEAR Coleridge, 
 
 The date of my last was one day prior to the re- 
 ceipt of your letter, full of foul omens. I explain, lest you 
 should have thought mine too light a reply to such sad mat- 
 ter. I seriously hope by this time you have given up all 
 
102 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 thoughts of journeying to the green Islands of the Blest — voy- 
 ages in time of war are very precarious — or at least, that you 
 will take them in your way to the Azores. Pray be careful 
 of this letter till it has done its duty, for it is to inform you 
 that 1 have booked off your watch (laid in cotton like an un- 
 timely fruit), and with it Condillac, and all other books of 
 yours which were left here. These will set out on Monday 
 next, the 29th May, by Kendal, from White Horse, Cripple- 
 gate. You will make seasonable inquiries, for a watch 
 mayn't come your way again in a hurry. I have been re- 
 peatedly after Tobin, and now hear that he is in the country, 
 not to return till middle of June. I will take care and 
 see him with the earliest. But cannot you write pathetically 
 to him, enforcing a speedy mission of your books for literary 
 purposes ? He is too good a retainer to Literature, to let 
 her interests suffer through his default. And why are your 
 books to travel from Barnard's Inn to the Temple, and thence 
 circuitously to Cripplegate, when their business is to take a 
 short cut down Holborn-hill, up Snow do., on to Wood-street, 
 &;c. ? The former mode seems a sad superstitious subdivision 
 of labor. Well ! the " Man of Ross " is to stand ; Longman 
 begs for it ; the printer stands with a wet sheet in one hand, 
 and a useless Pica in the other, in tears, pleading for it ; I 
 relent. Besides, it was a Salutation poem, and has the mark 
 of the beast Tobacco upon it. Thus much I have done ; I 
 have swept off the lines about widows and orphans in second 
 edition, which (if you remember) you most awkwardly and 
 illogically caused to be inserted between two Ifs, to the great 
 breach and disunion of said Ifs, which now meet again (as 
 in first edition), like two clever lawyers arguing a case. 
 Another reason for subtracting the pathos was, that the " Man 
 of Ross" is too familiar, to need telling what he did, espe- 
 cially in worse lines than Pope told it, and it now stands sim- 
 ply as " Reflections at an Inn about a known Character," 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 103 
 
 and making an old story into an accommodation with present 
 feelings. Here is no breaking spears with Pope,. but a new, 
 independent, and really a very pretty poem. In fact 'tis as I 
 used to admire it in the first volume, and I have even dared 
 to restore 
 
 ^ If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheer' d moments pass," 
 for 
 
 " Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pass." 
 
 *' Cheer'd " is a sad general word, " wine-cheered " I'm sure 
 you'd give me, if I had a speaking-trumpet to sound to you 
 300 miles. But I am your factotum, and that save in this 
 instance, which is a single case (and I can't get at you), shall 
 be next to Sifac-nihil — at most, a. facsimile. 1 have ordered 
 ^' Imitation of Spenser " to be restored on Wordsworth's au- 
 thority ; and now, all that you will miss will be " Flicker 
 and Flicker's Wife," " The Thimble," " Breathe dear har- 
 monies,''^ and / believe, " The Child that was fed with Manna." 
 Another volume will clear off all 5''our Anthologic Morning- 
 Postian Epistolary Miscellanies ; but, pray, don't put " Chris- 
 tabel " therein ; don't let that sweet maid come forth at- 
 tended with Lady Holland's mob at her heels. Let there 
 be a separate volume of Tales, Choice Tales, " Ancient 
 
 Mariners," &c. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The following is the fragment of a letter (part being lost), 
 on the re-appearance of the Lyrical Ballads, in two volumes, 
 and addressed 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Thanks for your letter and present. I had already bor- 
 rowed your second volume. What most please me are, 
 
104 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 " The Song of Lucy ;" Simon's sickly daughter, in " The 
 Sexton," made me cry. Next to these are the description 
 of the continuous echoes in the story of " Joanna's Lauo-h," 
 where the mountains, and all the scenery absolutely seem 
 alive ; and that fine Shaksperian character of the " happy 
 man," in the " Brothers," 
 
 " that creeps about the fields. 
 
 Following his fancies by the hour, to bring 
 Tears down his cheek or solitary smiles 
 Into his face, until the setting sun 
 Write Fool upon his forehead I" 
 
 I will mention one more— the delicate and curious feeling in 
 the wish for the " Cumberland Beggar," that he may hsLve 
 about him the melody of birds, altho' he hear them not. 
 Here the mind knowingly passes a fiction upon herself, first 
 substituting her own feelings for the Beggar's, and in the 
 same breath detecting the fallacy, will not part with the wish. 
 The " Poet's Epitaph " is disfigured, to my taste, by the com- 
 mon satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and 
 the coarse epithet of " pinpoint," in the sixth stanza. All 
 the rest is eminently good, and your own. I will just add 
 that it appears to me a fault in the "Beggar," that the in- 
 structions conveyed in it are too direct, and like a lecture : 
 they don't slide into the mind of the reader while he is 
 imagining no such matter. An intelligent reader finds a sort 
 of insult in being told, " I will teach you how to think upon 
 this subject." This fault, if I am right, is in a ten-thousandth 
 worse degree to be found in Sterne, and many novelists and 
 modern poets, who continually put a sign-post up to show 
 where you are to feel. They set out with assuming their 
 readers to be stupid ; very different from " Robinson Cru- 
 soe," the " Vicar of Wakefield," "Roderick Random," and 
 other beautiful, bare narratives. There is implied an un- 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 105 
 
 written compact between author and reader : " I will tell 
 you a story, and I suppose you will understand it." Modern 
 novels, " St. Leon " and the like, are full of such flowers as 
 these — " Let not my reader suppose," " Imagine, if you 
 can, &c." — modest! I will here have done with praise and 
 blame. I have written so much, only that you may not 
 think I have passed over your book without observation. . . . 
 1 am sorry that Coleridge has christened his " Ancient Mari- 
 ner " " a Poet's Reverie ;" it is as bad as Bottom the Weav- 
 er's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical 
 representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by his 
 title but one subversive of all credit — which the tale should 
 force upon us, — of its truth ? 
 
 For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. 
 After first reading it, I was totally possessed with it for many 
 days. I dislike all the miraculous part of it, but the feel- 
 ings of the man under the operation of such scenery, dragged 
 me along like Tom Pipe's magic whistle. I totally differ 
 from the idea that the " Mariner " should have had a char- 
 acter and profession. This is a beauty in " Gulliver's 
 Travels," where the mind is kept in a placid state of little 
 wonderments ; but the " Ancient Mariner " undergoes such 
 trials as overwhelm and bury all individuality or memory of 
 what he was — like the state of a man in a bad dream, one 
 terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness of per- 
 sonality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, 
 a little unfounded : the " Mariner," from being conversant 
 in supernatural events, has acquired a super-nature and 
 strange cast of phrase, eye, appearance, &c., which frighten 
 the " wedding-guest." You will excuse my remarks, be- 
 cause I am hurt and vexed that you should think it neces- 
 sary, with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men 
 that cannot see. 
 
 To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do not 
 5* 
 
106 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 feel any one poem in it so forcibly as the " Ancient Mariner," 
 the " Mad Mother," and the " Lines at Tintern Abbey" in the 
 first. 
 
 The following letter was addressed, on 28th November, 
 1805, when Lamb was bidding his generous farewell to To- 
 bacco, to Wordsworth, then living in noble poverty with his 
 sister in a cottage by Grassmere, which is as sacred to some 
 of his old admirers as even Shakspeare's House. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 My dear Wordsworth (or Dorothy rather, for to you ap- 
 pertains the biggest part of this answer by right), I will not 
 again deserve reproach by so long a silence. I have kept 
 deluding myself with the idea that Mary would write to you, 
 but she is so lazy, (or I believe the true state of tlie case, so 
 diffident,) that it must revert to me as usual ; though she 
 writes a pretty good style, and has some notion of the force 
 of words, she is not always so certain of the true orthography 
 of them ; that, and a poor handwriting (in this age of female 
 calligraphy), often deters her, where no other reason does.* 
 
 We have neither of us been very well for some weeks 
 past. I am very nervous, and she most so at those times 
 when I am ; so that a merry friend, adverting to the noble 
 consolation we were able to afford each other, denominated 
 us, not inaptly, Gum-Boil and Tooth-Ache, for they used to 
 say that a gum-boil is a great relief to a tooth-ache. 
 
 We have been two tiny excursions this summer for three 
 or four days each, to a place near Harrow, and to Egham, 
 where Cooper's Hill is ; and that is the total history of our 
 rustications this year. Alas ! how poor a round to Skiddaw 
 and Helvellyn and Borrowdale, and the magnificent sesqui- 
 
 * This is mere banter ; Miss Lamb wrote a very good hand. 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 107 
 
 pedalia of the year 1802. Poor old Molly ! to have lost her 
 pride, that " last infirmity of noble minds," and her cow. 
 Fate need not have set her wits to such an old Molly. I am 
 heartily sorry for her. Remember us lovingly to her ; and 
 in particular remember us to Mrs. Clarkson in the most kind 
 manner. 
 
 I hope, by " southwards," you mean that she will be at or 
 near London, for she is a great favorite of both of us, and we 
 feel for her health as much as possible for any one to do. 
 She is one of the friendliest, comfortablest women we know, 
 and made our little stay at your cottage one of the pleasant- 
 est times we ever past. We were quite strangers to her. 
 Mr. 0. is with you too ; our kindest separate remembrances 
 to him. As to our special affairs, 1 am looking about me. I 
 have done nothing since the beginning of last year, when I 
 lost my newspaper job, and having had a long idleness, I 
 must do something, or we shall get very poor. Sometimes I 
 think of a farce, but hitherto all schemes have gone off; an 
 idle bray or two of an Evening, vaporing out of a pipe, and 
 going off in the morning ; but now I have bid farewell to my 
 " sweet enemy," Tobacco, as you will see in my next page,* 
 I shall perhaps set nobly to work. Hang work ! 
 
 I wish that all the year were holiday ; I am sure that 
 indolence — indefeasible indolence — is the true state of man, 
 and business the invention of the old Teazer, whose interfer- 
 ence doomed Adam to an apron and set him a hoeing. Pen 
 and ink, and clerks and desks, were the refinements of this 
 old torturer some thousand years after, under pretence of 
 " Commerce allying distant shores, Promoting and diffusing 
 knowledge, good," &c. &;c. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 * The " Farewell to Tobacco" was transcribed on the next page ; 
 b«t the actual sacrifice was not completed till some years after. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LETTERS TO HAZLITT, ETC., FROM 1805 TO 1810. 
 
 About the year 1S05 Lamb was introduced to one, 
 whose society through life was one of his chief pleasures— 
 the great critic and thinker, William Hazlitt— who, at that 
 time, scarcely conscious of his own literary powers, was 
 striving hard to become a painter. At the period of the fol- 
 lowing letter (which is dated 15th March, 1806,) Hazlitt 
 was residing with his father, an Unitarian minister, at 
 Wem. 
 
 to mr. hazlitt. 
 Dear H., 
 
 I am a little surprised at no letter from you. This 
 day week, to wit, Saturday, the 8th of March, 1806, I book'd 
 off by the Wem coach, Bull and Mouih Inn, directed to you, 
 at the Rev. Mr. Hazlitt's, Wem, Shropshire, a parcel con- 
 tammg, besides a book, &c., a rare print which I take to be 
 a Titian ; begging the said W. H. to acknowledge the re- 
 ceipt thereof; which he not having done, I conclude the 
 said parcel to be lying at the inn, and may be lost ; for 
 which reason, lest you may be a Wales-hunting at this 
 mstant, I have authorized any of your family, whosoever 
 first gets this, to open it, that so precious a parcel may not 
 moulder away for want of looking after. What do you in 
 Shropshire when so many fine pictures are a-going a-goino- 
 
LETTER TO HAZLITT. 109 
 
 every day in London ? Monday I visit the Marquis of 
 Lansdovvne's, in Berkeley Square. Catalogue, 2^. 6d. 
 Leonardos in plenty. Some other day this week, I go to see 
 Sir Wm. Young's, in Stratford Place. Hulse's, of Black- 
 heath, are also to be sold this month, and in May, the first 
 private collection in Europe, Welbore Ellis Agar's. And 
 there are you perverting Nature in lying landscapes, filched 
 from old rusty Titians, such as I can scrape up here to send 
 you, with an additament from Shropshire nature thrown in to 
 make the whole look unnatural. I am afraid of your mouth 
 watering when I tell you that Manning and I got into An- 
 gerstein's on Wednesday. Mon Dieu f Such Claudes! 
 Four Claudes bought for more than 10,000Z. (those who talk 
 of Wilson being equal to Claude are either mainly ignorant 
 or stupid) ; one of them was perfectly miraculous. What 
 colors short of bond Jide sunbeams it could be painted in, I 
 am not earthly colorman enough to say ; but I did not think 
 it had been in the possibility of things. Then, a music- 
 piece of Titian — a thousand-pound picture — five figures 
 standing behind a piano, the sixth playing ; none of the 
 heads, M. observed, indicating great men, nor affecting it, 
 but so sweetly disposed ; all leaning separate ways, but so 
 easy, like a flock of some divine shepherd ; the coloring, 
 like the economy of the picture, so sweet and harmonious — 
 as good as Shakspeare's " Twelfth Night," — almost, that is. 
 It will give you a love of order, and cure you of restless, 
 fidgety passions for a v.eek after — more musical than the 
 music which it would, but cannot, yet in a manner does, 
 show. I have no room for the rest. Let me say. Anger- 
 stein sits in a room — his study, (only that and the library 
 are shown,) when he writes a common letter as I am doing, 
 surrounded with twenty pictures worth 60,000/. What a 
 luxury ! Apicius and Heliogabalus, hide your diminished 
 heads ! Yours, my dear painter, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
110 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Hazlitt married Miss Sarah Stoddart, sister of the pres- 
 ent Sir John Stoddart, who became very intimate with Lamb 
 and his sister. To her Lamb, on the 11th December, 1806, 
 thus communicated the failure of " Mr. H." 
 
 TO MRS. HAZLITT. 
 
 nth Dec. 
 
 Don't mind this being a queer letter. I am in haste, and 
 taken up by visitors, condolers, &sc. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
 Dear Sarah, 
 
 Mary is a little cut at the ill success of " Mr. H." 
 which came out last night, and failed. I know you'll be 
 sorry, but never mind. We are determined not to be cast 
 down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must 
 thrive. A smoking man must write smoky farces. 
 
 Mary is pretty well, but I persuaded her to let me write. 
 We did not apprise you of the coming out of" Mr. H." for 
 fear of ill-luck. You were better out of the house. If it 
 had taken, your partaking of our good luck would have been 
 one of our greatest joys. As it is, we shall expect you at 
 the time you mentioned, but whenever you come, you shall 
 be most welcome. 
 
 God bless you, dear Sarah, 
 
 Yours, most truly, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Mary is by no means unwell, but I made her let me 
 
 write. 
 
 The following is Lamb's account of the same calamity, 
 addressed 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. Ill 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Mary's love to all of you. 1 wouldn't let her write. 
 
 Dear Wordsavorth, ^ith Dec. 
 
 " Mr. H." came out last night, and failed. I had 
 many fears. The subject was not substantial enough. John 
 Bull must have solider fare than a letter. We are pretty 
 stout about it ; have had plenty of condoling friends ; but, 
 after all, we had rather it should have succeeded. You will 
 see the prologue in most of the morning papers. It was re- 
 ceived with such shouts as I never witnessed to a prologue. 
 It was attempted to be encored. How hard ! — a thing I did 
 merely as a task, because it was wanted, and set no great 
 store by ; and " Mr. H." ! ! 
 
 A hundred hisses ! (Hang the word, I write it like kisses 
 — how different !) a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand 
 claps. The former come more directly from the heart. 
 Well, 'tis withdrawn, and there is an end. 
 
 Better luck to us, 
 [Turn over.] C. Lamb. 
 
 P. S. Pray, when any of you write to the Clarksons, 
 give our kind loves, and say we shall not be able to come 
 and see them at Christmas, as I shall have but a day or two, 
 and tell them we bear our mortification pretty well. 
 
 Hazlitt, coming to reside in town, became a frequent 
 guest of Lamb's, and a brilliant ornament of the parties 
 which Lamb now began to collect on Wednesday evenings. 
 He seems, in the beginning of 1808, to have sought solitude 
 in a little inn on Salisbury Plain, to which he became deeply 
 attached, and which he has associated with some of his pro- 
 foundest meditations ; and some fantastic letter, in the nature 
 of a hoax, having puzzled his father, who expected him at 
 
I 
 
 ^2 FINaL memorials of CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 -% 
 
 Wem, caused some inquiries of Lamb respecting the painter's 
 r^reat, to which he thus replied in a letter to 
 
 1 
 
 % THE REV. MR. HAZLITT. 
 
 ••» 
 
 I Temple, 18th Feb., 1808. 
 
 ISlR, 
 
 % 1 am truly concerned that any mistake of mine 
 
 should have caused you uneasiness, but I hope we have got 
 a clue to William's absence, which may clear up all appre- 
 hensions. The people where he lodges in town have received ' 
 direction from him to forward some linen to a place called 
 Winterslow, in the county of Wilts (not far from Salisbury), 
 where the lady lives whose cottage, pictured upon a card, if 
 you opened my letter, you have doubtless seen, and though 
 we have had no explanation of the mystery since, we shrewd- 
 ly suspect, that at the time of writing that letter which has 
 given you all this trouble, a certain son of yours (who is both 
 painter and author) was at her elbow, and did assist in fram- 
 ing that very cartoon which was sent to amuse and mislead 
 us in town as to the real place of his destination. 
 
 And some words at the back of the said cartoon, which 
 we had not marked so narrowly before, by the similarity of 
 the handwriting to William's, do very much confirm the sus- 
 picion. If our theory be right, they have had the pleasure 
 of their jest, and I am afraid you have paid for it in anxiety. 
 
 But I hope your uneasiness will now be removed, and you 
 will pardon a suspense occasioned by Loa^e, who does so 
 many worse mischiefs every day. 
 
 The letter to the people where William lodges, says, 
 moreover, that he shall be in town in a fortnight. 
 
 My sister joins in respect to you and Mrs. Hazlitt, and in 
 
 our kindest remembrances and wishes for the restoration of 
 
 Peggy's health. 
 
 I am, sir, your humble servant, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
MISS LAMB TO MRS. HAZLITT. 113 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt, afterwards took up their temporary 
 abode at Winterslow, to which place Miss Lamb addressed 
 the followinD- letter, containins; interestino- details of her own 
 and her brotlier's life, and illustrating her own gentle 
 character. 
 
 to mrs. hazlitt. 
 
 My dear Sarah, 
 
 I hear of you from your brother ; but you do not 
 write yourself, nor does Hazlitt. I beg that one or both of 
 you will amend this fault as speedily as possible, for I am 
 very anxious to hear of your health. I hope, as you say 
 nothing about your fill to your brother, you are perfectly 
 recovered from the effects of it. 
 
 You cannot think how very much we miss you and H. of 
 a Wednesday evening — all the glory of the night, I may say, 
 
 is at an end. P makes his jokes, and there is no one to 
 
 applaud him ; R argues, and there is no one to oppose 
 
 him. 
 
 The worst miss of all, to me, is, that when we are in the 
 dismals there is now no hope of relief from any quarter what- 
 soever. Hazlitt was most brilliant, most ornamental, as a 
 Wednesday man, but he was a more useful one on common 
 days, when he dropt in after a fit of the glooms. The Shef- 
 fington is quite out now, my brother having got merry with 
 claret and Tom Sheridan. This visit, and the occasion of it, 
 is a profound secret, and therefore I tell it to nobody but you 
 and Mrs. Reynolds. Through the medium of Wroughton, 
 there came an invitation and proposal from T. S., that C. L. 
 should write some scenes in a speaking pantomime, the other 
 parts of which Tom now, and his father formerly, have manu- 
 factured between them. So in the Christmas holidays my 
 brother, and his two great associates, we expect will be all 
 
114 FINAL MEMORIALS Of CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 three damned together; that is, I mean if Charles's share, 
 which is done and sent in, is accepted. 
 
 I left this unfinished yesterday, in the hope that my 
 brother would have done it for me. His reason for refusing 
 me was " no exquisite reason," for it was because he must 
 write a letter to Manning in three or four weeks, and there- 
 fore " he could not be always writing letters," he said. I 
 wanted him to tell your husband about a great work which 
 Godwin is going to publish to enlighten the world once more, 
 and I shall not be able to make out what it is. He (Godwin) 
 took his usual walk one evening, a fortnight since, to the end 
 of Hatton Garden and back again. During that walk a 
 thought came into his mind, which he instantly sat down and 
 improved upon, till he brought it, in seven or eight days, into 
 the compass of a reasonable sized pamphlet. 
 
 To propose a subscription to all well-disposed people to 
 raise a certain sum of money, to be expended in the care of 
 a cheap monument for the former and the future great dead 
 men ; the monument to be a white cross, with a wooden 
 slab at the end, telling their names and qualifications. This 
 wooden slab and white cross to be perpetuated to the end of 
 time ; to survive the fall of empires, and the destruction of 
 cities, by means of a map, which, in case of an insurrection 
 among the people, or any other cause by which a city or 
 country may be destroyed, was to be carefully preserved ; 
 and then, when things got again into their usual order, the 
 white-cross-wooden-slab-makers were to go to work again 
 and set the wooden slabs in their former places. This, as 
 nearly as I can tell you, is the sum and substance of it ; 
 but it is written remarkably well — in his very best manner 
 — for the proposal (which seems to me very like throwing 
 salt on a sparrow's tail to catch him) occupies but half a 
 page, which is followed by very fine writing on the benefits 
 he conjectures would follow if it were done ; very excellent 
 
MISS LAMB TO MRS. HAZLITT. 115 
 
 thoughts on death, and our feelings concerning dead friends, 
 
 and the advantages an old country has over a new one, even 
 
 in the slender memorials we have of great men who once 
 
 flourished. 
 
 Charles is come home and wants his dinner, and so the 
 
 dead men must be no more thought of. Tell us how you go 
 
 on, and how you like Winterslow and winter evenings. 
 
 Knowles has not got back again, but he is in better spirits. 
 
 John Hazlitt was here on Wednesday. Our love to Hazlitt. 
 
 Yours, affectionately, 
 
 M. Lamb. 
 Saturday. 
 
 To this letter Charles added the following postscript : — 
 
 There came this morning a printed prospectus from " S. 
 T. Coleridge, Grasmere," of a weekly paper, to be called 
 ' The Friend ;' a flaminor prospectus. I have no time to 
 give the heads of it. To commence first Saturday in Janu- 
 ary. There came, also, notice of a turkey from Mrs. Clark- 
 son, which I am more sanguine in expecting the accomplish- 
 ment of than I am of Coleridge's prophecy. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 In the following summer. Lamb, with his sister, spent his 
 holidays with Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt, at Winterslow. Their 
 feelings on returning home are developed in the following 
 letter of 
 
 miss lamb to birs. hazlitt. 
 
 My dear Sarah, 
 
 The dear, quiet, lazy, delicious month we spent with 
 you is remembered by me with such regret that I feel quite 
 discontented, and Winterslow-sick. I assure you I never 
 passed such a pleasant time in the country in my life, both in 
 the house and out of it — the card-playing quarrels, and a few 
 
116 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 gaspings for breath, after your swift footsteps up the high 
 hills, excepted ; and these draw-backs are not unpleasant in 
 the recollection. We have got some salt butter, to make 
 our toast seem like yours, and we have tried to eat meat 
 suppers, but that would not do, for we left our appetites be- 
 hind us, and the dry loaf, which offended you, now comes in 
 at night unaccompanied; but, sorry am I to add, it is soon 
 followed by the pipe. We smoked the very first night of our 
 arrival. 
 
 Great news ! I have just been interrupted by Mr. Daw, 
 who came to tell me he was yesterday elected a Royal 
 Academician. He said none of his own friends voted for 
 him ; he got it by strangers, who were pleased with his pic- 
 ture of Mrs. White. 
 
 Charles says he does not believe Northcote ever voted for 
 the admission of any one. Though a very cold day. Daw 
 was in a prodigious perspiration for joy at his good fortune. 
 
 More great news ! My beautiful green curtains were 
 put up yesterday, and all the doors listed with green baize, 
 and four new boards put to the coal-hole, and fastening hasps 
 put to the window, and my dyed Manning silk cut out. 
 
 We had a good cheerful meeting on Wednesday, much 
 talk of Winterslow, its woods and its sunflowers. I did not 
 
 so much like P at Winterslow, as I now like him for 
 
 having been with us at Winterslow. We roasted the last 
 " Beech of oily nut prolific," on Friday, at the Captain's. 
 Nurse is now established in Paradise, alias the Incurable 
 ward of Westminster Hospital. I have seen her sitting in 
 most superb state, surrounded by her seven incurable com- 
 panions. They call each other ladies; nurse looks as if she 
 would be considered as the first lady in the ward ; only one 
 seemed at all to rival her in dignity. 
 
 A man in the India House has resigned, by which Charles 
 will get twenty pounds a year, and White has prevailed on 
 
LETTER TO HAZLITT. 117 
 
 him to write some more lottery puffs; if that ends in smoke, 
 the twenty pounds is a sure card, and has made us very 
 joyful. 
 
 I continue very well, and return you very sincere thanks 
 for my good health and improved looks, which have almost 
 
 made Mrs. die with envy. She longs to come to 
 
 Winterslow as much as the spiteful elder sister did to go to 
 the well for a gift to spit diamonds. 
 
 Jane and I have agreed to boil a round of beef for your 
 suppers when you come to town again. She (Jane) broke 
 two of the Hogarth's glasses while we were away, whereat 
 I made a great noise. Farewell. Love to William, and 
 Charles's love and good wishes for the speedy arrival of the 
 "Life of Holcroft," and the bearer thereof. 
 
 Yours, most affectionately, 
 
 M. Lamb. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 Charles told Mrs. , Hazlitt had found a well in his 
 
 garden, which, water being scarce in your county, would 
 bring him in two hundred a year ; and she came in great 
 haste, the next morning, to ask me if it were true. 
 
 Your brother and sister are quite well. 
 
 The country excursions, with which Lamb sometimes 
 occupied his weeks of vacation, were taken with fear and 
 trembling, often foregone, and finally given up in conse- 
 quence of the sad effects which the excitements of travel and 
 change produced in his beloved companion. The following 
 refers to one of these disasters : 
 
 to bir. hazlitt. 
 Dear H., 
 
 Epistemon is not well. Our pleasant excursion has 
 
 ended sadly for one of us. You will guess I mean my sis- 
 
118 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ter. She got home very well (I was very ill on the journey) 
 and continued so till Monday night, when her complaint 
 came on, and she is now absent from home. 
 
 I am glad to hear you are all well. I think I shall be mad 
 if I take any more journeys with two experiences against it. 
 I find all well here. Kind remembrances to Sarah, — have 
 just got her letter. 
 
 H. Robinson has been to Blenheim. He says you will be 
 sorry to hear that we should not have asked for the Titian 
 Gallery there. One of his friends knew of it, and asked to 
 see it. It is never shown but to those who inquire for it. 
 
 The pictures are all Titians, Jupiter and Ledas, Mars 
 and Venuses, &c., all naked pictures, which may be a rea- 
 son they don't show it to females. But he says they are 
 very fine ; and perhaps it is shown separately to put another 
 fee into the shower's pocket. Well, I shall never see it. 
 
 I have lost all wish for sights. God bless you. I shall 
 
 be glad to see you in London. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 Thursday. 
 
 About the year 1808, Miss Lamb sought to contribute to 
 her brother's scanty income by presenting the plots of some 
 of Shakspeare's plays in prose, with the spirit of the poet's 
 genius interfused, and many of his happiest expressions pre- 
 served, in which good work Lamb assisted her ; though he 
 always insisted, as he did in reference to " Mrs. Leicester's 
 School," that her portions were the best. The following 
 letter refers to some of those aids, and gives a pleasant in- 
 stance of that shyness in Hazlitt, which he never quite over- 
 came, and which afforded a striking contrast to the boldness 
 of his published thoughts. 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 119 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Mary is just stuck fast in " All's well that Ends Well." 
 She complains of having to set forth so many female charac- 
 ters in boys' clothes. She begins to think Shakspeare must 
 have wanted — Imagination. I, to encourage her, for she 
 often faints in the prosecution of her great work, flatter her 
 with telling her how well such a play and such a play is 
 done. But she is stuck fast. I have been obliged to promise 
 to assist her. To do this, it will be necessary to leave off 
 tobacco. But I had some thoughts of doing that before, for 
 I sometimes think it does not agree with me. W. Hazlitt 
 is in town. I took him to see a very pretty girl, professedly, 
 where there were two young girls — the very head and sum 
 of the girlery was two young girls — they neither laughed, 
 nor sneered, nor giggled, nor whispered — but they were 
 young girls — and he sat and frowned blacker and blacker, 
 indignant that there should be such a thing as youth and 
 beauty, till he tore me away before supper, in perfect misery, 
 and owned he could not bear young girls ; they drove him 
 mad. So I took him to my old nurse, where he recovered 
 perfect tranquillity.. Independent of this, and as I am not 
 a young girl myself, he is a great acquisition to us. He is, 
 rather imprudently I think, printing a political pamphlet on 
 his own account, and will have to pay for the paper, &;c. 
 The first duty of an author, I take it, is never to pay any 
 thing. But non cuivis contigit adire Corinihum. The man- 
 agers, I thank my stars, have settled that question for me. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 In the following year, Lamb and his sister produced their 
 charming little book of " Poetry for Children," and removed 
 
120 ,, FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 from Mitre Court to those rooms in Inner Temple Lane, — 
 most dear of all their abodes to the memory of their ancient 
 friends — where first I knev/ them. The change produced its 
 natural and sad effect on Miss Lamb, during whose absence 
 Lamb addressed the followino- various letter. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Dear Coleridge, 
 
 I congratulate you on the appearance of The 
 Friend. Your first number promises well, and I have no 
 doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfill the promise. I had 
 a kind letter from you some time since, which I have left 
 unanswered. I am also obliged to you, I believe, for a 
 review in the Annual, am I not ? The Monthly Review 
 sneers at me, and asks " if Comus is not good enough for Mr. 
 Lamb ?" because I have said no good serious dramas have 
 been written since the death of Charles the First, except 
 " Samson Agonistes ;" so because they do not know, or won't 
 remember, that Comus was written long before, I am to be 
 set down as an undervaluer of Milton. O, Coleridge, do kill 
 those reviews, or they will kill us ; kill all we like ! Be a 
 friend to all else, but their foe. I have been turned out of 
 my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them 
 for himself, but I have got other at No. 4, Inner Temple 
 Lane, far more commodious and roomy. I have two rooms 
 on third floor and five rooms above, with an inner staircase 
 to myself, and all new painted, &;c., for £30 a year ! I 
 came into them on Saturday week ; alas ! on Monday follow^- 
 ing, Mary was taken ill with fatigue of moving, and affected, 
 I believe, by the novelty of the home ; she could not sleep ; 
 and I am left alone with a maid quite a stranger to me, and 
 she has a month or two's sad distraction to go through. 
 What sad large pieces it cuts out of life ; out oHier life, who 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 121 
 
 is getting rather old ; and we may not have many years to 
 live together ! J am weaker, and bear it worse than I ever 
 did. But I hope we shall be comfortable by and by. The 
 rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare 
 Court, where there is a pump always going. Just now it is 
 dry. Hare Court's trees come in at the window, so that 
 it's like living in a garden. I try to persuade myself it is 
 much pleasanter than Mitre Court ; but, alas ! the household 
 gods are slow to consecrate a new mansion. They are in 
 their infancy to me ; I do not feel them yet ; no hearth has 
 blazed to them yet. How I hate and dread new places ! 
 
 I was very glad to see Wordsworth's book advertised ; I 
 am to have it to-morrow lent me, and if Wordsworth don't 
 send me an order for one upon Longman, I will buy it. It is 
 greatly extolled and liked by all who have seen it. Let me 
 hear from some of you, for I am desolate. I shall have to 
 send you, in a week or two, two volumes of Juvenile Poetry, 
 done by Mary and me within the last six months, and that 
 tale in prose which Wordsworth so much liked, which was 
 published at Christmas, with nine others, by us, and has 
 reached a second edition. There's for you ! We have al- 
 most worked ourselves out of child's work, and I don't know 
 what to do. Sometimes I think of a drama, but 1 have no 
 head for play-making ; I can do the dialogue, and that's all. 
 I am quite aground for a plan, and I must do something for 
 money. Not that I have immediate wants, but I have pros- 
 pective ones. O money, money, how blindly thou hast been 
 worshiped, and how stupidly abused ! Thou art health and 
 liberty, and strength, and he that has thee may rattle his 
 pockets at the foul fiend ! 
 
 Nevertheless, do not understand by this that I have not 
 quite enough for my occasions for a year or two to come. 
 While I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch'd away my books 
 which you had at the Courier Office, and I found all but a 
 
 6 
 
p 
 
 122 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 third volume of the old plays, containing '•' The White Devil," 
 Green's " Tu Quoque," and the " Honest Whore," perhaps 
 the most valuable volume of them all — that I could not find. 
 Pray, if you can remember what you did with it, or where 
 you took it with you a walking, perhaps ; send me word, for, 
 to use the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes 
 (you had three), the " Arcadia," and Daniel, enriched with 
 manuscript notes. I wish every book I have were so noted. 
 They have thoroughly converted me to relish Daniel, or to 
 say I relish him, for, after all, I believe I did relish him. 
 You well call him sober-minded. Your notes are excellent. 
 Perhaps you've forgot them. I have read a review in the 
 Quarterly, by Southey, on the Missionaries, which is most 
 masterly. I only grudge it being there. It is quite beauti- 
 ful. Do remember my Dodsley ; and, pray, do write, or let 
 some of you write. Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky 
 house. Have you cured it ? It is hard to cure any thing of 
 smoking. 0.ur little poems are but humble, but they have no 
 name. You must read them, remembering they were task- 
 work ; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, 
 all of children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old 
 Maid. Many parents would not have found so many. Have 
 you read '' Celebs ?" It has reached eight editions in so 
 many weeks, yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of 
 common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. 
 Had the religion been high and flavored, it would have been 
 something. I borrowed this " Celebs in Search of a Wife " 
 of a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff 
 written in the beginning : — 
 
 ** If ever I marry a wife 
 
 I'd marry a landlord's daughter. 
 For then I may sit in the bar. 
 And drink cold brandy-and-water," 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 123 
 
 I don't expect you can find time from your Friend to 
 write to me much, but write something, for there has been a 
 long silence. You know Holcroft is dead. Godwin is well. 
 He has written a pretty, absurd book about sepulchres. He 
 was affronted because I told him it was better than Hervey, 
 but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about 
 books ; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write ; 
 but I could not let The Friend pass without a congratulating 
 epistle. I won't criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell 
 me how I shall send my packet to you ? — by what convey- 
 ance ? — by Longman, Short-man, or how ? Give my kind- 
 est remembrances to the Wordsworths. Tell him he must 
 give me a book. My kind love to Mrs. W. and to Dorothy 
 separately and conjointly. I wish you could all come and 
 see me in my new rooms. God bless you all. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 A journey into Wiltshire, to visit Hazlitt, followed Miss 
 Lamb's recovery, and produced the following letter : — 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Monday, SOth Oct. 1809. 
 Dear Coleridge, 
 
 I have but this moment received your letter, dated 
 the 9th instant, having just come off a journey from Wilt- 
 shire, where I have been with Mary on a vist to Hazlitt. 
 The journey has been of infinite service to her. We have 
 had nothing but sunshiny days, and daily walks from eight to 
 twenty miles a-day ; have seen Wilton, Salisbury, Stone- 
 henge, &c. Her illness lasted but six weeks ; it left her 
 very weak, but the country has made us whole. We came 
 back to our Hogarth Room. I have made several acquisi- 
 tions since you saw them, and found Nos. 8, 9, 10 of The 
 .Friend. The account of Luther in the Warteburg is as fine 
 
1:^4 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 as any thing 1 ever read.* God forbid that a man who has 
 such things to say should be silenced for want of 100/. This 
 Custom-and-Duty-Age would have made the Preacher on the 
 
 * The Warteburg is a Castle, standing on a lofty rock, about two 
 miles from the city of Eisenach, in which Luther was confined, under 
 the friendly arrest of the Elector of Saxony, after Charles V. had pro- 
 nounced against him the Ban in the Imperial Diet ; where he composed 
 some of his greatest works, and translated the New Testament ; and 
 where he is recorded as engaged in the personal conflict with the Prince 
 of Darkness, of which the vesiiges are still shown in a black stain on 
 the wall, from the inkstand hurled at the Enemy. In the Essay refer- 
 red to Coleridge accounts for the story — depicting the state of the great 
 prisoner's mind in most vivid colors — and then presenting the follow- 
 ing picture, which so nobly justifies Lamb's eulogy, that I venture to 
 gratify myself by inserting it here. 
 
 " Methinks I see him sitting, the heroic student, in his chamber in 
 the Warteburg, with his midnight lamp before him, seen by the late 
 traveler in the distant plain of Bischofsroda, as a star on the mountain ! 
 Below it lies the Hebrew Bible open, on which he gazes; his brow 
 pressing on his palm, brooding over some obscure text, which he desires 
 to make plain to the simple boor and to the humble artisan, and to trans- 
 fer its whole force into their own natural and living tongue. And he 
 himself does not understand it ! Thick darkness lies on the original 
 text ; he counts the letters, he calls up the roots of each sparate word, 
 and questions them as the familiar Spirits of an Oracle. In vain ; thick 
 darkness continues to cover it ; not a ray of meaning dawns through it. 
 With sullen and angry hope he reaches for the Vulgate, his old and 
 sworn enemy, the treacherous confederate of the Roman Antichrist, 
 which he so gladly, when he can, rebukes for idolatrous falsehood, that 
 had dared place 
 
 ' Within the sancturay itself their shrines, 
 Abominations' — 
 
 Now — thought of humiliation — he must entreat its aid. See ! there 
 has the sly spirit of apostacy worked-in a phrase, which favors the doc- 
 trine of purgatory, the intercession of saints, or the efficacy of prayers 
 for the dead ; and what is worst of all, the interpretation is plausible. 
 The original Hebrew might be forced into this meaning : and no other 
 
LETTELIS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 125 
 
 Mount take out a license, and St. Paul's Epistles not mis- 
 sible without a stamp. O that you may find means to go 
 on ! But alas ! where is Sir G. Beaumont ?~Sotheby ? 
 
 meaning seems to lie in it, none hover above it in the heights of alle- 
 gory, none to hirk beneath it even in the depths of Cabala ! This is the 
 work of the Tempter ; it is a cloud of darkness conjured up between 
 the truth of the sacred letters and the eyes of his understanding, by the 
 malice of the evil-one, and for a trial of his faith ! Must he then at 
 length confess, must he subscribe the name of Luther to an exposition 
 which consecrates a weapon for the hand of the idolatrous Hierarchy 1 
 Never ! Never ! 
 
 " There still remains one auxiliary in reserve, the translation of the 
 Seventy. The Alexandrine Greeks, anterior to the Church itself, could 
 intend no support to its corruptions— the Septuagint will have profaned 
 the Altar of Truth with no incense for the nostrils of the universa 
 Bishop to snuff up. And here again his hopes are baffled ! Exactly at 
 this perplexed passage had the Greek translator given his understand- 
 ing a holiday, and made his pen supply its place. honored Luther ! 
 as easily mightest thou convert the whole City of Rome, with the Pope 
 and the conclave of Cardinals inclusively, as strike a spark of light from 
 the words, and nothi7jg hut words, of the Alexandrine version. Disap- 
 pointed, despondent, enraged, ceasing to think, yet continuing his brain 
 on the stretch in solicitation of a thought ; and gradually giving him- 
 self up to angry fancies, to recollections of past persecutions, to uneasy 
 fears, and inward defiances, and floating images of the Evil Being, their 
 supposed personal author ; he sinks, without perceiving it, into a trance 
 of slumber ; during which his brain retains its waking energies, ex- 
 cepting that what would have been mere thoughts before, now (the ac- 
 tion and counterweight of his senses and of their impressions being 
 withdrawn) shape and condense themselves into things, into realities ! 
 Repeatedly half-wakening, and his eyelids as often re-closing, the ob- 
 jects which really surround him form the place and scenery of his 
 dream. All at once he sees the arch-fiend coming forth on the wall of 
 the room, from the very spot, perhaps, on which his eyes had been fixed, 
 vacantly, daring the perplexed moments of his former meditation: the 
 inkstand which he had at the same time been using, becomes associ- 
 ated with it : and in that struggle of rage, which in these distempered 
 dreams almost constantly precedes the helpless terror by the pain of 
 
126 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 What is become of the rich Auditors in Albemarle Street? 
 Your letter has saddened me. 
 
 I am so tired with my journey, being up all night, I have 
 neither things nor words in my power. I believe I expressed 
 my admiration of the pamphlet. Its power over me was 
 like that which Milton's pamphlets must have had on his 
 contemporaries, who were tuned to them. What a piece 
 of prose ! Do you hear if it is read at all ? I am out of 
 the world of readers. I hate all that do read, for they read 
 nothing but reviews and new books. I gather myself up 
 into the old things. 
 
 I have put up shelves. You never saw a book-case in 
 more true harmony with the contents, than what I have nailed 
 up in a room, which, though new, has more aptitudes for 
 growing old than you shall often see — as one sometimes gets 
 a friend in the middle of life, who becomes an old friend in 
 a short time. My rooms are luxurious ; one is for prints 
 and one for books ; a summer and a winter parlor. When 
 shall I ever see you in them ? 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth's Essay on Epitaphs, afterwards ap- 
 pended to " The Excursion," produced the following let- 
 ter : — 
 
 which we are finally awakened, he imagines that he hurls it at the in- 
 truder, or not improbably in the first instant of awakening, while yet 
 both his imagination and his eyes are possessed by the dream, he actu- 
 ally hurls it. Some weeks after, perhaps, during which interval he had 
 often mused on the incident, undetermined whether to deem it a visita- 
 tion of Satan to him in the body or out of the body, he discovers for the 
 first time the dark spot on his wall, and receives it as a sign and pledge 
 vouchsafed to him of the event having actually taken place." 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 127 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Friday, I9th Oct. 1810. E. I. Ho. 
 Dear W., 
 
 Mary has been very ill, which you have heard, I 
 suppose, from the Montagues. She is very weak and low 
 spirited now. I was much pleased with your continuation 
 of the Essay on Epitaphs. It is the only sensible thing 
 which has been written on that subject, and it goes to the 
 bottom. In particular, I was pleased with your translation 
 of that turgid epitaph into the plain feeling under it. It is 
 perfectly a test. But wliat is the reason we -have no good 
 epitaphs after all ? 
 
 A very striking instance of your position might be found 
 in the churchyard of Ditton-upon-Thames, if you know such 
 a place. Ditton-upon-Thames has been blessed by the resi- 
 dence of a poet, who, for love or money, I do not well know 
 which, has dignified every grave-stone, for the last few years 
 with bran-new verses, all different, and all ingenious, with 
 the author's name at the bottom of each. This sweet Swan 
 of Thames has- artfully diversified his strains and his 
 rhymes ; the same thought never occurs twice ; more justly, 
 perhaps, as no thought ever occurs at all, there was a physi- 
 cal impossibility that the same thought should recur. It is 
 long since I saw and read these inscriptions, but I remember 
 the impression was of a smug usher at his desk in the inter- 
 vals of instruction, leveling his pen. Of death, as it con- 
 sists of dust and worms, and mourners and uncertainty, he 
 had never thought ; but the word " death " he had often 
 seen separate and conjunct with other words, till he had 
 learned to speak of all its attributes as glibly as Unitarian 
 Belsham will discuss you the attributes of the word " God " 
 in a pulpit ; and will talk of infinity with a tongue that dangles 
 from a skull that never reached in thought and thorough 
 
128 FINrtL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 imagination two inches, or further than from his hand to 
 his mouth, or from the vestry to the sounding-board of the 
 pulpit. 
 
 But the epitaphs were trim, and sprag, and patent, and 
 pleased the survivors of Thames Ditton above the old mump- 
 simus of " Afflictions Sore." .... To do justice though, 
 it must be owned that even the excellent feeling which dic- 
 tated this dirge when new, must have suffered something in 
 passing through so many thousand applications, many of 
 them no doubt quite misplaced, as I have seen in Islington 
 churchyard (I think) an Epitaph to an infant, who died 
 " ^tatis four months," with this seasonable inscription ap- 
 pended, " Honor thy father and thy mother ; that thy days 
 may be long in the land," &c. Sincerely wishing your 
 children long life to honor, &c. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, ETC., CHIEFLY RESPECTING WORDSWORTH'S 
 
 poems; 1815 TO 1818. 
 
 The admirers of Wordsworth — few, but energetic and 
 hopeful — were delighted, and his opponents excited to the ex- 
 pression of their utmost spleen, by the appearance, in 1814, 
 of two volumes of poems, some new and some old, and subse- 
 quently of " The Excursion," in the quarto form, marked by 
 the bitter flippancy of Lord Byron. The following letters 
 are chiefly expressive of Lamb's feelings respecting these 
 remarkable works, and the treatment which his own Review 
 of the latter received from Mr. Gifford, then the Editor of the 
 Quarterly Review, for which it was written. The first, how- 
 ever, to Mrs. Wordsworth's sister, who resided with the poet 
 at Rydal, relates to matters of yet nearer interest. 
 
 TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 Thursday, 19th Oct. 1815. 
 Dear Miss H., 
 
 I am forced to be the replier to your letter, for Mary 
 has been ill, and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. 
 She has left me very lonely, and very miserable. I stroll 
 about, but there is no rest but at one's own fireside, and there 
 is no rest for me there now. I look forward to the worse 
 half being past, and keep up as well as I can. She has be- 
 gun to show some favorable symptoms. The return of her 
 
 6* 
 
130 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 disorder has been frightfully soon this time, with scarce a six 
 months' interval. I am almost afraid my worry of spirits 
 about the E. I. House was partly the cause of her illness, 
 but one always imputes it to the cause next at hand ; more 
 probably it comes from some cause we have no control over, 
 or conjecture of. It cuts such great slices out of the time, 
 the little time, we shall have to live together. I don't know 
 but the recurrence of these illnesses. might help me to sustain 
 her death better than if we had had no partial separations. 
 But I won't talk of death. I will imagine us immortal, or 
 forget that we are otherwise. By God's blessing, in a few 
 weeks we may be taking our meal together, or sitting in the 
 front row of the Pit at Drury Lane, or taking our evening 
 walk past the theatres, to look at the outside of them, at least, 
 if not to be tempted in. Then we forget we are assailable ; 
 we are strong for the time as rocks ; — " the wind is temper- 
 ed to the shorn lambs." Poor C. Lloyd, and poor Priscilla ! 
 I feel I hardly feel enough for him ; my own calamities press 
 about me, and involve me in a thick integument not to be 
 reached at by other folk's misfortunes. But I feel all I can 
 — all the kindness I can, towards you all — God bless you ! 
 I hear nothing from Coleridge. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The following three letters best speak for themselves : — 
 
 to mr. wordsworth. 
 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 Thanks for the books you have given me and for 
 all the books you mean to give me. I will bind up the Po- 
 litical Sonnets and Ode according to your suggestion. 1 
 have not bound the poems yet. I wait till people have done 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 131 
 
 borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain and chain them 
 to my shelves, more Bodleiano, and people may come and 
 read them at chain's length. For of those who borrow, some 
 read slow ; some mean to read but don't read ; and some nei- 
 ther read nor mean to read, but borrow to leave you an opin- 
 ion of their sagacity. I must do my money-borrowing friends 
 the justice to say that there is nothing of this caprice or wan- 
 tonness of alienation in them. Wiien they borrow my money 
 they never fail to make use of it. Coleridge has been here 
 about a fortnight. His health is tolerable at present, though 
 beset with temptations. In the first place, the Covent Garden 
 Manager has declined accepting his Tragedy, though (having 
 read it) I see no reason upon earth why it might not have 
 run a very fair chance, though it certainly wants a promi- 
 nent part for a Miss O'Neil or a Mr. Kean. However, he is 
 going to-day to write to Lord Byron to get it to Drury. 
 Should you see Mrs. C, who has just written to C. a letter, 
 which I have given him, it will be as well to say nothing 
 about its fate, till some answer is shaped from Drury. He has 
 two volumes printing together at Bristol, both finished as far as 
 the composition goes ; the latter containing his fugitive poems, 
 the former his Literary Life. Nature, who conducts every 
 creature, by instinct, to its best end, has skillfully directed 
 C. to take up his abode at a Chymist's Laboratory in Norfolk- 
 street. She might as well have sent a Helluo Lihrorum for 
 cure to the Vatican. God keep him inviolate among the 
 traps and pitfalls ! He has done pretty well as yet. 
 
 Tell Miss H. my sister is every day wishing to be quietly 
 sitting down to answer her very kind letter, but while C. 
 stays she can hardly find a quiet time ; God bless him ! 
 
 Tell Mrs. W. her postscripts are always agreeable. 
 They are so legible too. Your manual-graphy is terrible, 
 dark as Lycophron. " Likelihood," for instance, is thus 
 
132 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 typified * I should not wonder if the constant ma- 
 king out of such paragraphs is the cause of that weakness in 
 Mrs. W.'s eyes, as she is tenderly pleased to express it. 
 Dorothy, I hear, has mounted spectacles ; so you have deoc- 
 ulated two of your dearest relations in life. Well, God bless 
 you, and continue to give you power to write with a finger of 
 power upon our hearts what you fail to impress, in corres- 
 ponding lucidness, upon our outward eye-sight ! 
 
 Mary's love to all ; she is quite well. 
 
 I am called off to do the deposits in Cotton Wool — but 
 why do I relate this to you, who want faculties to compre- 
 hend the great mystery of deposits, of interest, of warehouse 
 
 rent, and contingent fund ? Adieu ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 A longer letter when C. is gone back into the country, 
 relating his success, &;c. — my judgment of your new books, 
 &c., &c. — I am scarce quiet enough while he stays. 
 
 Yours again, C. L. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The conclusion of this epistle getting gloomy, I have cho- 
 sen this part to desire our kindest loves to Mrs. Words- 
 worth and to Dorothea. Will none of you ever be in London 
 again ? 
 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 You have made me very proud with your succes- 
 sive book presents. I have been carefully through the two 
 volumes, to see that nothing was omitted which used to be 
 there. I think I miss nothing but a character in antithetic 
 manner, which I do not know why you left out, — the moral 
 
 * Here is a most inimitable scrawl. 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 133 
 
 to the boys building the giant, the omission whereof leaves 
 it, in my mind, less complete, — and one admirable line gone 
 (or something come instead of it,) " the stone-chat, and the 
 glandng sand-piper," which was a line quite alive. 1 de- 
 mand these at your hand. I am glad that you have not sac 
 rificed a verse to those scoundrels. T would not have had 
 you offer up the poorest rag that lingered upon the stript 
 shoulders of little Alice Fell, to have atoned all their malice ; 
 I would not have given 'em a red cloak to save their souls. 
 I am afraid lest the substitution of a shell (a flat falsification 
 of the history) for the household implement, as it stood at 
 first, was a kind of tub thrown out to the beast, or rather 
 throvv^n out for him. The tub was a good honest tub in its 
 place, and nothing could fairly be said against it. You said 
 you made the alteration for the " friendly reader," but the 
 " malicious " will take it to himself. If you give 'em an 
 inch, &c. The Preface is noble, and such as you should 
 write. I wish I could set my name to it, Lnprimaiur, — but 
 you have set it there yourself, and I thank you. I had rather 
 be a door-keeper in your margin, than have their proudest 
 text swelling with my eulogies. The poems in the volumes, 
 which are new to me, are so much in the old tone, that I 
 hardly received them as novelties. Of those of which I had 
 no previous knowledge, the " Four Yew Trees,"* and the 
 mysterious company which you have assembled there, most 
 struck me — " Death the Skeleton and Time the Shadow." It is 
 a sight not for every youthful poet to dream of; it is one of 
 the last results he must have gone thinking on for years for. 
 " Laodamia " is a very original poem ; I me..n original with 
 
 * The poem on the four great yew trees of Borrowdale, which the 
 poet has, by the most potent magic of the imagination, converted into 
 a temple for the ghastly forms of Death and Time " to meet at noon- 
 tide,"— a passage surely not surpassed in any English poetry written 
 since the days of Milton. 
 
134 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 reference to your own manner. You have nothing like it. 
 I should have seen it in a strange place, and greatly admired 
 it, but not suspected its derivation. 
 
 Let me in this place, for I have writ you several letters 
 naming it, mention that my brother, who is a picture-col- 
 lector, has picked up an undoubtable picture of Milton. He 
 gave a few shillings for it, and could get no history with it, 
 but that some old lady had had it for a great number of years. 
 Its age is ascertainable from the state of the canvas, and you 
 need only see it to be sure that it is the original of the heads 
 in the Tonson editions with which we are all so well familiar. 
 Since I saw you I have had a treat in the reading way 
 which comes not every day* — the Latin Poems of V. Bourne, 
 which were quite new to me. What a heart that man had, 
 all laid out upon town scenes ; a proper counterpoise to some 
 peopIe^s rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him is, that 
 your " Power of Music" reminded me of his poem of" The 
 Ballad-singer in the Seven Dials." Do you remember his 
 epigram on the old woman who taught Newton the ABC, 
 which, after all, he says, he hesitates not to call Newton's 
 " Principia ?" I was lately fatiguing myself with going 
 through a volume of fine words by Lord Thurlow ; excellent 
 words ; and if the heart could live by words alone, it could 
 desire no better regales ; but what an aching vacuum of 
 matter ! I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a 
 consequence of shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the 
 age of the old Elizabeth poets. From thence I turned to 
 V. Bourne. What a sweet, unpretending, pretty-mannered, 
 matter-ful creature ! sucking from every flower, making a 
 flower of every thing ; his diction all Latin, and his thoughts 
 all English. Bless him ! Latin wasn't good enough for 
 him. Why wasn't he content with the language which Gay 
 and Prior wrote in ? 
 
 * The following little passage about Vincent Bourne has been pre- 
 viously printed. 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 135 
 
 I am almost sorry that you printed extracts from those 
 first poems,* or that you did not print them at length. They 
 do not read to me as they do all together. Besides, they 
 have diminished the value of the original (which I possess) 
 as a curiosity. 1 have hitherto kept them distinct in my 
 mind as referring to a particular period of your life. All 
 the rest of your poems are so much of a piece, they might 
 have been written in the same week ; these decidedly speak 
 of an earlier period. They tell more of what you had been 
 reading. We were glad to see the poems " by a female 
 friend. "f The one on the wind is masterly, but not new to 
 us. Being only three^ perhaps you might have clapt a D. 
 at the corner, and let it have past as a printer's mark to the 
 uninitiated, as a delightful hint to the better instructed. As 
 it is, expect a formal criticism on the poems of your female 
 friend, and she must expect it. I should have written before, 
 but I am cruelly engaged, and like to be. On Friday I was 
 at office from ten in the morning (two hours dinner except) 
 to eleven at night ; last night till nine. My business and 
 office business in general have increased so ; I don't mean I 
 am there every night, but I must expect a great deal of it. I 
 never leave till four, and do not keep a holiday now once in ten 
 times, where I used to keep all red-letter days, and some five 
 days besides, which I used to dub Nature's holidays. T have 
 had my day. I had formerly little to do. So of the little 
 that is left of life, I may reckon two-thirds as dead, for time 
 that a man calls his own is his life ; and hard work and 
 thinking about it taint even the leisure hours — stain Sunday 
 with work-day contemplations. This is Sunday ; and the 
 head-ache I have is part late hours at work the two preced- 
 
 * The " Evening Walk," and " Descriptive Sketches among the 
 Alps" — Wordsworth's earliest poems, now happily restored in their en- 
 tirety to their proper places in the poet's collected works. 
 
 t By Miss Dorothea Wordsworth. 
 
136 FINi\L MEIMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ing nights, and part later hours over a consoling pipe after. 
 But I find stupid acquiescence coming over me. I bend to 
 the yoke, and it is almost with me and my household as with 
 the man and his consort. " To them each eveniog had its 
 glittering star, and every sabbath-day its golden sun" — to 
 such straits am I driven lor the life of life, Time ! O that 
 from that superfluity of holiday leisure my youth wasted, 
 '' Age might but take some hours youth wanted not." 
 N.B. — I have left off spirituous liquors for four or more 
 months, with a moral certainty of its lasting.* Farewell, 
 dear Wordsworth ! 
 
 * H< * * * 
 
 O happy Paris, seat of idleness and pleasure ! from some 
 returned English I hear that not such a thing as a counting- 
 house is to be seen in her streets, — scarce a desk. Earth- 
 quakes swallov/ up this mercantile city and its " gripple mer- 
 chants," as Drayton hath it — " born to be the curse of this 
 brave isle !" I invoke this, not on account of any parsimo- 
 nious habit the mercantile interest may have, but, to confess 
 truth, because I am not fit for an office. 
 
 Farewell, once more, from a head that is too ill to method- 
 ize, a stomach to digest, and all out of tune. Better harmonies 
 await you ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Excuse this maddish letter ; I am too tired to write m 
 forma. 
 
 * Alas ! for moral certainty in this moral but mortal world ! Lamb's 
 resolution to leave off spirituous liquors was a brave one ; but he 
 strengthened and rewarded it by such copious libations of porter, that 
 his sister, for whose sake mainly he attempted the sacrifice, entreated 
 him to " live like himself," and in a few weeks after this assurance he 
 obeyed her. 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 137 
 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 The more I read of your two last volumes, the 
 more I feel it necessary to make my acknowledgments for 
 them in more than one short letter. The " Night Piece," to 
 which you refer me, I meant fully to have noticed ; but, the 
 fact is, I come so fluttering and languid from business, tired 
 with thoughts of it, frightened with fears of it, that when I 
 get a few minutes to sit down to scribble (an action of the 
 hand now seldom natural to me — I mean voluntary pen- 
 work) I lose all presential memory of what I had intended to 
 say, and say what I can, talk about Vincent Bourne, or any 
 casual image, instead of that which I had meditated, (by the 
 way, I must look out V. B. for you.) So I had meant to 
 have mentioned " Yarrow Visited," with that stanza, <' But 
 thou, that didst appear so ftur;"* than which I think no 
 lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry ; — 
 yet the poem, on the whole, seems condemned to leave be- 
 hind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as if you had 
 wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you 
 had resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had de- 
 termined, in the most delicate manner, to make you, and 
 scarce make you, feel it. Else, it is far superior to the other, 
 which has but one exquisite verse in it, the last but one or 
 the two last — this has all fine, except, perhaps, that that of 
 " studious ease and generous cares," has a little tinge of the 
 less romantic about it. " The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale " is 
 a charming counterpart to " Poor Susan," with the addition 
 of that delicacy towards aberrations from the strict path, 
 which is so fine in the " Old Thief and the Boy by his side," 
 which always brings water into my eyes. Perhaps it is the 
 
 * " But thou, that didst appear so fail- 
 To fond imagination, 
 Dost rival in the light of day 
 Her delicate creation." 
 
13S FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 worse for being a repetition; "Susan" stood for the repre- 
 sentative of poor Rus in Urhe. There was quite enough to 
 stamp the nioral of the thing never to be forgotten ; " bright 
 volumes of vapor," &c. The last verse of Susan was to be 
 got rid of, at all events. It threw a kind of dubiety upon 
 Susan's moral conduct. Susan is a servant maid. I see 
 her trundling her m^p, and contemplating the whirling phe- 
 nomenon through blurred optics ; but to term her " a poor 
 outcast " seems as much as to say that poor Susan was no 
 better than she should be, which I trust was not what you 
 meant to express. Robin Good fellow supports himself with- 
 out that stick of a moral which you have thrown away ; but 
 how I can be brought in felo de omiUendo for that ending to 
 the Boy-builders is a mystery. I can't say positively now, — 
 I only know that no line oftener or readier occurs than that 
 "Light-hearted boys, I will build up a Giant with you." It 
 comes naturally, with a warm holiday, and the freshness of 
 the blood. It is a perfect summer amulet, that I tie round 
 my legs to quicken their motion when I go out a maying. 
 (N.B.) I don't ofren go out a maying ; — Must is the tense 
 with me now. Do you take the pun ? Young Romilly is 
 divine ;* the reasons of his mother's grief being remediless — 
 I never saw parental love carried up so high, towering above 
 
 * " The admirable little poem, entitled " The Force of Prayer," de- 
 veloping the depths of a widowed mother's grief, whose only son has 
 been drowned in attempting to leap over the precipice of the " Wharf" 
 at Bolton Abbey. The first line, printed in old English characters, from 
 some old English ballad, 
 
 " What is good for a bootless bene ?" 
 
 suggests Miss Lamb's single pun. The following are the profoundest 
 stanzas among those which excite her brother's most just admiration : — 
 
 " If for a lover the lady wept, 
 A solace she might borrow 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 139 
 
 the other loves — Shakspeare had done something for the 
 filial, in Cordelia, and, by implication, for the fatherly, too, 
 in Lear's resentment ; he left it for you to explore the depths 
 of the maternal heart. I get stupid, and flat, and flattering ; 
 what's the use of telling you what good things you have 
 written, or — I hope I may add — that I know them to be good ? 
 Apropos — when I first opened upon the just-mentioned poem, 
 in a careless tone, I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, 
 " What is good for a iootless bene .^" To which, with in- 
 finite presence of mind, (as the jest-book has it,) she answered, 
 " a shoeless pea." It was the first she ever made. Joke 
 the second T make. You distinguish well, in your old preface, 
 between the verses of Dr. Johnson, of the " Man in the 
 Strand," and that from " The Babes in the Wood." I was 
 thinking, whether taking your own glorious lines — 
 
 " And from the love which was in her soul 
 For her youthful Romilly," 
 
 which, by the love I bear my own soul, I think have no par- 
 allel in any, the best old ballads, and just altering it to — 
 
 " And from the great respect she felt 
 For Sir Samuel Romilly," 
 
 would not have explained the boundaries of prose expression, 
 and poetic feeling, nearly as well. Excuse my levity on 
 such an occasion. I never felt deeply in my life if that 
 poem did not make me, both lately and when I read it in 
 MS. No alderman ever lonired after a haur.ch of buck 
 
 From death, and from the passion of death ;- 
 Old Wharf might heal her sorrow. 
 
 She weeps not for the wedding-day, 
 
 Which was to be to-morrow : 
 Her hope was a further-looking hope, 
 
 And hers is a mother's sorrow." 
 
140 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that " White 
 Doe " you promise, I am sure it is superlative, or will be 
 when drest, i. e., printed. All tilings read raw to me in 
 MS, ; to compare magna parvis, I cannot endure my own 
 writings in that state. The only one which I think would 
 not very much win upon me in print is Peter Bell. But I 
 am not certain. You ask me about your preface. I like 
 botii that and the supplement without an exception. The ac- 
 count of what you mean by imagination is very valuable to 
 me. It will help me to like some things in poetry better, 
 which is a little humiliating in me to confess. I thought I 
 could not be instructed in that science (I mean the critical), 
 as I once heard old obscene, beastly Peter Pindar, in a dis- 
 pute on Milton, say he thought that if he had reason to value 
 himself upon one thing more than another, it was in knowing 
 what good verse was. Who looked over your proof-sheets 
 and left orcUlo in that line of Virgil ? 
 
 My brother's picture of Milton is very finely painted, 
 that is, it might have been done by a hand next to Van- 
 dyke's. It is the genuine Milton, and an object of quiet 
 gaze for the half hour at a time. Yet though I am confident 
 there is no better one of him, the face does not quite answer 
 to Milton. 
 
 There is a tinge of ])etit (or loeiite, how do you spell it ?) 
 querulousness about it ; yet, hang it ! now I remember bet- 
 ter, there is not ; it is calm, melanclioly and poetical. One 
 of the copies of the poems you sent has precisely the same 
 pleasant blending of a sheet of second volume with a sheet 
 of first. I think it was page 245 ; but I sent it and had it 
 rectified. It gave me, in the first impetus of cutting the 
 leaves, just such a cold squelch as going down a plausible 
 turning and suddenly reading "No thoroughfare." Robin- 
 son's is entire : I wish you would write more criticism about 
 Spenser, &c. I think I could say something about iiim 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 141 
 
 myself, but, bless me ! these " merchants and their spicy 
 drugs," which are so harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up 
 my poor soul and body, till I shall forget I ever thought my- 
 self a bit of a genius ! I can't even put a few thoughts on 
 paper for a newspaper. I " engross " when I should "pen " 
 a paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, 
 all traffic, exchange of commodities, intercourse between na- 
 tions, all the consequent civilization, and wealth, and amity, 
 and link of society, and getting rid of prejudices, and know- 
 ledge of the face of the globe ; and rot the very firs of the 
 forest, that look so romantic alive, and die into desks ! 
 
 Vale. 
 
 Yours, dear W., and all yours, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The following letter is in acknowledgment of an early 
 copy of " The Excursion." 
 
 to mr. wordsworth. 
 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receipt 
 of the great armful of poetry which you have sent me ; and 
 to get it before the rest of the world too ! I have gone quite 
 through with it, and was thinking to have accomplished that 
 pleasure a second time before I wrote to thank you, but M. 
 B. came (in while we were out) and made holy theft of it, 
 but we expect restitution in a day or two. It is the noblest 
 conversational poem I ever read — a day in Heaven. The 
 part (or rather main body) which has left the sweetest odor 
 on my memory (a bad term for the remains of an impression 
 so recent) is the Tales of the Church-yard ; — the only girl 
 among seven brethren, born out of due time, and (not duly) 
 
142 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 taken away again ;-^the deaf man and the blind man ; — 
 the Jacobite and Hanoverian, whom antipathies reconcile ; 
 the ScaiTon-entry of the rusticating parson upon his solitude ; 
 — these were all new to me too. My having known the 
 story of Margaret (at the beginning), a very old acquaint- 
 ance, even as long back as when I saw you first at Stowey, 
 did not make her reappearance less fresh. 1 don't know 
 what to pick out of this best of books upon the best subjects 
 for partial naming. That gorgeous sunset is famous ;* I 
 think it must have been the identical one we saw on Salis- 
 bury Plain five years ago, that drew P — — from the card- 
 table, where he had sat from rise of that luminary to its une- 
 qualed setting ; but neither he nor I had gifted eyes to see 
 those symbols of common things glorified, such as the pro- 
 phets saw them in that sunset — the wheel, the potter's clay, 
 the washpot, the wine-press, the almond-tree rod, the baskets 
 of figs, the fourfold visaged head, the throne, and Him that 
 sat thereon. t 
 
 One feeling I was particularly struck with, as what I re- 
 cognized so very lately at Harrow Church on entering it 
 after a hot and secular day's pleasure, the instantaneous 
 coolness and calming, almost transforming properties of a 
 country church just entered ; and certain fragrance which 
 it has, either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the 
 week, or the air that is let in being pure country, exactly 
 what you have reduced into words — but 1 am feeling that 
 
 * The passage lo which the allusion applies does not picture a sun- 
 set, but the effect of sunlight on a receding mist among the mountains, 
 in the second book of " The Excursion." 
 
 t " Fix'd resemblances were seen 
 To implements of ordinary use. 
 But vast in size, in substance glorified ; 
 Such as by Hebrew Prophets were beheld 
 In vision — forms uncouth of mightiest powers, 
 For admiration and mysterious awe." 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 143 
 
 which I cannot express. The reading your lines about it 
 fixed me for a time, a monument in Harrow Church ; do you 
 know it ? with its fine long spire, white as washed marble, 
 to be seen, by vantage of its high site, as far as Salisbury 
 spire itself almost. 
 
 I shall select a day or two very shortly, when I am 
 coolest in brain, to have a steady second reading, which T 
 feel will lead to many more, for it will be a stock book with 
 me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent me. There is a 
 great deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet not 
 so much as to overpower and discountenance a poor Lon- 
 doner or south- countryman entirely, though Mary seems to 
 have felt it occasionally a little too powerfully, for it was her 
 remark during reading it, that by your system it was doubt- 
 ful whether a liver in towns had a soul to be saved. She 
 almost trembled for that invisible part of us in her. 
 
 Save for a late excursion to Harrow, and a day or two 
 on the banks of the Thames this summer, rural images were 
 fast fading from my mind, and by the wise provision of the 
 Regent, all that was country-like in the Parks is all but 
 obliterated. The very color of green is vanished ; the whole 
 surface of Hyde Park is dry crumbling sand (Arabia Are- 
 nosa), not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown 
 there ; booths and drinking places go all round it for a mile 
 and a half, I am confident — I might say two miles in circuit. 
 The stench of liquors, bad tobacco, dirty people and pro- 
 visions, conquers the air, and we are stifled and suffocated in 
 Hyde Park. 
 
 Lamb was delighted with the proposition, made through 
 Southey, that he should review " The Excursion" in the 
 "Quarterly," though he had never before attempted con- 
 temporaneous criticism, and cherished a dislike to it, which 
 the event did not diminish. The ensuing letter was addressed 
 
144 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 while meditating on liis office, and uneasy lest he sliould lose 
 it for want of leisure. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSW^ORTH. 
 My DEAR W., 
 
 I have scarce time or quiet to explain my present 
 situation, how unquiet and distracted it is, owing to the ab- 
 sence of some of my compeers, and to the deficient state of 
 payments at E. I. H., owing to had peace speculations in the 
 calico market. (I write this to W. W., Esq., Collector oi 
 Stamp Duties for the conjoint Northern Counties, not to 
 W. W., Poet.) I go back, and have for these many days 
 past, to evening work, generally at the rate of nine hours a 
 day. The nature of my work, too, puzzling and hurrying, 
 has so shaken my spirits, that my sleep is nothing but a suc- 
 cession of dreams of business I cannot do, of assistants that 
 give me no assistance, of terrible responsibilities. I re- 
 claimed your book, which Hazlitt has mercilessly kept, only 
 two days ago, and have made shift to read it again with 
 shattered brain. It does not lose — rather, some parts have 
 come out with a prominence I did not perceive before — but 
 such was my aching head yesterday (Sunday), that the book 
 was like a mountain landscape to one that should walk on 
 the edge of a precipice — I perceived beauty dizzily. Now, 
 what I would say is, that I see no prospect of a quiet half 
 day, or hour even, till this week and the next are past. I 
 then hope to get four weeks' absence, and if iheii is time 
 enough to begin, I will most gladly do what is required, 
 though I feel my inability, for my brain is alwaj^s desultory, 
 and snatches off hints from things, but can seldom follow a 
 "work" methodically. But that shall be no excuse. What 
 I beg you to do is, to let mie know from Southey, if that will 
 be time enough for the " Quarterly," i. e., suppose it done in 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 145 
 
 three weeks from this date (19th Sept.); if not, it is my 
 bounden duty to express my regret, and decline it. Mary 
 thanks you, and feels highly grateful for your " Patent of 
 Nobility," and acknowledges the author of "■ The Excursion" 
 as the legitimate fountain of honor. We both agree, that, to 
 our feeling, Ellen is best as she is. To us there would have 
 been something repugnant in her challenging her Penance as 
 a dowry ; the fact is explicable, but how few are those to 
 whom it would have been rendered explicit. The unlucky 
 reason of the detention of " The Excursion" was Flazlitt, for 
 whom M. Burney borrowed it, and I only got it on Friday. 
 His remarks had some vigor in them,* particularly some- 
 thing about an old ruin being too modern for your Primeval 
 Nature, and about a lichen ; I forget the passage, but the 
 whole wore an air of despatch. That objection which M. 
 Burney had imbibed from him about Voltaire, I explained to 
 M. B. (or tried) exactly on your principle of its being a 
 characteristic speech. f That it was no settled comparative 
 estimate of Voltaire with any of his own tribe of buffoons — - 
 no injustice, even if you spoke it, for I dared say you never 
 could relish "Candide." I know I tried to get through it 
 about a twelvemonth since, and couldn't for the dullness. 
 Now I think I have a wider range in buffoonery than you. 
 Too much toleration perhaps. 
 
 I finish this after a raw ill-baked dinner fast gobbled up 
 
 * This refers to an article of Hazlitt on '• The Excursion," in the 
 " Examiner," very fine in passages, but more characteristic of the critic 
 than descriptive of the poem. 
 
 t The passage in which the copy of" Candide," found in the apart- 
 ment of the Recluse, is described as " the dull production of a scoffers 
 brain," — which had excited Hazlitt to energetic vindication of Voltaire 
 from the charge of dullness. Whether the work, written in mockery of 
 human hopes, be dull, I will not venture to determine ; but I do not he- 
 sitate, at any risk, to avow a conviction that uo book in the world is 
 more adapted to make a good man wretched. 
 
 7 
 
146 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 to set me off to office again, after working there till near 
 four. O how I wish I were a rich man, even though I were 
 squeezed camel-fashion at getting through that needle's eye 
 that is spoken of in the Written Word. Apropos ; is the 
 Poet of " The Excursion" a Christian ? or is it the Pedlar and 
 the Priest that are ? 
 
 I find I miscalled that celestial splendor of the mist go- 
 ing off, a sunset. That truly shows my inaccuracy of head. 
 
 Do, pray, indulge me by writing an answer to the point 
 of time mentioned above, or let Southey. I am ashamed to 
 go bargaining in this way, but indeed I have no time I can 
 reckon on till the first week in October. God send I may 
 not be disappointed in that ! Coleridge swore in a letter to 
 me he would review " The Excursion" in the " Quarterly." 
 Therefore, though thai shall not stop me, yet if I can do any 
 thing, when done, I must know of him if he has any thing 
 ready, or I shall fill the world with loud exclaims. 
 
 I keep writing on, knowing the postage is no more for 
 much writing, else so fagged and dispirited I am with cursed 
 India House work, I scarce know what I do. My left arm 
 reposes on " The Excursion." I feel what it would be in 
 quiet. It is now a sealed book. 
 
 The next letter was written after the fatal critique was 
 despatched to the Editor, and before its appearance. 
 
 to mr. wordsworth. 
 
 Dear W. 
 
 Your experience about tailors seems to be in point 
 blank opposition to Burton, as much as the author of " The 
 Excursion" does, toto coslo, differ in his notion of a country 
 life, from the picture which W. H. has exhibited of the 
 same. But, with a little explanation, you and B. may be 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 147 
 
 reconciled. It is evident that he confined his observation to 
 the genuine native London Tailor. What freaks tailor-nature 
 may take in the country is not for me to give account of. 
 And certainly some of the freaks recorded do give an idea 
 of the persons, in question being beside themselves, rather 
 than in harmony with the common, moderate, self-enjoyment 
 of the rest of mankind. A flying-tailor, I venture to say, is 
 no more in rerum naturd than a flying-horse or a Gryphon. 
 His wheeling. his airy-flight from the precipice you mention, 
 had a parallel in the melancholy Jew who toppled from the 
 monument. Were his limbs ever found ? Then, the man 
 who cures diseases by words, is evidently an inspired tailor. 
 Burton never affirmed that the art of sewing disqualified the 
 practiser of it from being a fit organ for supernatural reve- 
 lation. He never enters into such subjects. 'Tis the com- 
 mon, uninspired tailor which he speaks of. Again, the per- 
 son who makes his smiles to be heard, is evidently a man 
 under possession ; a demoniac tailor. A greater hell than 
 his own must have a hand in this. I am not certain that the 
 cause you advocate has much reason for a triumph. You 
 seem to me to substitute light-heartedness by a trick, or not 
 to know the difference. I confess, a grinning tailor would 
 shock me. Enough of tailors ! 
 
 The " 'scapes" of the Great God Pan, who appeared 
 among your mountains some dozen years since, and his nar- 
 row chance of being submerged by the swains, afforded me 
 much pleasure. I can conceive the water-nymphs pulling 
 for him. He would have been another Hylas — W. Hylas. 
 In a mad letter which Capel Loft wrote to M. M.* Phillips 
 (now Sir Richard) I remember his noticing a metaphysical 
 article of Pan, signed H., and adding, " I take your corres- 
 pondent to be the same with Hylas." Hylas had put forth a 
 
 * Monthly Magazine. 
 
148 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 pastoral just before. How near the unfounded conjecture of 
 the certainty inspired Loft (unfounded as we thought it) was 
 to being realized ! I can conceive his being " good to all 
 that wander in that perilous flood." One J. Scott* (I know 
 no more) is editor of " The Champion." Where is Cole- 
 ridge ? 
 
 That Review you speak of, I am only sorry did not 
 appear last quarter. The circumstances of haste and pecu- 
 liar bad spirits under which it was written, would have ex- 
 cused its slightness and inadequacy, the full load of which I 
 shall suffer from its lying so long, as it will seem to have 
 done, from its postponement. I write with great difficulty, 
 and can scarce command my own resolution to sit at writing 
 an hour together. I am a poor creature, but I am leaving 
 off gin. I hope you will see good will in the thing. 1 had 
 a difficulty to perform not to make it all panegyric ; I have 
 attempted to personate a mere stranger to you ; perhaps with 
 too much strangeness. But you must bear that in mind 
 when you read it, and not think that I am, in mind, distant from 
 you or your poem, but that both are close to me, among the 
 nearest of persons and things. I do but act the stranger in 
 the Review. Then, I was puzzled about extracts and deter- 
 mined upon not giving one that had been in the " Examiner ;" 
 for extracts repeated give an idea that there is a meagre al- 
 lowance of good things. By this way, I deprived myself of 
 " Sir Alfred Irthing," and the reflections that conclude his 
 story, which are the flower of the poem. Hazlitt had given . 
 the reflections before me. Then it is the first review I ever 
 did, and I did not know how long I might make it. But it 
 must speak for itself, if Giffi^rd and his crew do not put 
 words in its mouth, which I expect. Farewell. Love to all. 
 Mary keeps very bad. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 * After\(iards the distinguished and unfortunate editor of the Lon- 
 don Magazine, 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 149 
 
 The apprehension expressed at the close of the last letter 
 was dismally verified. The following contains Lamb's first 
 burst of an indignation which lasted amidst all his gentleness 
 and tolerance unquenched through life : — 
 
 to mr. wordsworth. 
 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 I told you my Review was a very imperfect one. 
 But what you will see in the "Quarterly " is a spurious one, 
 which Mr. Baviad Gifford has palmed upon it for mine. I 
 never felt more vexed in my life than when I read it. I can- 
 not give you an idea of what he has done to it, out of spite 
 at me, because he once suffered me to be called a lunatic in 
 his Review.* The language he has altered throughout. 
 Whatever inadequateness it had to its subject, it was, in point 
 of composition, the prettiest piece of prose I ever writ ; and 
 so my sister (to whom alone I read the MS.) said. That 
 charm, if it had any, is all gone : more than a third of the 
 substance is cut away, and that not all from one place, but 
 passim, so as to make utter nonsense. Every warm expres- 
 sion is changed for a nasty cold one. 
 
 I have not the cursed alteration by me ; I shall never 
 look at it again ; but for a specimen, I remember I had said 
 the poet of " The Excursion " " walks through common for- 
 ests as through some Dodona or enchanted wood, and every 
 casual bird that flits upon the boughs, like that miraculous 
 one in Tasso, but in language more piercing than any articu- 
 lated sounds, reveals to him far higher love-lays." It is now 
 
 * In alluding to Lamb's note on the gieat scene of " The Broken 
 Heart," where Calantha dances on, after hearing at every pause of 
 some terrible calamity, a writer in the " Quarterly " had affected to ex- 
 cuse the writer as a " maniac ;" a suggestion which circumstances ren- 
 dered most cruel. 
 
150 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 (besides half-a-dozen alterations in the same half-dozen lines) 
 "but in language more intelligent reveals to him ;" — that is 
 one I remember. 
 
 But that would have been little, putting his shoemaker 
 phraseology (for he was a shoemaker) instead of mine^ which 
 has been tinctured with better authors than his ignorance can 
 comprehend ; — for I reckon myself a dab at prose ; — verse 
 I leave to my betters : God help them, if they are to be so 
 reviewed by friend or foe as you have been this quarter ! I 
 have read " It won't do."* But worse than altering words ; 
 he has kept a few members only of the part I had done best, 
 which was to explain all I could of your " Scheme of Har- 
 monies," as I had ventured to call it, between the external 
 universe and what within us answers to it. To do this, I 
 had accumulated a good many short passages, rising in length 
 to the end, weaving in the extracts as if they came in as a 
 part of the text naturally, not obtruding them as specimens. 
 Of this part a little is left, but so as, without conjuration, no 
 man could tell what I was driving at. ' A proof of it you 
 may see (though not judge of the whole of the injustice) by 
 these words. 1 had spoken something about " natural method- 
 ism ;" and after follows, " and therefore the tale of Marga- 
 ret should have been postponed " ( I forget my words, or his 
 words ); now his reasons for postponing it are as deducible 
 from what goes before, as they are from the 104th Psalm. 
 The passage whence I deduced it, has vanished, but clapping 
 a colon before a therefore is always reason enough for Mr. 
 Baviad Gifford to allow to a reviewer that is not himself. I as- 
 sure you my complaints are founded. I know how sore a 
 word altered makes one ; but, indeed, of this review the 
 
 * Though the article on " The Excursion," in the " Edinburgh Re- 
 view" commenced " This will never do!" it contained ample illustra- 
 tions of the author's genius, and helped the world to disprove its oracular 
 beginning. 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 151 
 
 whole complexion is gone. I regret only that I did not keep 
 a copy. I am sure you would have been pleased with it, 
 because I have been feeding my fancy for some months with 
 the notion of pleasing you. Its imperfection or inadequate- 
 ness in size and method I knew ; but for the writing-part of 
 it I was fully satisfied ; I hoped it would make more than 
 atonement. Ten or twelve distinct passages come to my 
 mind, which are gone, and what is left is, of course, the 
 worse for their having been ; the eyes are pulled out, and the 
 bleeding sockets are left. 
 
 I read it at Arch's shop with my face burning with vex- 
 ation secretly, with just such a feeling as if it had been a 
 review written against myself, making false quotations from 
 me. But I am ashamed to say so much about a short piece. 
 How are you served ! and the labors of years turned into 
 contempt by scoundrels ! 
 
 " But I could not but protest against your taking that thing 
 as mine. Kvery pretty expression (I know there were many) ; 
 every warm expression (there was nothing else) is vulgar- 
 ized and frozen. If they catch me in their camps again, let 
 them spitchcock me ! They had a right to do it, as no name 
 appears to it, and Mr. Shoemaker Gifford, I suppose, never 
 waived a rio-ht he had since he commenced author. Heaven 
 confound him and ail caitiffs ! 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The next letter is fantastically written beneath a regular 
 official order, the words in italics being printed. 
 
152 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Please to state the iveights and amounts of the fol- 
 lowing Lots of 
 sold Sale 181 for 
 
 Your ohedieiil Servant^ 
 
 Chas. Lamb. 
 
 Accountant's Office, 
 
 2Uh April, 1816 * 
 
 Dear W., 
 
 I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting 
 .the revise of the poems and letter. 1 hope they will come 
 out faultless. One blunder I saw and shuddered at. The 
 hallucinating rascal had printed hattered for hattened, this last 
 not conveying any distinct sense to his gaping soul. The 
 Reader (as they call ^em) had discovered it, and given it 
 the marginal brand, but the substitutory n had not yet ap- 
 peared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic ad- 
 dress to the printer not to neglect the correction. I know 
 how such a blunder would " batten at your peace.'' With 
 regard to the works, the letter I read with unabated satisfac- 
 tion. Such a thing was wanted ; called for. The parallel 
 of Cotton with Burns I heartly approved of Iz. Walton hal- 
 lows any page in which his reverend name appears. " Duty 
 archly bending to purposes of general benevolence" is ex- 
 quisite. The poems I endeavored not to understand, but to 
 read them with my eye alone, and I think I succeeded. 
 (Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) 
 As if I were to luxuriate to-morrow at some picture-gallery 
 I was never at before, and going to-day by chance, found the 
 door open, and having but five minutes to look about me, 
 peeped in ; just such a chastised peep I took with my mind 
 at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over unre- 
 
 * This is shown by the postmark to be an error ; it should be 1818. 
 
LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. 153 
 
 strained, not to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. 
 Coleridge is printing " Christabel," by Lord Byron's recom- 
 mendation to Murray, with what he calls a vision, " Kubla 
 Khan," which said vision he repeats so enchantingly that it 
 irradiates and brings heaven and elysian bowers into my par- 
 lor while he sings or says it ; but there is an observation, 
 " Never tell your dreams," and I am almost afraid that 
 '' Kubla Khan" is an owl that won't bear day-light. I fear 
 lest it should be discovered by the lantern of typography and 
 clear reducting to letters no better than nonsense or no sense. 
 When I was young, I used to chant with ecstasy " Mild 
 Arcadians ever blooming," till somebody told me it was 
 meant to be nonsense. Even yet I have a lingering attach- 
 ment to it, and think it better than " Windsor Forest," " Dy- 
 ing Christian's Address," &c. Coleridge sent his tragedy 
 to D. L. T. ; it cannot be acted this season, and by their 
 manner of receiving, I hope he will be able to alter it to 
 make them accept it for next. He is, at present, under the 
 medical care of Mr. Gillman (Killman ?) at Highgate, where 
 he plays at leaving off laud — m ; I think his essentials not 
 touched ; he is very bad, but then he wonderfully picks up 
 another day, and his face, when he repeats his verses, hath 
 its ancient glory; an archangel a little damaged. Will Miss 
 H. pardon our not replying at length to her kind letter? We 
 are not quiet enough ; Morgan is with us every day, going 
 betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but 
 four miles, and the neighborhood of such a man is as excit- 
 ing as the presence of fifty ordinary persons. 'Tis enough 
 to be within the whifF and wind of his genius for us not to 
 possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or the Author 
 of the Excursion, I should, in a very little time, lose my own 
 identity, and be dragged along in the current of other peo- 
 ple's thoughts, hampered in a net. How cool I sit in this 
 office, with no possible interruption further than what I may 
 
 7* 
 
154 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 term material/ There is not as much metaphysics in thirty- 
 six of the people here as there is in the first page of Locke's 
 " Treatise on the Human Understanding," or as much po- 
 etry as in any ten lines of the " Pleasures of Hope," or more 
 natural " Beggar's Petition." I never entangle myself in 
 any of their speculations. Interruptions, if I try to write a 
 letter even, I have dreadful. Just now, within four lines, I 
 was called off for ten minutes to consult dusty old books for 
 the settlement of obsolete errors. I hold you a guinea you 
 don't find the chasm where I left off, so excellently the 
 wounded sense closed again and was healed. 
 
 N. B. — Nothing said above to the contrary, but that I 
 hold the personal presence of the two mentioned potent 
 spirits at a rate as high as any ; but I pay dearer ; what 
 amuses others robs me of myself; my mind is positively dis- 
 charged into their greater currents, but flows with a willing 
 violence. As to your question about work ; it is far less op- 
 pressive to me than it was, from circumstances ; it takes all 
 the golden part of the day away, a solid lump, from ten to 
 four ; but it does not kill my peace as before. Some day or 
 other I shall be in a taking again. My head aches, and you 
 have had enough. God bless you ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 
 ■SHE LONDON MAGAZINE — CHARACTER AND FATE OF MR. JOHN SCOTT, ITS EDI- 
 TOR — CHARACTER AND HISTORY OF MR. THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWRIGHT, 
 ONE OF ns CONTRIBUTORS — MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF LAMB TO WORDS- 
 WORTH, COLERIDGE, AND OTHERS ; 1818 TO 1825. 
 
 Lamb's association with Hazlitt in the year 1820 intro- 
 duced him to that of the " London Magazine," which supplied 
 the finest stimulus his intellect had ever received, and in- 
 duced the composition of the Essays fondly and familiarly 
 known under the fantastic title of Elia. Never was a peri- 
 odical work commenced with happier auspices, numbering a 
 list of contributors more original in thought, more fresh in 
 spirit, more sportive in fancy, or directed by an editor better 
 qualified by nature and study to preside, than this " London." 
 There was Lamb, with humanity ripened among townbred 
 experiences, and pathos matured by sorrow, at his wisest, 
 sagest, airiest, mdiscreetest, best ; Barry Cornwall, in the 
 first bloom of his modest and enduring fame, streaking the 
 darkest passion with beauty ; John Hamilton Reynolds, light- 
 ing up the wildest eccentricities and most striking features of 
 many-colored life with vivid fancy ; and with others of less 
 note, Hazlitt, whose pen unloosed from the chain which ear- 
 nest thought and metaphysical dreamings had woven, gave 
 radiant expression to the results of the solitary musings of 
 many yeai*s. Over these contributors John Scott presided, 
 himself a critic of remarkable candor, eloquence, and discrim- 
 
156 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ination, unfettered by the dogmas of contending schools of 
 poetry and art ; apt to discern the good and beautiful in 
 all ; and having, as editor, that which Kent recognized in 
 Lear, which subjects revere in kings, and boys admire in 
 schoolmasters, and contributors should welcome in editors — 
 authority ; — not manifested in a worrying, teasing, intolera- 
 ble interference in small matters, but in a judicious and 
 steady superintendence of the whole; with a wise allowance 
 of the occasional excesses of wit and genius. In this respect, 
 Mr. Scott differed, entirely from a celebrated poet, who was 
 induced, just a year after, to undertake the Editorship of the 
 " New Montlily Magazine," an office for which, it may be 
 said, with all veneration for his poetic genius, he was the 
 most unfit person who could be found in the wide world of 
 letters — who regarded a magazine as if it were a long affida- 
 vit, or a short answer in Chancery, in which the absolute 
 truth of every sentiment and the propriety of every jest were 
 verified by the editor's oath or solemn affirmation ; who stop- 
 ped the press for a week at a comma ; balanced contending 
 epithets for a fortnight ; and, at last, grew rash in despair, 
 and tossed the nearest, and often the worst article, " unwhipped 
 of justice," to the impatient printer. Mr. Scott, indeed, was 
 more fit to preside over a little commonwealth of authors than 
 to hold despotic rule over subject contributors; he had not 
 the airy grace of JefTrey, by which he might give a certain 
 familiar liveliness to the most laborious disquisitions, and shed 
 the glancing light of fancy among party manifestoes ; — nor 
 the boisterous vigor of Wilson, riotous in power, reckless in 
 wisdom, fusing the production of various intellects into one 
 brilliant reflexion of his own master-mind ; — and it was well 
 that he wanted these weapons of a tyranny which his chief 
 contributors were too original and too sturdy to endure. He 
 heartily enjoyed his position ; duly appreciated his contribu- 
 tors and himself; and when he gave audience to some young 
 
JOHN SCOTT. 167 
 
 aspirant fop periodical honors al a late breakfast, amidst the 
 luxurious confusion of newspapers, reviews, and uncut novels, 
 lying about in fascinating litter, and carelessly enunciated 
 schemes for bright successions of essays, he seemed destined 
 for many years of that happy excitement in which thought 
 perpetually glows into unruffled but energetic language, and 
 is assured by the echoes of the world. 
 
 Alas ! a few days after he thus appeared the object of admi- 
 ration and envy to a young visitor, in his rooms in York-street, 
 he was stretched on a bed of mental agony — the foolish vic- 
 tim of the guilty custom of a world which would have laugh- 
 ed at him for regarding himself as within the sphere of its 
 opinion, if he had not died to shame it ! In a luckless hour, 
 instead of seeking to oppose the bitter personalities of "Black- 
 wood " by the exhibition of a serener power, he rushed 
 with spurious chivalry into a personal contest ; caught 
 up the weapons which he had himself denounced, and 
 sought to unmask his opponents and draw them beyond the 
 pale of literary courtesy ; placed himself thus in a doubtful 
 position in which he could neither consistently reject an ap- 
 peal to the conventional arbitrament of violence nor embrace 
 it ; lost his most legitimate opportunity of daring the unhal- 
 lowed strife, and found another with an antagonist connected 
 with the quarrel only by too zealous a friendship ; and, at 
 last, met his death almost by lamentable accident, in the un- 
 certain glimmer of moonlight, from the hand of one who went 
 out resolved not to harm him ! Such was the melancholy 
 result — first of a controversy too envenomed — and afterwards 
 of enthralment in usages, absurd in all, but most absurd when 
 applied by a literary man to a literary quarrel. Apart from 
 higher considerations, it may befit a life destined for the list- 
 less excesses of gaiety to be cast on an idle brawl ; "a youth 
 of folly, an old age of cards " may be no great sacrifice to 
 preserve the hollow truce of fashionable society ; but for men 
 
158 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 of thought — whose minds are their possession, and who seek 
 to live in the minds of others by sympathy with their thoughts 
 — for them to hazard a thoughtful being because they dare 
 not own that they prefer life to death — contemplation to the 
 grave — the preparation for eternity, for the unbidden entrance 
 on its terrors, would be ridiculous if it did not become tragi- 
 cal. " Sir, I am a metaphysician !" said Hazlitt once, when 
 in a fierce dispute respecting the colors of Holbein and Van- 
 dyke, words almost became things ; " and nothing makes an 
 impression upon me but abstract ideas;" and woful, indeed, 
 is the mockery when thinkers condescend to be duelists! 
 
 The Magazine did not perish with its Editor : though its 
 unity of purpose was lost, it was still rich in essays of sur- 
 passing individual merit ; among which the masterly vindi- 
 cation of the true dramatic style by Darley ; the articles of 
 Gary, the admirable translator of Dante ; and the " Confes- 
 sions of an English Opium Eater;" held a distinguished 
 place. Mr. De Quincy, whose youth had been inspired by 
 enthusiastic admiration«of Coleridge, shown in contributions 
 to " The Friend," not unv/orthy of his master, and substan- 
 tial contributions of the blessings of fortune, came up to Lon- 
 don, and found an admiring welcome from Messrs. Taylor 
 and Hessey, the publishers into whose hands the " London 
 Magazine" had passed. After the good old fashion of the 
 GREAT TRADE, these genial booksellers used to assemble their 
 contributors round their hospitable table in Fleet Street, 
 where Mr. De Quincy was introduced to his new allies. 
 Among the contributors who partook of their professional 
 festivities, was a gentleman whose subsequent career has 
 invested the recollection of his appearances in the familiarity 
 of social life with fearful interest — Mr. Thomas Griffiths 
 Wainwright. He was then a young man; on the bright 
 side of thirty ; with a sort of undress military air, and the 
 conversation of a smart, lively, clever, heartless, voluptuous 
 
THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWRIGHT. 159 
 
 coxcomb. It was whispered that he had been an officer in 
 the Dragoons ; had spent more than one fortune ; and he 
 now condescended to take a part in periodical literature, 
 with the careless grace of an amateur who felt himself above 
 it. He was an artist also ; sketched boldly and graphically ; 
 exhibited a portfolio of his own drawings of female beauty, 
 in which the voluptuous trembled on the borders of the in- 
 delicate ; and seized on the critical department of the Fine 
 Arts, both in and out of the Magazine, undisturbed by the 
 presence or pretensions of the finest critic on Art who ever 
 wrote — William Hazlitt. On this subject, he composed, for 
 the Magazine, under the signature of " Janus Weathercock," 
 articles of flashy assumption — in which disdainful notices of 
 living artists were set off by fascinating references to the 
 personal appearance, accomplishments, and luxurious appli- 
 ances of the writer, ever the first hero of his essay. He 
 created a new sensation in the sedate circle, not only by his 
 braided surtouts, jeweled fingers, and various neck-handker- 
 chiefs, but by ostentatious contempt for every thing in the 
 world but elegant enjoyment. Lamb, who delighted to find 
 sympathy in dissimilitude, fancied that he really liked him : 
 took, as he ever did, the genial side of character; and, in- 
 stead of disliking the rake in the critic, thought it pleasant 
 to detect so much taste and good nature in a fashionable 
 roue ; and regarded all his vapid gayety, which to severer 
 observers looked like impertinence, as the playful efiusion of 
 a remarkably guileless nature. Thus, when expatiating in 
 his list of choicest friends, in Elia's letter to Southey, he 
 
 reckons " W the light, and warm-as-light hearted, 'Janus' 
 
 of the 'London;'" and two years afterwards, adverting to 
 the decline of the Magazine, in a letter to Mr. Barton, he 
 persists in his belief of Wainwright's light-heartedness as 
 pertinaciously as all the half conscious dupes in Othello do 
 in the assertion of lago's honesty : " They have pulled down 
 
160 FINAL BIEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Hazlitt, P , and their best stay, kind, light-hearted, 
 
 W , their 'Janus.'" In elucidation of this apparent 
 
 lightness of heart, it will not be uninstructive to trace the 
 remainder of this extraordinary person's history ; for surely 
 no contrast presented by the wildest romance between a gay 
 cavalier, fascinating Naples or Palermo, and the same hero, 
 detected as the bandit or demon of the forest, equals that 
 which time has unveiled between what Mr. Wainwright 
 seemed, and what he was. 
 
 Mr. Wainwright, having ceased to contribute to the 
 "London" about the year 1825, when Lamb bestowed on 
 him his parting eulogium, was scarcely seen in our literary 
 circle, though he retained the acquaintance and regard of 
 some of its members. In the year 1830 he was residing at 
 Linden House, Turnham Green, in the possession of which 
 he had succeeded his uncle, Dr. Griffiths, who for many 
 years edited a monthly publication, and whose death had 
 occurred about a year before, after a short illness, while 
 Mr. Wainwright and his wife were visiting at his house on 
 the occasion of her confinement with her only child. He 
 acquired some property at the death of his uncle, by whose 
 bounty, being early left an orphan, he had been educated ; 
 but his expensive tastes soon brought him to severe pecuniary 
 embarrassments and the verge of ruin. His wife's mother, 
 who had died in Linden House after a short illness, left two 
 daughters by Mr. Abercrombie, her second husband, named 
 Helen Frances Phoebe, and Madeline ; Mrs. Wainwright 
 being the daughter of a former husband, named Ward. 
 These young ladies being left without provision, except a 
 pension of lOZ. a year each, which had been granted to them, 
 as the destitute daughters of a meritorious officer, by the 
 Board of Ordnance, were invited by Mr. Wainwright to visit 
 him at Linden House, and at the beginning of 1830, with his 
 wife and child, formed his family. 
 
 I 
 
THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWRIGHT. 161 
 
 About this time, he formed the remarkable scheme of 
 procuring the eldest of the young ladies to effect insurances 
 on her life, to the amount of many thousands of pounds, for 
 the period of three, or two years. Miss Helen Frances 
 Phoebe Abercrombie was then a lovely woman nearly of the 
 age of twenty-one, which she attained 12th of March, 1830 ; 
 without expectations, except of some trifling possibility under 
 a settlement, and, except the proceeds of the pension, without 
 a shilling in the world ; while Mr. Wainwright, who supplied 
 the funds for this strange speculation, was in reality still 
 poorer, being steeped in debt, impatient of privation, with 
 ruin daily contracting its circle around him. 
 
 The first proposal was made by Mr. Wainwright, on 
 behalf of Miss Abercrombie, to the Palladium Insurance 
 Office, on 28th March, for 3,000Z. for three years. On this 
 occasion, Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright and Miss Abercrombie 
 called together at the office, where the object of the insurance 
 was stated to be to enable them to recover some property to 
 which the young lady was entitled. This proposal was 
 accepted, and on the 20th of April completed by payment of 
 the premium for one year by the hand of Miss Abercrombie, 
 then attended only by Mrs. Wainwright, and the delivery of 
 the policy. On or about the same day, a similar insurance 
 was effected with the Eagle Insurance Office for 3,000/., for 
 the term of two years, and the premium for one year and 
 stamp duty were paid by Miss Abercrombie, in her sister's 
 presence. In the following October four more policies were 
 effected ; with the Provident for 2,0007. ; with the Hope for 
 2,000/. ; with the Imperial for 3,000/. ; and with the Pelican 
 for 5,000/. — each on the life of Miss Abercrombie, and each 
 for the period of two years ; so that, at the close of this 
 month of October, the life of this poor girl, described by the 
 actuary of the Provident as " a remarkably healthy, cheer- 
 ful, beautiful young woman, whose life was one of a thou- 
 
162 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 sand," was insured to the amount of 18,000Z., as to 3.000Z. 
 for three years, and for the residue for two years only. 
 Premiums for one year, amounting, with the stamps, to some- 
 thing more than 220/., had been paid ; the premiums which 
 would be required to keep the policies on foot for a second 
 year amounting to 200/., and in tlie event of her surviving 
 the brief terms of insurance, the whole money would be 
 lost. On every visit to the offices, Miss Abercrombie was 
 accompanied by Mrs. Wainwright ; and the appearance of 
 these two ladies together on such an errand sometimes 
 awakened scruples which the apparent desirableness of the 
 life for insurance to an office did not always silence. At the 
 Imperial it was suggested to Miss Abercrombie, by Mr. In- 
 gall, the actuary, that " as she only proposed to make the 
 insurance for two years, he presumed it was to secure some 
 property she would come into at the expiration of that time ;" 
 to which Mrs. Wainwright replied, " Not exactly so, it is to 
 secure a sum of money to her sister, which she will be en- 
 abled to do by other means if she outlives that time ; but 
 I don't know much of her afTairs ; you had better speak to 
 her about it." On which Miss Abercrombie said, " That is 
 the case." By what means the ladies were induced to 
 make these statements can scarcely ever be guessed ; it is 
 certain that they were illusory. No reason existed for the 
 poor penniless girl securing 3,000/. for her sister in case of 
 her own death within two years, nor was there the least 
 chance of her receiving such a sum if living at the end of 
 that period. 
 
 The sum of £18,000 did not bound the limits of the 
 speculation ; for, in the same month of October, a proposal 
 to the Eagle to increase the insurance by the addition of 
 £2,000, was made and declined ; and a proposal to the 
 Globe for £.5,000, and a proposal to the Alliance for 
 some further sum, met a similar fate. At the office of 
 
THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWKIGHT. lf>3 
 
 the Globe, Miss Abercrombie, who, as usual, was accom- 
 panied by Mrs. Wainwright, being asked the object of 
 the insurance, replied that ''- she scarcely knew ; but she was 
 desired to come there by her friends, who wished the in- 
 surance done." On being further pressed, she referred to 
 Mrs. Wain Wright, who said, "It is for some money matters 
 that are to be arranged ; but ladies don't know much about 
 such things ;" and Miss Abercrombie answered a question, 
 whether she was insured in any other office, in the nega- 
 tive. At the Alliance, Helen was more severely tested 
 by the considerate kindness of Mr. Hamilton, who re- 
 ceived the proposal, and who was not satisfied by her 
 statement that a suit was depending in Chancery, which 
 would probably terminate in her favor, but that if she 
 should die in the interim, the property would go into another 
 family, for which contingency she wished to provide. The 
 young lady, a little irritated at the question, said, " I supposed 
 that what you had to inquire into was the state of my health, 
 not the object for the insurance ;" on which he informed her 
 " that a young lady, such as she was, had come to the office 
 two years before to effect an insurance for a short time ; and 
 that it was the opinion of the Company she had come to her 
 death by unfair means." Poor Helen replied, " she was sure 
 there was no one about her who could have any such object." 
 Mr. Hamilton said, "Of course not;" but added, "that he 
 was not satisfied as to the object of the insurance ; and un- 
 less she stated in writing what it was, and the Directors ap- 
 proved it, the proposal could not be entertained." The ladies 
 retired ; and the office heard no more of the proposal, nor of 
 Miss Abercrombie, till they heard that she was dead, and 
 that the payment of other policies on her life was resisted. 
 
 Mr. Wainwright's affairs soon approached a crisis, for he 
 had given a warrant of attorney in August, and a bill of sale 
 of his furniture at Linden House, both of v/hich were become 
 
164 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 absolute, and seizure under which he had postponed only till 
 the 20th or 21st of December. Early in that month he left 
 Linden House, and took furnished lodgings in Conduit Street, 
 to which he was accompanied by his wife and her two half- 
 sisters. On the 13th of that month Miss Abercrombie called 
 on a solicitor named Lys, to whom she was a stranger, and 
 requested him to attest the execution of a will she desired 
 to make, as she was going abroad ; he complied, and she 
 executed a will in favor of her sister Madeline, making Mr. 
 Wainwright its executor. On the 14th, having obtained 
 a form of assignment from the office of the Palladium, she 
 called on another solicitor named Kirk, to whom she was also 
 a stranger, to perfect for her an assignment of the policy of 
 that office to Mr. Wainwright ; tliis the solicitor did by writing 
 in ink over words pencilled in the hand-writing of Mr. Wain- 
 wright, and witnessing her signature. On that evening. 
 Miss Abercrombie accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright 
 and her sister to the play, as she had done the preceding 
 evening, and partook of oysters, or lobsters, and porter, 
 after their return. The weather was wet ; she had walked 
 home, as she had done the evening before ; and in the night 
 suffered from illness, which was attributed to cold. She con- 
 tinued ill, however, and, in a day or two. Dr. Locock v/as 
 called in by Mr. Wainwright, found her laboring under de- 
 rangement of stomach, and prescribed for her simple reme- 
 dies. She continued indisposed, but he entertained no serious 
 apprehensions until he was sent for on the 21st, when she 
 died. On that morning a powder which Dr. Locock did not 
 recollect ever prescribing, was administered to her in jelly, 
 and Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright quitted her, to take a long 
 walk for some hours. Soon after their departure she was 
 seized with violent convulsions ; the physician was sent for, 
 and was shocked by her condition, and by her exclaiming, 
 " Oh, Doctor, these are the pains of death !" Me adminis- 
 
THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWRIGHT. 165 
 
 tered proper remedies for pressure on the brain, under which 
 she was then laboring ; the symptoms subsided, and he left her 
 in a state of composure. The convulsions, however, soon re- 
 turned with increased violence ; the attendant, in alarm^ 
 called in the assistant of a neighboring apothecary, in the 
 emergency ; the young man did for her the best that human 
 skill could devise ; but all assistance was in vain, and before 
 Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright returned from their walk, she was 
 dead. An examination of the body took place, with Mr. 
 Wainwright's ready concurrence, which, in Doctor Locock's 
 apprehension, left no reason to attribute the death to other 
 than natural causes ; its immediate cause was obviously 
 pressure on the brain ; and the sums, amounting to £18,000, 
 insured on her life, became payable to Mr. Wainwright, as 
 her executor, though, except as to two of the policies — those 
 of the Palladium and the Hope, which had been assigned to 
 him by poor Helen — apparently, at least, for the benefit of 
 the sister. 
 
 Suspicion, however, was excited ; the offices resisted the 
 claim ; Mr. Wainwright left England for France, where he 
 spent several years ; and after delays, occasioned chiefly by 
 proceedings in Equity, the question of the validity of the poli- 
 cies was tried, before Lord Abinger, on the 29th of June, 
 1835, in an action by Mr. Wainwright, as executor of Miss 
 Abercrombie, on the Imperial's policy. Extraordinary as 
 were the circumstances under which the defence was made, 
 it rested on a narrow basis — on the allegation that the insu- 
 rance was not, as it professed to be, that of Miss Abercrom- 
 bie, for her own benefit, but the insurance of Mr. Wainwright, 
 effected at his cost, for some purpose of his own, and on the 
 falsehood of representations she had been induced to make in 
 reply to inquiries as to insurances in other offices. The 
 cause of her death, if the insurance was really hers, was 
 immaterial ; and though surely not immaterial in the consi- 
 
166 FlxNAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 deration of the question, whether the insurance was hers or 
 Mr. Wainwrigiit's, was thrown out of the case by Lord Abin- 
 ger. That accomplished judge, who had been the most con- 
 summate advocate of his time, disposed always to pleasurable 
 associations, shrunk, in a Civil Court, from inquiries which, 
 if they had been directly presented on a criminal charge, 
 would have compelled his serious attention ; stated that there 
 was no evidence of other crime than fraud ; and intimated 
 that the defence had been injured by a darker suggestion. 
 The jury, partaking of the judge's disinclination to attribute 
 the most dreadful guilt to a plaintiff on a Nisi Prius record, 
 and, perhaps, scarcely perceiving how they could discover 
 for the imputed fraud an intelligible motive without it, were 
 unable to agree, and were discharged without giving a ver- 
 dict. The cause was tried again before the same judge, on 
 the 3rd December following ; — when the counsel for the de- 
 fence, following the obvious inclination of the Bench, avoided 
 the most fearful charge, and obtained a verdict for the OfRce, 
 without hesitation, sanctioned by Lord Abinger's proflered 
 approval to the jury. 
 
 In the meantime, Mr. Wainvvright, leaving his wife and 
 child in London, had acquired the confidence and enjoyed 
 the hospitality of the family of an English officer, residing 
 at Boulogne. While he was thus associated, a proposal was 
 made to the Pelican Office to insure the life of his host for 
 5,000Z. ; — which, as the medical inquiries were satisfactorily 
 answered, was accepted. The Office, however, received 
 only one premium ; for the life survived the completion of 
 the insurance only a few months ; falling after a very short 
 illness. Under what circumstances Mr. Wainwright left Bou- 
 logne after this event is unknown ; he became a wanderer 
 in France ; and being brought under the notice of the Cor- 
 rectional Police, as passing under a feigned name, was ar- 
 rested. In his possession was found the vegetable poison 
 
THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWRIGHT. 167 
 
 called strychnyne — which leaves little trace of its passage in 
 the frame of its victim — and which, though unconnected with 
 any specific charge, increased his liability to temporary 
 restraint, and led to a six months' incarceration at Paris. 
 After his release, he ventured to re-visit London ; where, in 
 June, 1837, soon after his arrival, he was met in the street 
 by Forester, the police officer, who had identified him in 
 France, and was committed for trial on a charge of forgery. 
 The offence for which Mr. Wainwright was thus appre- 
 hended was not very heinous of its kind ; but his guilt v/as 
 clear, and the punishment, at that time, capital. It consisted 
 in the forgery of the names of his own trustees to five suc- 
 cessive powers of attorney to sell out stock settled on himself 
 and his wife upon their marriage, which his exigencies from 
 time to time had tempted him thus to realize. The Bank of 
 England, by whom he was prosecuted, consented to forego 
 the capital charges on his pleading guilty to the minor of- 
 fence of uttering in two of the cases, which he did at the 
 Old Bailey sessions of July, 1837, and received sentence of 
 transportation for life. In the meantime, proceedings were 
 taken on behalf of Miss Abercrombie's sister, Madeline, who 
 had married a respectable bookseller named Wheatley, to 
 render the insurances available for her benefit, which induced 
 the prisoner to offer communications to the Insurance Offices 
 which might defeat a purpose entirely foreign to his own ; 
 and which he hoped might procure him, through their inter- 
 cession, a mitigation of the most painful severities incident 
 to his sentence. In this expectation he was miserably disap- 
 pointed ; for though, in pursuance of their promise, the Di- 
 rectors of one of the Offices made a communication to the 
 Secretary of State for the Home Department, the result, 
 instead of a mitigation, was an order to place him in irons, 
 and to send him to his place of punishment in a vessel 
 about to convey three hundred convicts. Thus terminated 
 
168 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 the European career of the " kind and light-hearted Ja- 
 nus !" 
 
 The time has not arrived for exhibiting all the traits 
 of this remarkable person ; probably before it shall arrive, 
 the means of disclosing them will be lost, or the subject for- 
 gotten ; but enough may be found disclosed in the public pro- 
 ceedings from which we have taken thus far our narrative, to 
 supply an instructive contrast between his outer and inner 
 life, and yet more instructive indications of the qualities 
 which formed the links of connection between them. The 
 defect in his moral nature consisted perhaps chiefly in morbid 
 self-esteem, so excessive as to overwhelm all countervailing 
 feelings, and to render all the interests of others, all duties, 
 all sympathies, all regards, subservient to the lightest efforts, 
 or wishes, or enjoyments of the wretched idol. His tastes 
 appreciated only the most superficial beauty ; his vanities 
 were the poorest and most empty ; yet he fancied himself 
 akin to greatness ; and in one of his communications from 
 Newgate, in his last hours of hope, he claimed for himself 
 " a soul whose nutriment is love, and its offspring art, music, 
 divine song, and still holier philosophy." When writing 
 from the hold of the convict-ship, to complain of his being 
 placed in irons, he said — " They think me a desperado. 
 Me ! the companion of poets, philosophers, artists, and musi- 
 cians, a desperado ! You will smile at this, — no — I think 
 you will feel for the man, educated and reared as a gentle- 
 man, now the mate of vulgar ruffians and country bump- 
 kins." This shallow notion of being always " a gentleman," 
 — one abstracted ever from conventional vulgarities — seems 
 to have given him support in the extremity of wretchedness 
 and infamy : the miserable reed he leaned on ; not the ruling 
 passion — but the ruling folly. " They pay me respect here, 
 I assure you," said he to an acquaintance who visited him 
 in Newgate ; " they think I am here for 10,000/.;" and on 
 
THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAIN WRIGHT. 169 
 
 some of the convicts coming into the yard with brooms to 
 perform their compulsory labor of sweeping it, he raised 
 himself up, pulled down his soiled wristbands, and exclaimed, 
 with a faint hilarity : — " You see those people ; they are 
 convicts like me ; — but no one dares offer me the broom !" 
 Circumstances were indeed changed, but the 7nan was the 
 same as when he elaborated artistic articles for the " Lon- 
 don."* To the last he seemed to be undisturbed by remorse ; 
 
 * It may not be uninteresting, nor wholly uninstructive, to place in 
 contrast with this person's deplorable condition, a specimen of his com- 
 position when " topping the part" of a literary coxcomb. The following 
 is a portion of an article under the head of " Sentimentalities on the 
 Fine Arts ; by Janus Weathercock, Esq. To be continued when he is 
 in the humor ;" published in the London Magazine for March, 1820. 
 
 " I (Janus) had made a tolerable dinner the other day at George's, 
 and with my mind full of my last article, was holding up a jjetit verre 
 d'eau de vie de Dantzic to the waxen candle ; watching with scient 
 eye the number of aureate particles — some swimming, some sinking 
 quiveringly, through the oily and luscious liquor, as if informed with 
 life, and gleaming like golden fish in the Whang-ho, or Yellow River 
 (which, by the way, is only yellow from its mud) : so was I em- 
 ployed, when suddenly I heard the day of the month (the 15th), ejacu- 
 lated in the next box. This at once brought me back from my deli- 
 cious reverie to a sense of duty. ' Contributions must be forwarded by 
 the 18th, at the very latest,' were the Editor's last words to Janus, and 
 he is incapable of forgetting them. I felt my vigorous personal identity 
 instantly annihilated, and resolved, by some mystic process, into a part 
 of that unimaginable plurality in unity, wherewithal Editors, Review- 
 ers, and, at present, pretty commonly. Authors, clothe themselves, when, 
 seated on the topmast tip of their top-gallant masts, — they pour forth 
 their oracular dicta on the groaning ocean of London spread out huge 
 at their feet. Forthwith, We (Janus) sneaked home alone — poked in 
 the top of our hollow fire, which spouted out a myriad of flames, roaring 
 pleasantly, as chasing one another, they rapidly escaped up the chimney 
 — exchanged our smart, tight-waisted, stifF-collared coat, for an easy 
 chintz gown, with pink ribbons — lighted our new, elegantly-gilt French 
 lamp, having a ground-glass globe, painted with gay flowers and gaudy 
 butterflies, hauled forth Portfolio No. 9, and established ourselves cosily 
 
 a 
 
170 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 shocked only at the indignities of the penal condition of one 
 imbued with tastes so refined, that all causes ought to give 
 
 on a Grecian couch ! Then we (Janus) stroked our favorite tortoise- 
 shell cat into a full and sonorous purr ; and after that our nurse, or 
 maid-servant, a good-natured, Venetian-shaped girl, (having first placed 
 on the table a genuine flask of as rich Montepulsiano as ever voyaged 
 from fair Italia.) had gently, but firmly, closed the door, carefully ren- 
 dered air-tight by a gilt-leather binding, (it is quite right to be parti- 
 cular,) we indulged ourselves in a complacent consideration of the rather 
 elegant figure we made, as seen in a large glass placed opposite our 
 chimney-mirror, without, however, moving any limb, except the left 
 arm, which instinctively filled out a fiill cut-glass of the liquor before us, 
 while the right rested inactively on the head of puss ! 
 
 " It was a sight that turned all our gall into blood ! Fancy, com- 
 fortable reader ! Imprimis, a very good-sized room. Item : A gay 
 Brussels carpet covered with garlands of flowers. Item : A fine origi- 
 nal cast of the Venus de Medicis. Item : Some choice volumes, in still 
 more choice old French moroquin, with water-tabby silk lining. Item : 
 Some more vols, coated by the skill of Roger Payne, and ' our Charles 
 Lewis.' Item: A piano, by Tomkinson. Item: A Damascus sabre. 
 Item : One cat. Item : A large Newfoundland dog, friendly to the cat. 
 Item : A few hot-house plants on a white marble slab. Item : A deli- 
 cious, melting love-painting, by Fuseli ; and last, not least, in our dear 
 love, we, myself (Janus) ! Each, and the whole, seen by the Correg- 
 gio-kind of light, breathed, as it were, through the painted glass of the 
 lamp ! ! ! 
 
 " Soothed into that amiable sort of self-satisfaction so necessary to 
 the bodying out those deliciously voluptuous ideas, perfumed with lan- 
 guor, which occasionally swim and undulate like gauzy clouds, over 
 the brain of the most cold-blooded men, we put forth our hand to the 
 folio, which leant against a chair by the sofa's side, and at hap-hazard 
 extracted thence — 
 
 " Lancret's charming ' Repas Italien.' T^P. le Bas, Sculp. 
 
 " ' A summer party in the greenwood shade, 
 
 With lutes prepared, and cloth on herbage laid ; 
 And ladies' laughter coming through the air.' 
 
 " L. Hunt's ' Bimini.' 
 
 " This completed the charm. We immersed a well-seasoned, prime 
 
THE FALSE PETER BELL. 171 
 
 way to iheir indulgence. This vanity, nurtured by selfish- 
 ness, and unchecked by religion, became a disease, perhaps 
 amounting to monomania, and yielding one lesson to repay 
 the world for his existence ; — that there is no state of the 
 soul so dangerous as that in which the vices of the sen- 
 sualist are envenomed by the groveling intellect of the 
 scorner. 
 
 In 1819, Mr. Wordsworth, encouraged by the extending 
 circle of his earnest admirers, announced for publication his 
 " Peter Bell " — a poem written in the first enthusiasm of 
 his system, and exemplifying, amidst beauty and pathos of 
 the finest essence, some of its most startling peculiarities. 
 Some wicked jester, gifted with more ingenuity and boldness 
 than wit, anticipated the real " Simon Pure," by a false one, 
 burlesquing some of the characteristics of the poet's home- 
 liest style. This grave hoax produced the following letter 
 from Lamb, appropriately written in alternate lines of red 
 and black ink, till the last sentence, in which the colors are 
 alternated, word by word — even to the signature — and "Ma- 
 ry's love," at the close ; so that " Mary " is hlack, and her 
 " love " red. 
 
 to mr. wordsworth. 
 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 I received a copy of " Peter Bell " a week ago, and 
 I hope the author will not be offended if I say I do not much 
 relish it. The humor, if it is meant for humor, is forced ; 
 and then the price ! — sixpence would have been dear for it. 
 
 pen into our silver inkstand three times, shaking off the loose ink again 
 lingeringly, while, holding the print fast in our left hand, we pursued it 
 with half-shut eyes, dallying awhile with our delight." 
 
172 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Mind I do not mean your " Peter Bell," but a " Peter Bell," 
 which preceded it about a week, and is in every bookseller's 
 shop window in London, the type and paper nothing differing 
 from the true one, the preface signed W. W., and the sup- 
 plementary preface quoting as the author's words an extract 
 from the supplementary preface to the " Lyrical Ballads." 
 Is there no law against these rascals ? I would have this 
 Lambert Simnel whipt at the cart's tail. Who started the 
 spurious " P. B." I have not heard. I should guess one of 
 
 the sneering ; but I have heard no name mentioned. 
 
 " Peter Bell " (not the mock one) is excellent. For its mat- 
 ter I mean. I cannot say that the style of it satisfies 
 me. It is too lyrical. The auditors to whom it is feigned 
 to be told, do not arride me. I had rather it had been told 
 me, the reader, at once. " Hartleap Well " is the tale for 
 me ; in matter as good as this, in manner infinitely before 
 it, in my poor judgment. Why did you not add " The 
 Waggoner ?" — Have I thanked you, though, yet, for " Peter 
 Bell ?" I would not not have it for a good deal of money. 
 
 G is very foolish to scribble about books. Neither his 
 
 tongue nor fingers are very retentive. But I shall not say 
 any thing to him about it. He would only begin a very 
 long story with a very long face, and I see him far too sel- 
 dom to tease him with affairs of business or conscience when 
 I do see him. He never comes near our house, and when 
 we go to see him he is generally writing, or thinking : he is 
 writing in his study till the dinner comes, and that is scarce 
 over before the stage summons us away. The mock " P. 
 B." had only this effect on me, that after twice reading it 
 over in hopes to find something diverting in it, I reached 
 your two books off the shelf, and set into a steady reading 
 of them, till I had nearly finished both before I went to bed. 
 The two of your last edition, of course, I mean. And in 
 the morning I awoke determining to take down the '' Excur- 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 178 
 
 sion." I wish the scoundrel imitator could know this. But 
 why waste a wish on him 1 I do not believe that paddling 
 about with a stick in a pond, and fishing up a dead author, 
 whom his intolerable wrongs had driven to that deed of des- 
 peration, would turn the heart of one of these obtuse literary 
 Bells. There is no Cock for such Peters ; — hang 'em ! I 
 am glad this aspiration came upon the red ink line. It is 
 more of a bloody curse, I have delivered over your other 
 presents to Alsager and G. D. A., I am sure, will value it, 
 and be proud of the hand from which it came. To G. D. a 
 poem is a poem. His own as good as any body's, and, God 
 bless him ! any body's as good as his own ; for I do not think 
 he has the most distant guess of the possibility of one poem 
 being better than another. The gods, by denying him the 
 very faculty itself of discrimination, have effectually cut off 
 every seed of envy in his bosom. But with envy, they exci- 
 ted curiosity also ; and if you wish the copy again, which 
 you destined for him, I think I shall be able to find it again 
 for you, on his third shelf, where he stuffs his presentation 
 copies, uncut, in shape and matter resembling a lump of dry 
 dust ; but on carefully removing that stratum, a thing like a 
 pamphlet will emerge. I have tried this with fifty different 
 poetical works that have been given G. D. in return for as 
 many of his own performances, and I confess I never had 
 any scruple in taking my own again, wherever I found it, 
 shaking the adherences off — and by this means one copy of 
 " my works " served for G. I). — and, with a little dusting, 
 
 was made over to my good friend Dr. G , who little 
 
 thought whose leavings he was taking when he made me that 
 graceful bow. By the way, the Doctor is the only one of 
 my acquaintance who bows gracefully, my town acquaint- 
 ance, I mean. How do you like my way of writing with 
 two inks ? I think it is pretty and motley. Suppose Mrs. 
 W. adopts it, the next time she holds the pen for you. My 
 
]74 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 dinner waits. I have no time to indulge anv longer in these 
 laborious curiosities. God bless you, and cause to thrive and 
 burgeon whatsoever you write, and fear no inks of misera- 
 ble poetasters. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Charles Lamb. 
 Mary's love. 
 
 The following letter, probably written about this time, is 
 entirely in red ink. 
 
 to mr. coleridge. 
 
 Dear Coleridge, 
 
 A letter written in the blood of your poor friend 
 would indeed be of a nature to startle you ; but this is 
 nought but harmless red ink, or, as the witty mercantile 
 phrase hath it, clerk's blood. Hang 'em ! my brain^ skin, 
 flesh, bone, carcase, soul, time is all theirs. The Royal Ex- 
 change, Gresham's Folly, hath more body and spirit. I ad- 
 mire some of 's lines on you, and I admire your post- 
 poning reading them. He is a sad tattler, but this is under 
 the rose. Twenty years ago he estranged one friend from 
 me quite, whom I have been regretting, but never could re- 
 gain since ; he almost alienated you also from me, or me 
 from you, I don't know which. But that breach is closed. 
 The dreary sea is filled up. He has lately been at work 
 " telling again," as they call it — a most gratuitous piece of 
 mischief — and has caused a coolness betwixt me and a (not 
 friend exactly, but) intimate acquaintance. I suspect, also, 
 he saps Manning's faith in me, who am to Manning more 
 than an acquaintance. Still I like his writing verses about 
 you. Will your kind host and hostess give me a dinner next 
 Sunday, and, better still, not expect us if the weather is very 
 bad ? Why you should refuse twenty guineas per sheet for 
 Blackwood's or any other magazine puzzles my poor com- 
 
LETTER TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 175 
 
 prehension. But, as Strap says, " you know best." I have 
 no quarrel with you about prseprandial avocations, so don't 
 imagine one. That Manchester sonnet* I think very likely 
 is Capel Lofft's. Another sonnet appeared with the same 
 
 initials in the same paper, which turned out to be P 's. 
 
 What do the rascals mean ? Am I to have the fathering of 
 what idle rhymes every beggarly poetaster pours forth ! Who 
 put your merrie sonnet " about Brownie " into " Black- 
 wood's ?" I did not. So no more till we meet. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The following letter {of post-mark 1822) is addressed to 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, when Miss Wordsworth was 
 visiting her brother, Dr. Wordsworth. 
 
 TO MISS WORDSAVORTH. 
 
 Mary perfectly approves of the appropriation of the 
 feathers, and wishes them peacock's for your fair niece's 
 sake. 
 
 Dear Miss Wordsworth, 
 
 J had just written the above endearing words when 
 
 M tapped me on the shoulder, with an invitatira to cold 
 
 goose pie, which I was not bird of that sort enough to decline. 
 
 Mrs. M , I am most happy to say, is better. Mary has 
 
 been tormented with a rheumatism, which is leaving her. 
 I am suffering from the festivities of the season. I wonder 
 how my misused carcase holds it out. I have played the 
 experimental philosopher on it, that's certain. Willy]- shall 
 be welcome to a mince-pie and a bout at commerce when- 
 
 * A sonnet in " Blackwood," dated Manchester, and signed C. L. 
 t Mr. Wordsworth's second son, then at the Charter-house. 
 
176 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ever he comes. He was in our eye. I am glad you liked 
 my new year's speculations ; every body liked them, except 
 the author of the " Pleasures of Hope." Disappointment 
 attend him! How I like to be liked, and what I do to be 
 liked ! They flatter me in magazines, newspapers, and all 
 the minor reviews ; the Quarterlies hold aloof. But they 
 must come into it in time, or their leaves be waste paper. 
 Salute Trinity Library in my name. Two special things 
 are worth seeing at Cambridge : a portrait of Cromwell, at 
 Sydney, and a better of Dr. Harvey (who found out that 
 blood was red), at Dr. Davy's ; you should see them. Cole- 
 ridge is pretty well ; I have not seen him, but hear often of 
 him from AUsop, who sends me hares and pheasants twice 
 a week ; I can hardly take so fast as he gives. I have al- 
 most forgotten butcher's meat, as plebeian. Are you not 
 glad the cold is gone ? I find winters not so agreeable as 
 they used to be " when winter bleak had charms for me." 
 I cannot conjure up a kind similitude for these snowy flakes. 
 Let them keep to twelfth cakes ! 
 
 Mrs. P , our Cambridge friend, has been in town. 
 
 You do not know the W— — 's in Trumpington Street. They 
 are capital people. Ask any body you meet who is the 
 biggest woman in Cambridge, and I'll hold you a wager 
 
 they'll Hky Mrs. . She broke down two benches in 
 
 Trinity gardens : one on the confines of St. John's, which 
 occasioned a litigation between the Societies as to repairing 
 it. In warm weather she retires into an ice cellar (literally), 
 and dates the returns of the years from a hot Thursday 
 some twenty years back. She sits in a room with opposite 
 doors and windows, to let in a thorough draft, which gives 
 her slenderer friends tooth-aches. She is to be seen in the 
 market every morning at ten, cheapening fowls, which I 
 observe the Cambridge poulterers are not sufficiently careful 
 to stump. 
 
LETTER TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 177 
 
 Having now answered most of the points contained in 
 your letter, let me end with assuring you of our very best 
 kindness, and excuse Mary for not handling the pen on this 
 occasion, especially as it has fallen into so much better 
 hands. Will Dr. W. accept of my respects at the end of a 
 foolish letter ? 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The following is a fragment of a letter addressed in- the 
 beginning of 1823 to Miss Hutchinson, at Ramsgate, whither 
 she had gone with an invalid relative. 
 
 to miss hutchinson. 
 Dear Miss H., 
 
 JJC 'r* ^ »t* »!• T^ 5(4 
 
 It gives me great pleasure (the letter now begins) 
 
 to hear that you got down so smoothly, and that Mrs. M 's 
 
 spirits are so good and enterprising. It shows whatever her 
 posture may be, that her mind at least is not supine. I hope 
 the excursion will enable the former to keep pace with its 
 outstripping neighbor. Pray, present our kindest wishes to 
 her and all ; (that sentence should properly have come into 
 the Postscript, but we airy mercurial spirits, there is no keep- 
 ing us in.) " Time" (as was said of one of us) " toils after 
 us in vain." I am afraid our co-visit with Coleridge was a 
 dream. I shall not get away before the end (or middle) of 
 June, and then you will be frog-hopping at Boulogne ; and 
 besides, I think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with us ; 
 I have a malicious knack at cutting off apron-strings. The 
 Saints' days you speak of have long since fled to heaven, 
 with Astrsea, and the cold piety of the age lacks fervor to re- 
 call them ; only Peter left his key — the iron one of the two 
 
 8* 
 
178 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 that " shuts amain" — and that is the reason I am locked up. 
 Meanwhile of afternoons we pick up primroses at Dalston, 
 and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cowslips. God bless 
 
 you all, and pray, remember me euphoniously to Mr. G . 
 
 That Lee Priory must be a dainty bower. Is it built of 
 flints ? — and does it stand at Kingsgate ? 
 
 The following letter to Mr. Walter Wilson, who was 
 composing a " Life of De Foe," in reply to inquiries on va- 
 rious points of the great novelist's history, is dated 24th Feb., 
 1823. 
 
 to mr. walter wilson. 
 Dear AV., 
 
 I write that you may not think me neglectful, not 
 that I have any thing to say. In answer to your questions, it 
 was at your house I saw an edition of " Roxana," the preface 
 to which stated that the author had left out all that part of it 
 which related to Roxana's daughter persisting in imagining 
 herself to be so, in spite of the mother's denial from certain 
 hints she had picked up, and throwing herself continually in 
 her mother's way (as Savage is said to have done in the way 
 of his, prying in at windows to get a glimpse of her), and 
 that it was by advice of Southern, who objected to the cir- 
 cumstances as being untrue, when the rest of the story was 
 founded on fact ; which shows S. to have been a stupid-ish 
 fellow. The incidents so resemble Savage's story, that I 
 taxed Godwin with taking Falkner from his life by Dr. John- 
 son. You should have the edition (if you have not parted 
 with it), for I saw it never but at your place at the Mews' 
 Gate, nor did I then read it to compare it with my own ; 
 only 1 know the daughter's curiosity is the best part of my 
 *' Roxana." You ask me for two or three pages of verse. I 
 
LETTER TO MR. WILSON. 179 
 
 have not written as much since you knew me, I am alto- 
 gether prosaic. May be I may touch off a sonnet in time. 
 I do not prefer " Colonel Jack " to either " Robinson Crusoe" 
 or " Roxana." I only spoke of the beginning of it; his 
 childish history. The rest is poor. I do not know any where 
 any good character of De Foe besides what you mention.* 
 I do not know that Swift mentions him ; Pope does. I forget 
 if D'Israeli has. Dunlop I think has nothing of him. He is 
 quite new ground, and scarce known beyond " Crusoe." I 
 do not know who wrote "Quarl." I never thought of 
 " Quarl " as having an author. It is a poor imitation ; the 
 monkey is the best in it, and his pretty dishes made of shell. 
 Do you know the paper in the " Englishman " by Sir Rich- 
 ard Steele, giving an account of Selkirk ? It is admirable, 
 and has all the germs of •' Crusoe." You must quote it en- 
 tire. Captain G. Carleton wrote his own memoirs ; they are 
 about Lord Peterborough's campaign in Spain, and a good 
 book. "Puzzelli" puzzles me, and I am in a cloud about 
 *' Donald M'Leod." I never heard of them ; so you see, my 
 dear Wilson, what poor assistance I can give in the way of 
 information. I wish your book out, for I shall like to see any 
 thing about De Foe or from you. 
 
 Your old friend, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 From my and your old compound. 
 
 In this year, Lamb made his greatest essay in house- 
 keeping, by occupying Colnebrook Cottage at Islington, on 
 
 * Those who wish to read an admirable character of De Foe, asso- 
 ciated with the most valuable information respecting his personal history, 
 should revert to an article in the " Edinburgh Review" on De Foe, at- 
 tributed to the author of the " Lives of the Statesmen of the Common- 
 wealth," and of the delightful " Biography of Oliver Goldsmith," almost 
 as charming as its subject. 
 
180 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 the banks of his beloved New River. There occurred the 
 immersion of George Dyer at noontide, which supplies the 
 subject of one of " The Last Essays of Elia ;" and which is ve- 
 ritably related in the following letter of Lamb, which is curious, 
 as containing the germ of that delightful article, and the first 
 sketches of the Brandy-and-Water Doctor therein celebrated 
 as miraculous. 
 
 to mrs. hazlitt. 
 Dear Mrs. H., 
 
 Sitting down to write a letter is such a painful ope- 
 ration to Mary, that you must accept me as her proxy. You 
 have seen our house. What I now tell you is literally true : 
 yesterday week, George Dyer called upon us, at one o'clock, 
 {bright noon day) on his way to dine with Mrs. Barbauld, at 
 Newington, and he sat with Mary about half an hour. The 
 maid saw him go out, from her kitchen window, but suddenly 
 losing sight of him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G. D., in- 
 stead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberate- 
 ly, staff in hand ; in broad, open day ; marched into the 
 New River. He had not his spectacles on, and you know 
 his absence. Who helped him out, they can hardly tell, but 
 between 'em they got him out, drenched thro' and thro', A 
 mob collected by that time, and accompanied him in. " Send 
 for the Doctor !" they said : and a one-eyed fellow, dirty and 
 drunk, was fetched from the public-house at the end, where 
 it seems he lurks, for the sake of picking up water practice ; 
 having formerly had a medal from the Humane Society, for 
 some rescue. By his advice, the patient was put between 
 blankets ; and when I came home at four, to dinner, I found 
 G. D. a-bed, and raving, light-headed, with the brandy-and- 
 water which the doctor had administered. He sung, laughed, 
 whimpered, screamed, babbled of guardian angels, would 
 get up and go home; but we kept him there by force ; and 
 
 * 
 
LETTERS TO PUSS HUTCHINSON. 181 
 
 by next morning he departed sobered, and seems to have re- 
 ceived no injury. All my friends are open-mouthed about 
 having paling before the river, but I cannot see, because an 
 absent man chooses to walk into a river, with his eyes open, 
 at mid-day, I am any the more likely to be drowned in it, 
 coming home at midnight. 
 
 I have had the honor of dining at the Mansion House, on 
 Thursday last, by special card from the Lord Mayor, who 
 never saw my face, nor I his ; and all from being a writer 
 in a magazine ! The dinner costly, served on massy plate, 
 champagne, pines, &c. ; forty-seven present, among whom, 
 the Chairman, and two other Directors of the India Company. 
 There's for you ! and got away pretty sober ! Quite saved 
 my credit ! 
 
 We continue to like our house prodigiously. Our kind 
 remembrances to all. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 I am pleased that H. liked my letter to the Laureate. 
 
 The following letter to Miss Hutchinson, at Torquay, re- 
 fers to some of Lamb's later articles, published in the " Lon- 
 don Magazine," which, in extending its size and pretensions 
 to a three-and-sixpenny miscellany, had lost much of its 
 spirit. He exults, however, in his veracious " Memoir of 
 Listen !" 
 
 TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 The brevity of this is owing to scratching it ofl' at my 
 desk amid expected interruptions. By habit, I can write 
 letters only at ofRce. 
 
182 final memorials of charles lamb. 
 
 Dear Miss H-, 
 
 Thank you for a noble goose, which wanted only 
 the massive incrustation that we used to pick-axe open, about 
 this season, in old Gloster Place. When shall we eat another 
 goose pie together ? The pheasant, too, must not be forgot- 
 ten ; twice as big, and half as good as a partridge. You ask 
 about the editor of the " London ;" I know of none. This 
 first specimen is flat and pert enough to justify subscribers 
 who grudge t'other shilling. De Quincy's " Parody" was 
 submitted to him before printed, and had his Prohatum* 
 The " Horns" is in a poor taste, resembling the most labored 
 papers in the " Spectator." I had signed it " Jack Horner ;" 
 but Taylor and Hessey said it would be thought an offensive 
 article, unless I put my known signature to it, and wrung 
 from me my slow consent. But did you read the " Memoir 
 of Liston ?" — and did you guess whose it was ? Of all the 
 lies I ever put off, I value this most. It is from top to toe, 
 every paragraph, pure invention, and has passed for gospel ; 
 has been republished in newspapers, and in the penny play- 
 bills of the night, as an authentic account. I shall certainly 
 go to the naughty man some day for my fibbings. In the next 
 number, I figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late 
 brethren, the Unitarians. What Jack Pudding tricks I shall 
 play next, I know not ; I am almost at the end of my tether. 
 Coleridge is quite blooming, but his book has not budded yet. 
 1 hope I have spelt Torquay right now, and that this will find 
 you all mending, and looking forward to a London flight with 
 the Spring. Winter, we have had none, but plenty of foul 
 
 * Mr. de Quincy had commenced a series of letters in the " London 
 Magazine," " To a young man whose education has been neglected," as 
 a vehicle for conveying miscellaneous information in his admirable style. 
 Upon this hint Lamb, with the assent which Mr. de Quincy could well 
 afford to give, contributed a parody on the scheme in " A Letter to 
 an Old Gentleman whose education has been neglected." 
 
LETTER TO MANNING. 183 
 
 weather. I have lately picked up an epigram which pleased 
 me — 
 
 Two noble carls, whom if I quote. 
 
 Some folks might call me sinner, 
 The one invented half a coat, 
 
 The other half a dinner. 
 
 The plan was good, as some will say, 
 
 And fitted to console one ; 
 Because in this poor starving day, 
 
 Few can afford a whole one. 
 
 I have made the lame one still lamer by imperfect me- 
 mory ; in spite of bald diction a little done to it might im- 
 prove it into a good one. You have nothing else to do at 
 Torquay. Suppose you try it. Well, God bless you all, as 
 wishes Mary most sincerely, wilh many thanks for letter, &c. 
 
 Elia. 
 
 The first dawning hope of Lamb's emancipation from the 
 India House is suggested in the following note to Manning, 
 proposing a visit, in which he refers to a certificate of non- 
 capacity for hard-desk- work, given by a medical friend. 
 
 to mr. manning. 
 My dear M., 
 
 You might have come inopportunely a week since, 
 when we had an inmate. At present and for as long as 
 
 ever you like, our Castle is at your service. I saw T 
 
 yesternight, who has done for me what may 
 
 " To all my nights and days to come, 
 Give solely sovran sway and masterdom." 
 
 But I dare not hope for fear of disappointment. I cannot be 
 more explicit at present. But I have it under his own hand, 
 
184 FIxNAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 that I am no/i-capacitated, (I cannot write iiin-) for business. 
 
 O joyous imbecility ! Not a susurration of this to any body ! 
 
 Mary's love. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The dream was realized — in April 1825, the " world- 
 wearied clerk" went home for ever — with what delight has 
 been told in the elaborate raptures of his " Superannuated 
 Man," and in the letters already published. The following 
 may be now added to these, illucidative of his too brief rap- 
 tures. 
 
 to mr. wordsworth. 
 Dear W., 
 
 I write post-haste to insure a frank. Thanks for 
 your hearty congratulations ! I may now date from the sixth 
 week of my " Hegira, or Flight from Leadenhall." I have 
 lived so much in it, that a summer seems already past ; and 
 'tis but early May with you and other people. How [ look 
 down on the slaves and drudges of the world ! Its inhabit- 
 ants are a vast cotton-web of spin-spin-spinners ! O the 
 carking cares ! O the money-grubbers ! Sempiternal muck- 
 worms ! 
 
 Your Virgil I have lost sight of, but suspect it is in the 
 hands of Sir G. Beaumont ; I think that circumstance made 
 me shy of procuring it before. Will you write to him about 
 it ? — and your commands shall be obeyed to a tittle. 
 
 Coleridge has just finished his prize Essay, by which, if 
 it get the prize, he'll touch an additional 1007. I fancy. His 
 book, too, (Commentary on Bishop Leighton,") is quite fin- 
 ished, and penes Taylor and Hessey. 
 
 In the " London" which is just out (1st May), are two 
 papers entitled the " Superannuated Man," which I wish you 
 to see; and also, 1st April, a little thing called "Barbara 
 S ," a story gleaned from Miss Kelly. The L. M., if 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 185 
 
 you can get it, will save my enlargement upon the topic of 
 my manumission. 
 
 I must scribble to make up my hiatus crumence ; for there 
 are so many ways, pious and profligate, of getting rid of 
 money in this vast city and suburbs, that I shall miss my 
 THIRDS. But couragio ! I despair not. Your kind hint of 
 the cottage was well thrown out — and anchorage for age and 
 school of economy, when necessity comes ; but without this 
 latter, I have an unconquerable terror of changing place. It 
 does not agree with us. I say it from conviction, else I do 
 sometimes ruralize in fancy. 
 
 Some d — d people are come in, and I must finish abruptly. 
 By d — d, I only meant deuced. 'Tis these suitors of Penel- 
 ope that make it necessary to authorize a little for gin and 
 mutton and such trifles. 
 
 Excuse my abortive scribble. 
 
 Yours, not more in haste than heart, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Love and recollection to all the Wms., Doras, Maries 
 round your VVrekin. 
 
 Mary is capitally well. Do write to Sir G. B., for I am 
 shyish of applying to him. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LETTERS OF LAMB's LAST YEARS, 1825 1834. 
 
 How imperfectly the emancipation, so rapturously hailed, 
 fulfilled its promises ; how Lamb left Islington for Enfield, 
 and there, after a while, subsided into a lodger ; and how, 
 at last, he settled at Edmonton to die, sufficiently appear in 
 the former series of his letters. Those which occupy this 
 chapter, scattered through nine years, have either been sub- 
 sequently communicated by the kindness of the possessors, 
 or were omitted for some personal reason which has lost its 
 force in time. The following-, addressed in 1829 to the 
 Editor, on occasion of his giving to a child the name of 
 " Charles Lamb," though withheld from an indisposition to 
 intrude matters so personal to himself on the reader, may 
 now, on his taking farewell of the subject, find its place. 
 
 to mr. talfourd. 
 
 Dear Talfourd, 
 
 You could not have told me of a more friendly 
 thing than you have been doing. I am proud of my name- 
 sake. I shall take care never to do any dirty action, pick 
 pockets, or anyhow get myself hanged, for fear of reflecting 
 ignominy upon your young Chrisom. I have now a motive 
 to be good. I shall not omnis moriar ; — my name borne 
 down the black gulf of oblivion. 
 
LETTER TO TALFOURD. 187 
 
 I shall survive in eleven letters — five more than Csesar. 
 Possibly I shall come to be knighted, or more ! Sir C. L. 
 Talfourd, Bart. ! 
 
 Yet hath it an authorish twang with it, which will wear 
 out with my name for poetry. Give him a smile from me 
 till I see him. If you do not drop down before, some day in 
 the week after next I will come and take one night's lodging 
 with you, if convenient, before you go hence. You shall 
 name it. We are in town to-morrow speciali gratia, but by 
 no arrangement can get up near you. 
 
 Believe us both, with greatest regards, yours and Mrs. 
 Talfourd 's. 
 
 Charles Lamb-Philo-Talfourd. 
 
 I come as near it as I can,* 
 
 * The child who bore the name so honored by his parents, survived 
 his god-father only a year — dying at Brighton, whither he had been 
 taken in the vain hope of restoration, on the 3rd December, 1835. Will 
 the reader forgive the weakness which prompts the desire, in this place, 
 to link their memories together, by inserting a few verses which, having 
 been only published at the end of the last small edition of the Editor's 
 dramas, may have missed some of the friendly eyes for which they were 
 written ! 
 
 Our gentle Charles has passed away 
 
 From earth's short bondage free. 
 And left to us its leaden day, 
 And mist-enshrouded sea. 
 
 Here, by the restless ocean's side, 
 
 Sweet hours of hope have flown, 
 When first the triumph of its tide 
 
 Seeni'd omen of our own. 
 
 That eager joy the sea-breeze gave. 
 
 When first it raised his hair, 
 Sunk with each day's retiring wave. 
 
 Beyond the reach of prayer. 
 
 The sun-blink that through drizzling mist, 
 To flickering hope akin, 
 
188 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 The following notes, undated, but of about 1829, were 
 addressed to Coleridge, under the genial care of Mr. Gilman, 
 at Highgate : — 
 
 Lone waves with feeble fondness kiss'd, 
 No smile as faint can win ; 
 
 Yet not in vain, with radiance weak, 
 
 The heavenly stranger gleams — 
 Not of the world it lights to speak, 
 
 But that from whence it streams. 
 
 That world our patient sufferer sought, 
 
 Serene with pitying eyes, 
 As if his mounting Spirit caught 
 
 The wisdom of the skies. 
 
 With boundless love it look'd abroad 
 
 For one bright moment given ; 
 Shone with a loveliness that aw'd. 
 
 And quiver'd into Heaven. 
 
 A year, made slow by care and toil. 
 
 Has paced its weary round. 
 Since Death enrich'd with kindred spoil 
 
 The snow-clad, frost-ribb'd ground. 
 
 Then Lamb, with whose endearing name 
 
 Our boy we proudly graced, 
 Shrank from the warmth of sweeter fame 
 
 Than mightier Bards embraced. 
 
 Still 'twas a mournful joy to think 
 
 Our darling might supply 
 For years on earth, a living link. 
 
 To name that cannot die. 
 
 And though such fancy gleam no more 
 
 On earthly sorrow's night, 
 Truth's nobler torch unveils the shore 
 
 Which lends to both its light. 
 
 The nurseling there that hand may take. 
 
 None ever grasp'd in vain ; 
 And smiles of well-known sweetness wake. 
 
 Without their tinge of pain. 
 
 Though 'twixt the Child and child-like Bard, 
 Late seemed distinction wide, 
 
> 
 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 189 
 
 to mr. coleridge. 
 Dear C, 
 
 Your sonnet is capital. The paper ingenious,* 
 only that it split into four parts (besides a side splinter) in 
 the carriage. I have transferred it to the common English 
 paper, manufactured of rags, for better preservation. I never 
 knew before how the " Iliad " and " Odyssey " were written. 
 'Tis strikingly corroborated by observations on Cats. These 
 domestic animals, put 'em on a rug before the fire, wink their 
 
 Each now may trace in Heaven's regard, 
 How near they were allied. 
 
 Within the infant's ample brow 
 
 Blythe fancies lay unfurl'd, 
 Which, all uncrush'd, may open now. 
 
 To charm a sinless world. 
 
 Though the soft spirit of those eyes 
 
 Might ne'er with Lamb's compete — 
 Ne'er sparkle with a wit as wise. 
 
 Or melt in tears, as sweet ; 
 
 That calm and unforgotten look 
 
 A kindred love reveals. 
 With his who never friend forsook. 
 
 Or hurt a thing that feels. 
 
 In thought profound, in wildest glee, 
 
 In sorrows dark and strange. 
 The soul of Lamb's bright infancy 
 
 Endured no spot or change. 
 
 From traits of each our love receives 
 
 For comfort, nobler scope ; 
 While light, which child-like genius leaves, . 
 
 Confirms the infant's hope : 
 
 And in that hope with sweetness fraught 
 
 Be aching hearts beguiled. 
 To blend in one delighiful thought. 
 
 The Poet and the Child ! 
 
 * Some gauzy tissue paper on which the sonnet was copied. 
 
190 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 eyes up, and listen to the kettle, and then purr, which is 
 their poetry. 
 
 On Sunday week we kiss your hands (if they are clean). 
 This next Sunday I have been engaged for some time. 
 With remembrances to your good host and hostess, 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 My DEAR Coleridge, 
 
 With pain and grief, I must entreat you to excuse 
 us on Thursday. My head, though externally correct, has 
 had severe concussion in my long illness, and the very idea 
 of an engagement hanging over for a day or two, forbids my 
 rest, and I get up miserable. I am not well enough for com- 
 pany. I do assure you, no other thing prevents me coming. 
 
 I expect and his brothers this or to-morrow evening, 
 
 and it worries me to death that I am not ostensibly ill enough 
 to put 'em off. I will get better, when 1 shall hope to see 
 your nephew. He will come again. Mary joins in best 
 love to the Gilmans. Do, I earnestly entreat you, excuse 
 me. I assure you, again, that I am not fit to go out yet. 
 
 Yours, (though shattered,) 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 The next two notelets are addressed to Coleridge's excel- 
 lent host, on the occasion of borrowing and returning the 
 works of Fuller : — 
 
 TO MR. GILMAN. 
 
 Pray trust me with the "Church History," as well as 
 the " Worthies." A moon shall restore both. Also give me 
 
LETTERS TO GILMAN. 191 
 
 back " Him of Aquinium." In return you have the light of 
 my countenance* Adieu. 
 
 P. S. A sister also of mine comes with it. A son of 
 Nimshi drives her. Their driving will have been furious, 
 impassioned. Pray God they have not toppled over the tun- 
 nel ! I promise you I fear their steed, bred out of the wind 
 without father, semi-Melchisedec-ish, hot, phaetontic. From 
 my country lodgings at Enfield. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 Dear Oilman, 
 
 Pray do you, or S. T. C. immediately write to say 
 you have received back the golden works of the dear, fine, 
 silly old angel, which I part from, bleeding, and to say how 
 the winter has used you all. 
 
 It is our intention soon, weather permitting, to come over 
 for a day at Highgate ; for beds we will trust to the Gate- 
 House, should you be full ; tell me if we may come casually, 
 for in this change of climate, there is no naming a day for 
 walking. With best loves to Mrs. Gilman, &;c.. 
 
 Yours mopish, but in health, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 I shall be uneasy till I hear of Fuller's safe arrival. 
 
 While Lamb was residing at Enfield, the friendship 
 which, in 1824, he had formed with Mr. Moxon, led to very 
 frequent intercourse, destined, in after years, to be rendered 
 
 * A sketch of Lamb, by an amateur artist. 
 
192 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 habitual, by the marriage of his friend with the young lady 
 whom he regarded almost as a daughter. In 1828, Mr. 
 Moxon, at the request of Mr. Hurst, of the firm of Hurst, 
 Chance, and Co., applied to Lamb to supply an article for 
 the " Keepsake," which he, always disliking the flimsy 
 elegancies of the Annuals — sadly opposed to his own ex- 
 clusive taste for old, standard, moth-eaten books; thus de- 
 clined : — 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 
 My dear M., 
 
 It is my firm determination to have nothing to do 
 with " Forget-me-Nots " — pray excuse me as civilly as you 
 can to Mr. Hurst. 1 will take care to refuse any other ap- 
 plications. The things which Pickering has, if to be had 
 again, I have promised absolutely, you know, to poor Hood, 
 from whom I had a melancholy epistle yesterday ; besides 
 that Emma has decided objections to her own and her friends' 
 Album verses being published ; but if she gets over that, 
 they are decidedly Hood's. 
 
 Till we meet, farewell. Loves to Dash.* 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The following introduced Mr. Patmore to Mr. Moxon : — 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 
 Dear M., 
 
 My friend Patmore, author of the " Months," a 
 very pretty publication — of sundry Essays in the " London," 
 " New Monthly," &c., wants to dispose of a volume or two 
 
 * The great dog, which was, at one time, the constant companion 
 of his long walks. 
 
LETTERS TO ROBINSON. 193 
 
 of " Tales." Perhaps they might chance to suit Hurst ; but 
 be that as it may, he will call upon you under favor of my 
 recommendation ; and as he is returning to France, where he 
 lives, if you can do any thing for him in the Treaty line, to 
 save him dancing over the Channel every week, I am sure 
 you will. I said I'd never trouble you again • but how vain 
 are the resolves of mortal man ! P. is a very hearty friendly 
 good fellow — and was poor John Scott's second, — as I shall 
 be yours when you want me. May you never be mine ! 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Evfield. 
 
 The following two letters, addressed to Mr. H. C. Robin- 
 son, when afflicted with rheumatism, are in Lamb's wildest 
 strain of mirth. In the first, he pretends to endure all the 
 pain he believes his friend to be suffering, and attributes it 
 to his own incautious habits ; in the second he attributes the 
 suffering to his friend in a strain of exaggeration, probably 
 intended to make the reality more tolerable by compari- 
 son : — - 
 
 to mr. h. c. robinson. 
 
 Dear Robinson, 
 
 We are afraid you will slip from us from England 
 without again seeing us. It would be charity to come and 
 see one. I have these three days been laid up with strong 
 rheumatic pains, in loins, back, shoulders. I shriek some- 
 times from the violence of them. I get scarce any sleep, 
 and the consequence is, I am restless, and want to change 
 §ides as I lie, and I cannot turn without resting on my hands, 
 and so turning all my body all at once, like a log with a 
 lever. While this rainy weather lasts I have no hope of aU 
 
 9 
 
194 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 leviation. I have tried flannels and embrocation in vain. 
 Just at the hip joint the pangs are sometimes so excruciating, 
 that I cry out. It is as violent as the cramp, and far more 
 continuous. I am ashamed to whine about these complaints 
 to you, who can ill enter into them ; but indeed they are 
 sharp. You go about, in rain or fine, at all hours, without 
 discommodity. I envy you your immunity at a time of life 
 not much removed from my own. But you owe your ex- 
 emption to temperance, which it is too late for me to pursue. 
 I, in my lifetime, have had my good things. Hence my 
 frame is brittle — yours strong as brass. I never knew any 
 ailment you had. You can go out at night in all weathers, 
 sit up all hours. Well, I don't want to moralize, I only wish 
 to say that if you are inclined to a game at double-dumby, I 
 would try and bolster up myself in a chair for a rubber or 
 so. My days are tedious, but less so, and less painful, than 
 my nights. May you never know the pain and difficulty I 
 have in writing so much ! Mary, who is most kind, joins in 
 the wish ! 
 
 C. La3IB, 
 April 10th, 1829. 
 
 THE COMPANION LETTER TO THE SAME. 
 
 (a week afterwards.) 
 
 I do confess to mischief. It was the subtlest diabolical 
 piece of malice heart of man has contrived. I have no 
 more rheumatism than that poker. Never was freer from 
 all pains and aches. Every joint sound, to the tip of the ear 
 from the extremity of the lesser toe. The report of thy tor- 
 ments was blown circuitously here from Bury. I could not 
 resist the jeer. I conceived you writhing, when you should 
 just receive my congratulations. How mad you'd be. Well, 
 it is not in my method to inflict pangs. I leave that to Hea- 
 
LETTERS TO ROBINSON. 195 
 
 ven. But in the existing pangs of a friend, I have a share. 
 His disquietude crowns my exemption. I imagine you howl- 
 ing ; and I pace across the room, shooting out my free 
 arms, legs, &c., this way and that way, with an assurance 
 of not kindling a spark of pain from them. I deny that Na- 
 ture meant us to sympathize with agonies. Those face-con- 
 tortions, retortions, distortions have the merriness of antics. 
 Nature meant them for farce — not so pleasant to the actor, 
 indeed ; but Grimaldi cries when we laugh, and it is but 
 one that suffers to make thousands rejoice. 
 
 You say that shampooing is ineffectual. But, per se, it 
 is good, to show the introvolutions, extravolutions of which 
 the animal frame is capable — to show what the creature is 
 receptible of, short of dissolution. 
 
 You are worse of nights, a'nt you ? You never was 
 rack'd was you ? 1 should like an authentic map of those 
 feelings. 
 
 You seem to have the flying gout. You can scarcely 
 screw a smile out of your face, can you ? I sit at immunity 
 and sneer ad libitum. 'Tis now the time for you to make 
 good resolutions. I may go on breaking 'em for any thing 
 the worse I find myself. Your doctor seems to keep you on 
 the long cure. Precipitate healings are never good. Don't 
 come while you are so bad ; 1 shan't be able to attend to 
 your throes and the dumby at once. I should like to know 
 how slowly the pain goes off. But don't write, unless the 
 motion will be likely to make your sensibility more ex- 
 quisite. Your affectionate and truly healthy friend, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Mary thought a letter from me might amuse you in your 
 torment. 
 
 April nth, 1829. 
 
196 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 - - - J 
 
 The following graphic sketch of the happy temperament 
 of one of Lamb's intimate friends, now no more, is contained 
 in a letter to — 
 
 MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 A is well, and in harmony with himself and the 
 
 world. I don't know how he, and those of his constitution, 
 keep their nerves so nicely balanced as they do. Or, have 
 they any ? Or, are they made of packthread ? He is proof 
 against weather, ingratitude, meat underdone, every weapon 
 of fate. I have just now a jagged end of a tooth pricking 
 against my tongue, which meets it half way, in a wanton- 
 ness of provocation ; and there they go at it, the tongue prick- 
 ing itself, like the viper against the file, and the tooth galling 
 all the gum, inside and out to torture ; tongue and tooth, 
 tooth and tongue, hard at it ; and I to pay the reckoning, till 
 all my mouth is as hot as brimstone ; and I'd venture the 
 roof of my mouth, that at this moment, at which I conjec- 
 ture my full-happiness'd friend is picking his crackers, that 
 not one of the double rows of ivory in his privileged mouth 
 has as much as a flaw in it, but all perform their functions, 
 and, having performed them, expect to be picked, (luxurious 
 steeds !) and rubbed down. I don't think he could be robbed, 
 or have his house set on fire, or even want money. I have 
 heard him express a similar opinion of his own infallibility. 
 I keep acting here Heautontimorumenos. 
 
 Have you seen a curious letter in the Morning Chronicle, 
 by C. L.,* the genius of absurdity, respecting Bonaparte's 
 
 * Capel Lofft, a barrister residing in Suffolk, a well-known whig 
 and friend of Major Wyvil and Major Cartwright, who sometimes half 
 vexed Lamb by signing, as he had a right, their common initials to a 
 sonnet. He wrote a very vehement letter, contending that the detention 
 
LETTERS TO MOXON. 197 
 
 suing out his Habeas Corpus ? That man is his own moon. 
 He has no need of ascending into that gentle planet for mild 
 influences. 
 
 In 1830, Lamb tried the experiment of lodging a little 
 while in London ; but Miss Lamb's malady compelled him 
 to return to the solitude of Enfield. He thus communicates 
 
 the sad state of his sister : — 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 
 Dear Moxon, 
 
 I have brought my sister to Enfield, being sure 
 that she had no hope of recovery in London. Her state of 
 mind is deplorable beyond any example. I almost fear whe- 
 ther she has strength at her time of life ever to get out of it. 
 Here she must be nursed, and neither see nor hear of any 
 thing in the world out of her sick chamber. The mere 
 hearing that Southey had called at our lodgings, totally upset 
 her. Pray see him, or hear of him at Mr. Rickman's, and 
 excuse my not writing to him. I dare not write or receive a 
 letter in her presence ; every little talk so agitates her. 
 Westwood will receive any letter for me, and give it me 
 privately. 
 
 Pray assure Southey of my kindliest feelings towards 
 him, and, if you do not see him, send this to him. 
 
 Kindest remembrances to your sister, and believe me 
 
 ever 
 
 Yours, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Remember me kindly to the Allsops. 
 
 of Napoleon on board a vessel off the coast, preparatory to his being 
 sent to St. Helena, was illegal, and that the captain of the vessel would 
 be compelled to surrender him in obedience to a writ of Habeas Corpus. 
 
198 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 The following note to Mr. Moxon, on some long forgotten 
 occasion of momentary displeasure, the nature and object of 
 which is uncertain, contains a fantastical exaggeration of 
 anger, which, judged by those who knew the writer, will 
 only illustrate the entire absence of all the bad passions of 
 hatred and contempt it feigns. 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 
 Dear M., 
 
 Many thanks for the books ; 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 the 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 way 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 outlaw to the Mosaic dispen- 
 sation — unworthy to have seen Moses behind ! — to lay his 
 desecrating hands upon Elia ! Has the irreverent ark- 
 toucher been struck blind, T 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 beg- 
 garly Nit ! 
 
 More when we meet ; mind, you'll come, two of you ; 
 
LETTER TO AYRTON. 199 
 
 and couldn't you get off in the morning, that we may have 
 a day-long curse at him, if curses are not dishallowed by de- 
 scending so low ? Amen. Maledicatur in extremis ! 
 
 C. L. 
 
 In the Spring of the year, Mr. Murray, the eminent pub- 
 lisher, through one of Lamb's oldest and most cherished 
 friends, Mr. Ayrton, proposed that he should undertake a con- 
 tinuation of his Specimens of the Old English Dramatists. 
 The proposal was communicated by Mr. Ayrton to Lamb, 
 then at Enfield, and then too painfully anxious for the re- 
 covery of Miss Isola, who was dangerously ill in Suf- 
 folk, to make the arrangement desired- The following is 
 the reply : — 
 
 TO MR. AYRTON. 
 
 Mr. Westwood's, Chase Side, Enfield, 
 14th March, 1830. 
 My dear Ayrton, 
 
 Your letter, which was only not so pleasant as your 
 appearance would have been, has revived some old images ; 
 Phillips,* (not the Colonel,) with his few hairs bristling up at 
 
 * Edward Phillips, Esq., Secretary to the Right Hon. Charles Ab- 
 bott, Speaker of the House of Commons. The "Colonel" alluded to 
 was the Lieutenant of Marines who accompanied Capt. Cook in his 
 last voyage, and on shore with that great man when he fell a victim 
 to his humanity. On the death of his Commander, Lieutenant Phillips, 
 himself wounded, swam off to the boats ; but seeing one of his ma- 
 rines struggling in the water to escape the natives who were pursuing 
 him, gallantly swam back, protected his man at the peril of his own 
 life, and both reached their boat in safety. He afterwards married 
 that accomplished and amiable daughter of Dr. Barney, whose name so 
 
200 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 the charge of a revoke, which he declares impossible ; the 
 old Captain's significant nod over the right shoulder* (was it 
 
 not ?) ; Mrs. B 's determined questioning of the score, 
 
 after the game was absolutely gone to the d — 1 ; the plain, 
 but hospitable cold boiled-beef suppers at sideboard ; all 
 which fancies, redolent of middle age and strengthful spirits, 
 comes across us ever and anon in this vale of deliberate 
 senectitude, ycleped Enfield. 
 
 You imagine a deep gulf between you and us ; and there 
 is a pitiable hiatus in kind between St. James's Park and this 
 extremity of Middlesex. But the mere distance in turnpike 
 roads is a trifle. The roof of a coach swings you down in 
 an hour or two. We have a sure hot joint on a Sunday, 
 and when had we better ? I suppose you know that ill 
 health has obliged us to give up housekeeping, but we have 
 an asylum at the very next door — only twenty-four inches 
 further from town, which is not material in a country expe- 
 dition — where a table dlwte is kept for us, without trouble 
 on our parts, and we adjourn after dinnei', when one of the 
 old world (old friends) drops casually down among us. 
 Come and find us out ; and seal our judicious change with 
 your approbation, whenever the whim bites, or the sun 
 prompts. No need of announcement for we are sure to be 
 at home. 
 
 I keep putting off the subject of my answer. In truth I 
 am not in spirits at present to see Mr. Murray on such a 
 business ; but pray offer him my acknowledgments, and an 
 assurance that I should like at least one of his propositions, as 
 I have so much additional matter for the Specimens, as might 
 make two volumes in all ; or one, (new edition) omitting 
 such better known authors as Beaumont and Fletcher, Jon- 
 son, &c. 
 
 frequently occurs in the Diary and Correspondence of her sister, Madame 
 D'Arblay. 
 
 * Captain (afterwards Admiral) James Burney. 
 
LETTER TO MRS. WILLIAMS. . 201 
 
 But we are both in trouble at present. A very dear 
 young friend of ours, who passed her Christmas holidays here, 
 has been taken dangerously ill with a fever, from which she 
 is very precariously recovering, and I expect a summons to 
 fetch her when she is well enough to bear the journey from 
 Bury. It is Emma Isola, with whom we got acquainted at 
 our first visit to your sister, at Cambridge, and she has been 
 an occasional inmate with us — and of late years much more 
 frequently — ever since. While she is in this danger, and 
 till she is out of it, and h' re in a probable way to recovery, 
 I feel that I have no spirits for an engagement of any kind. 
 It has been a terrible shock to us ; therefore I beg that you 
 will make my handsomest excuses to Mr. Murray. 
 
 Our very kindest loves to Mrs. A. and the younger 
 
 A.'s. 
 
 * * * * • H- * 
 
 Your un forgotten, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Good tidings soon reached Lamb of Miss Isola's health, 
 and he went to Farnham to bring her, for a month's visit, to 
 Enfield. The following are portions of letters addressed to 
 the lady from whose care he had removed her, after their 
 arrival at home, other parts of which have been already 
 published. 
 
 TO MRS. WILLIAMS. 
 
 Enfield, April 2nd, 1830, 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 I have great pleasure in letting you know Miss 
 Isola has suffered very little from fatigue on her long jour- 
 ney ; I am ashamed to say that I came home rather the more 
 tired of the two. But I am a very unpractised traveler. 
 We found my sister very well in health, only a little impa- 
 
 9* 
 
202 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 tient to see her ; and, after a few hysterical tears for glad- 
 ness, all was comfortable again. We arrived here from 
 Epping between five and six. 
 
 How I employed myself between Epping and Enfield, 
 the poor verses in the front of my paper may inform you, 
 which you may please to christen an " Acrostic in a cross- 
 road," and which I wish were worthier of the lady they re- 
 fer to, but trust you will plead my pardon to her on a sub- 
 ject so delicate as a lady's good name. Your candor must 
 acknowledge that they are written straight. And now, dear 
 madam, I have left myself hardly space to express my sense 
 of the friendly reception I found at Farnham. Mr. Williams 
 will tell you that we had the pleasure of a slight meeting 
 with him on the road, where I could almost have told him, 
 but that it seemed ungracious, that such had been your liospi- 
 tality, that I scarcely missed the good master of the family at 
 Farnham, though heartily I should rejoice to have made a 
 little longer acquaintance with him. I v^ill say nothing of 
 our deeper obligations to both of you, because 1 think we 
 agreed at Farnham that gratitude may be over-exacted on 
 the part of the obliging, and over-expressed on the part of 
 the obliged person. 
 
 >}; :js H« * H= % 
 
 Miss Isola is writing, and will tell you that we are 
 going on very comfortably. Her sister is just come. She 
 blames my last verses, as being more written on Mr. Wil- 
 liams than yourself; but how should I have parted whom a 
 Superior Power has brought together ? I beg you will joint- 
 ly accept of all our best respects, and pardon your obsequi- 
 ous, if not troublesome correspondent, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 P. S. — I am the worst folder-up of a letter in the world, 
 except certain Hottentots, in the land of Caffre, who never 
 fold up their letters at all, writing very badly upon skins, &c. 
 
LETTER TO MRS. HAZLITT. 203 
 
 The following contains Lamb's account of the same jour- 
 ney, addressed to Buxton : — 
 
 TO MRS. HAZLITT. 
 
 Enfield, Saturday. 
 Mary's love ? Yes. Mary Lamb is quite well. 
 
 Dear Sarah, 
 
 I found my way to Northaw, on Thursday, and 
 saw a very good woman behind a counter, who says also 
 that you are a very good lady. I did not accept her offered 
 glass of wine (home-made, I take it), but craved a cup of ale, 
 with which I seasoned a slice of cold lamb, from a sand- 
 wich box, which I ate in her back parlor, and proceeded 
 for Berkhampstead, &c. ; lost myself over a heath, and had 
 a day's pleasure. I wish you could walk as I do, and as 
 you used to do. I am sorry to find you are so poorly ; and, 
 now I have found my way, I wish you back at Goody Tom- 
 linson's. What a pretty village 'tis. I should have come 
 sooner, but was waiting a summons to Bury. Well, it came, 
 and I found the good parson's lady (he was from home) ex- 
 ceedingly hospitable. 
 
 Poor Emma, the first moment we were alone, took me in- 
 to a corner, and cried, " Now pray don't drink ; do check 
 yourself after dinner for my sake, and when we get home to 
 Enfield, you shall drink as much as ever you please, and I 
 won't say a word about it." How I behaved, you may guess, 
 when I tell you that Mrs. Williams and I have written 
 acrostics on each other, and " she hoped that she should have 
 no reason to regret Miss Isola's recovery, by its depriving her 
 of our begun correspondence." Emma stayed a month with 
 us, and has gone back (in tolerable health) to her long home, 
 for she comes not again for a twelvemonth. I amused Mrs. 
 
204 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Williams with an occurrence on our road to Enfield.* We 
 travelled with one of those troublesome fellow-passengers in 
 a stage-coach, that is called a well-informed man. For 
 twenty miles, we discoursed about the properties of steam, 
 probabilities of carriages by ditto, till all my science, and 
 more than ail was exhausted, and I was thinking of escaping 
 my torment by getting up on the outside, when, getting into 
 Bishops Stortford, my gentleman, spying some farming land, 
 put an unlucky question to me : " What sort of a crop of turnips 
 I thought we should have this year V Emma's eyes turned to 
 me, to know what in the world I could have to say ; and she 
 burst out into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious 
 cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied, that "it de- 
 pended, I believed, upon boiled legs of mutton." This clench- 
 ed our conversation, and my gentleman, with a face half wise, 
 half in scorn, troubled us with no more conversation, scientific 
 
 or philosophical, for the remainder of the journey. S was 
 
 here yesterday, and as learned to the full as my fellow-trav- 
 eler. What a pity that he will spoil a wit, and a most pleas- 
 ant fellow (as he is) by wisdom. N. Y f is as good, 
 
 and as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word 
 "heir," which I contended was pronounced like " air;" he 
 said that it might be in common parlance ; or that we might 
 so use it, speaking of the " Heir-at-Law," a comedy ; but 
 that in the law courts it was necessary to give it a full aspi- 
 ration, and to say hayer; he thought it might even vitiate a 
 cause, if a counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, 
 he would consult Serjeant Wilde, who gave it against him! 
 Sometimes he falleth into the water; sometimes into the fire. 
 He came down here, and insisted on reading Virgil's " Eneid" 
 
 * This little anecdote was told by Lamb in a letter previously pub 
 lished, but not quite so richly as here. 
 
 t A very old and dear friend of Lamb who had just been called to 
 the bar. 
 
LETTERS TO MOXON. 205 
 
 all through with me, (which he did) because a counsel must 
 know Latin. Another time he read out all the Gospel of St. 
 John, because quotations are very emphatic in a court of jus- 
 tice. A third time he would carve a fowl, which he did very 
 ill-favoredly, because " we did not know how indispensable 
 it was for a barrister to do all those sort of things well ? 
 Those little things were of more consequence than we sup- 
 posed." So he goes on harassing about the way to prosperi- 
 ty, and losing it with a long head, but somewhat a wrong 
 one — harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel 
 look to him ? He deserves one : may be, he has tired him 
 out. 
 
 I am with this long scrawl, but I thought in your exile, 
 you might like a letter. Commend me to all the wonders 
 in Derbyshire, and tell the devil I humbly kiss my hand to 
 
 him. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 The esteem v/hich Lamb had always cherished for Mr. 
 Rogers, was quickened into a livelier feeling by the gener- 
 ous interest which the poet took in the success of Mr. Moxon, 
 who was starting as a publisher. The following little note 
 shows the state of his feelings at this time towards two distin- 
 guished persons. 
 
 TO MR. MOXON. 
 
 Enfield, Tuesday. 
 Dear M., 
 
 I dined with your and my Rogers, at Mr. Gary's, 
 yesterday. Gary consulted him on the proper bookseller to 
 offer a lady's MS. novel to. I said 1 would write to you. 
 But I wish you would call c^ the translator of Dante, at the 
 
206 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 British Museum, and talk with him. He is the pleasantest 
 of clergymen. I told him of all Rogers's handsome behav- 
 ior to you, and you are already no stranger. Go ! I made 
 Rogers laugh about your Nightingale Sonnet, not having 
 heard one. 'Tis a good sonnet, notwithstanding. You shall 
 
 have the books shortly. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Mr. Moxon, having become the publisher of " The En- 
 glishman's Magazine," obtained Lamb's aid, as a contributor 
 of miscellaneous articles, which were arranged to appear 
 under the comprehensive title of " Peter's Net." The fol- 
 lowing accompanied his first contribution, in which some 
 reminiscences of the Royal Academy were enshrined. 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 
 Dear M., 
 
 The R. A. here memorized 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 magazine in my name. It will fly 
 like wildfire among the Royal Academicians and artists. 
 Could you get hold of Proctor? — his chambers are in Lin- 
 coin's Inn, at Montague'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, addressed 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 sub- 
 jects I choose, till the magazine comes out ; so beware of 
 speaking of 'em, or writing about 'em, save generally. Be 
 
LETTERS TO MOXON. 207 
 
 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, two or three months 
 ago, in " Hone's Book." I like your first number capitally. 
 But is not it small ? Come and see us, week-day if possi- 
 sible. 
 
 Send, or bring me Hone's number for August. The 
 anecdotes of E. and of G. D. are substantially true ; what 
 does Elia (or Peter) care for dates? 
 
 The poem I mean, is in " Hone's Book," as far back as 
 April. I do not know who wrote it ; but 'tis a poem I envy 
 — that and Montgomery's " Last Man :" I envy the writers, 
 because I feel I could have done something like them. 
 
 C. L. . 
 
 The following contains Lamb's characteristic acknow- 
 ledgment of a payment on account of these contributions. 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 
 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 1st January. Then I shall look 
 upon 'em as earned. No part of your letter gave me more 
 pleasure (no, not the 101., tho' you may grin) than that you 
 will revisit old Enfield, which I hope will be always a pleas- 
 ant idea to you. 
 
 Yours, very faithfully, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 The magazine, although enriched with Lamb's articles, 
 and some others of great merit, did not meet with a success 
 
208 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 SO rapid as to requite the proprietor for the labor and anxiety 
 of its production. The following is Lamb's letter, in reply 
 to one announcing a determination to discontinue its publica- 
 tion : — 
 
 TO MR. MOXON. 
 
 To address an abdicated monarch is a nice point of 
 breeding. To give him his lost titles is to mock him ; to 
 withhold them 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 cursed it, 
 for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous descrip- 
 tion 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 
 retaking it, (who ought not?) — is there no middle way of ad- 
 justing this fine embarrassment ? I think I have hit upon a 
 medium to skin the sore place over, if not quite to heal it. 
 
LETTERS TO MOXON. 209 
 
 You hinted that there might be something under 10/., by 
 and by accruing to me — DeviVs money ;* (you are sanguine ; 
 say 71. 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 Seagull?) never sent me any book on Christ's Hospital, 
 by which I could dream that I was indebted to him for a 
 dedication. Did G. D. send his penny tract to me, to con- 
 vert me to Unitarianism ? Dear, blundering soul ! why I 
 am as old a Unitarian as himself Or did bethink his cheap 
 publication would bring over the Methodists over the way 
 here ?f 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 dea- 
 con, who exchanges the civility of the hat with him, to trans- 
 mit to the minister, who shakes hands with him out of chapel, 
 and he, in all odds, will light his pipe 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, indi- 
 vidually, I will just hint that a dropping in to tea, unlooked 
 for, about five, stopping bread-and-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 noic, and give no time to deliberation. 
 
 P. S. The second volume of " Elia " is delightful 
 
 * Alluding to a little extravagance of Lamb's — scarcely worth recol- 
 lecting — in emulation of the " Devil's Walk" of Southey and Co. 
 t Referring to a chapel opposite his lodging at Enfield. 
 
210 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 (]y 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 bv, 
 to show the perverseness of human will, while I thought 
 I must furnish one of those accursed things monthly, it seemed 
 a labor above Hercules' " 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 ! 
 
 Your ex-Lampoonist, or Lamb-punnist, from Enfield, 
 October 24, or " last day but one for receiving articles that 
 can be inserted." 
 
 The following was addressed, soon after, 
 
 to mr. moxon. 
 Dear Moxon, 
 
 The snows are ankie-deep, slush, and mire, that 'tis 
 hard to get to the post-office, and cruel to send the maid out. 
 'Tis a slough of despair, or I should sooner have thanked you 
 for your offer of the "Life,'' which we shall very much like 
 to have, and will return duly. I do not know when I shall 
 be in town, but in a week or two, at farthest, when I will 
 come as far as you, if I can. We are moped to death with 
 confinement within doors. I send you a curiosity of G. 
 Dyer's tender conscience. Between thirty and forty years 
 since, G. published the '' Poet's Fate," in which were two 
 very harmless lines about Mr. Rogers, but Mr. R. not quite 
 approving of them, they were left out in a subsequent edition, 
 1801. But G. has been worrying about them ever since ; if 
 I have heard once, I have heard him a hundred times, ex- 
 press a remorse proportioned to a consciousness of having 
 been guilty of an atrocious libel. As the devil would have 
 
LETTERS TO MOXON. 211 
 
 it, a man they call Barker, in his " Parriana," has quoted 
 the identical two lines, as they stood in some obscure edition 
 anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor G. are again wrung. 
 His letter is a gem ; with his poor blind eyes it has been 
 labored out at six sittings. The history of the couplet is in 
 page 3 of this irregular production, in which every variety 
 of shape and size that letters can be twisted into is to be 
 found. Do show his part of it to Mr. R. some day. If he 
 has bowels, they must melt at the contrition so queerly char- 
 actered of a contrite sinner. G. was born, I verily think, 
 without original sin, but chooses to have a conscience, as 
 every Christian gentleman should have. His dear face is 
 insusceptible of the twist they call a sneer, yet he is appre- 
 hensive of being suspected of that ugly appearance. When 
 he makes a complinjent he thinks he has given an affront — 
 a name is personality. But show (no hurry) this unique 
 recantation to Mr. R. ; 'tis like a dirty pocket-handkerchief 
 mucked with tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is 
 the impress of sincerity in every pot-hook and hanger ; and 
 then the gilt frame to such a pauper picture ! — it should go 
 into the Museum ! 
 
 Come when the weather will possibly let you ; 1 want to 
 see the Wordsworths, but I do not much like to be all night 
 away. It is dull enough to be here together, but it is duller 
 to leave Mary ; in short, it is painful, and in a flying visit 
 I should hardly catch them. I have no beds for them if they 
 come down, and but a sort of a house to receive them in; 
 yet I shall regret their departure unseen ; I feel cramped 
 and straitened every way. Where are they ? 
 
 We have heard from Emma but once, and that a month 
 ago, and are very anxious for another letter. 
 
 You say we have forgot your powers of being serviceable 
 to us. That we never shall ; I do not know what I should 
 do without you when I want a little commission. Now then : 
 
212 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 there are left at Miss Buffon's, the " Tales of the Castle," 
 and certain volumes of the " Retrospective Review." The 
 first should be conveyed to Novello's, and the Reviews should 
 be taken to Talfourd's office, ground-floor, east side, Elm 
 Court, Middle Temple, to whom I should have written, but 
 my spirits are wretched ; it is quite an effort to write this. 
 So with the " Life,^' I have cut you out three pieces of ser- 
 vice. What can I do for you here, but hope to see you very 
 soon, and think of you with most kindness? I fear to-mor- 
 row, between rains and snows, it would be impossible to ex- 
 pect you ; but do not let a practicable Sunday pass. We 
 are always at home. 
 
 Mary joins in remembrances to your sister, whom we 
 hope to see in any fineish weather, when she'll venture. 
 
 Remember us to Allsop, and all the dead people ; to 
 whom, and to London, we seem dead. 
 
 In February, 1833, the following letter was addressed by 
 Lamb to the editor, on his being made Serjeant : — 
 
 to mr. serjeant talfourd. 
 
 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 ChittyVmg, (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 mc if I can 
 
 * Mr. Lamb always insisted that the costume referred to was worn 
 when he first gladdened his young friend by a call at Mr. Chitty's cham- 
 bers. I am afraid it is all apocryphal. 
 
LETTER TO TALFOURD. 213 
 
 call him Mr. Serjeant — except, mark me, in company. Ho- 
 nor where honor 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 knight- 
 ed, one made a judge, another in a fair way to it. Why am 
 I restive ? why stands my sun upoh Gibeah ? 
 
 Variously, my dear Mrs. Talfourd, [I can be more fami- 
 liar with her !] Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd, — my sister prompts 
 me — (these ladies stand upon ceremonies) — has the congra- 
 tualable news affected the members of our small commuity. 
 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 sympathized. 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. Ser- 
 jeant, 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 verstri humillimi, 
 
 *C. L. 
 
 In the Spring of 1833, Lamb made his last removal from 
 Enfield to Edmonton. He was about to lose the society of 
 Miss Isola, on the eve of marriage, and determined to live 
 altogether with his sister, whether in her sanity or her mad- 
 ness. This change was announced in the following letter. 
 
214 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 End of May nearly. 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 Your letter, save in what respects your dear sister's 
 health, cheered 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, — shock- 
 ing 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 pros- 
 pects, it seemed to be necessary that she should no longer 
 live with me, and be flustered 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. Sunt 
 lachrymae rerum ! and you and I must bear it. 
 
 To lay a little more load on it, a circumstance has hap- 
 pened, 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. 1 have been 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 concur- 
 rence, she is to be wedded to Moxon, at the end of August — 
 so " perish the roses and the flowers" — how is it ? 
 
 Now to the brighter side. I am emancipated from Enfield. 
 I am with attentive people, and younger. I am three or four 
 miles nearer the great city ; coaches half-price less, and go- 
 ing always, of which I will avail myself. I have few 
 friends left there, one or two though, most beloved. But Lon- 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 215 
 
 don streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, though of the 
 latter, there should be not a known one remaining. 
 
 Thank you for your cordial reception of " Elia." Inter 
 nos, the " Ariadne" is not a darling with me ; several incon- 
 gruous things are in it. but in the composition it served me 
 as illustration. 
 
 I want you in the " Popular Fallacies"* to like the 
 '' Home that is no home," and the " Rising with the lark." 
 
 I am feeble, but cheerful in this my genial hot weather. 
 Walked sixteen miles yesterday. I can't read much in sum- 
 mer time. 
 
 With my kindest love to all, and prayers for dear 
 Dorothy, 
 
 I remain, most affectionately, 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 ? f ) in part of a portion. It hangs famously in his 
 Murray-like shop. 
 
 On the approach of the wedding-day, fixed for 30th July, 
 Lamb turned to the account of a half-tearful merriment, the 
 gift of a watch to the young lady whom he was about to 
 lose. 
 
 * A series of articles contributed, mder this title, by Lamb, to the 
 " New Monthly Magazine." 
 
 t It had been proposed by Lamb that Mr. W. should be the possessor 
 of the portrait if he outlived his friend, and that afterwards it was to 
 be bequeathed to Christ's College, Cambridge. 
 
216 FINAL BIEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 TO MR. MOXON. 
 
 For God's sake give Emma no more watches ; one has 
 turned 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 ap- 
 pointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the mo- 
 ment hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there 
 the bird-boys ask you, " Pray, sir, can you tell us what's 
 o'clock ?" and she answers them punctually. She loses all 
 her time looking to see " 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 spoiled some of the movements. Between our- 
 selves, she has kissed away '•' half-past twelve," which I sup- 
 pose to be the canonical hour in Hanover Square. 
 
 Well, if "love me, love my watch" answers, she will 
 keep time to you. 
 
 It goes right by the Horse Guards. 
 
 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 30th July, as long as my poor months 
 last me, a festival, gloriously. Yours, ever, 
 
 ^ Elia. 
 
 We have not heard from Cambridge. I will write the 
 moment we do. 
 
 Edmonton, 24th July, twenty minutes past three by 
 Emma's watch. 
 
 * Written on the opposite page to that in which the previous affection- 
 ate banter appears. 
 
LETTER TO MR. AND MRS. MOXON. 217 
 
 Miss Lamb was in a state of mental estrangement up to 
 the day of the wedding ; but then in the constant companion- 
 ship of her brother at Edmonton. The following cluster of 
 little letters to the new married pair — the first from Charles, 
 introducing one from Mary — shows the happy effect of the 
 news on her mental health. 
 
 to mr. and mrs. moxon. 
 
 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 Fryer into the little 
 time after dinner, before post time. So with twenty thou- 
 sand congratulations, Yours, 
 
 C. L. 
 
 I am calm, sober, happy. Turn over for the reason. 
 I got home from Dover Street, by Evans, half as sober as a 
 judge. I am turning over a new leaf, as I hope you will 
 now. 
 
 The turn of the leaf presented the following from Miss 
 Lamb : — 
 
 My dear Emma and Edward Moxon, 
 
 Accept my sincf ^ congratulations, and imagine 
 more good wishes than m)^ lerves will let me put into 
 
 10 
 
218 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 good set words. The dreary blank of unanswered questions 
 which I ventured to ask in vain, was cleared up on the wed- 
 ding day by Mrs. W.* taking a glass of wine, and, with a 
 total change of countenance, begging leave to drink Mr. and 
 Mrs. Moxon's good health. It restored me from that mo- 
 ment, as if by an electrical shock, 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 is the following by Charles : — 
 
 Wednesdmj . 
 
 Dears, again, 
 
 Your letter interrupted a seventh game at piquet 
 which we were having, after walking to Wright's and pur- 
 chasing shoes. We pass our time in cards, walks, and read- 
 ing. We attack Tasso soon. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Never was such a calm, or such a recovery. 'Tis her 
 own words, undictated. 
 
 Miss Lamb did not escape all the cares of housekeeping 
 by the new arrangement ; the following little note shows the 
 grotesque uses to which Lamb turned the smaller household 
 anxieties : — 
 
 to mr. bioxon. 
 Dear M., 
 
 Mary and I are very poorly. We have had a sick 
 child, who, sleeping or not sleeping, next me, with a paste- 
 board partition between, killed my sleep. The little bastard 
 
 * The wife of the landlord of the house at Edmonton. 
 
LETTERS TO MOXON. 219 
 
 is gone. My bedfellows are cough and cramp ; we sleep 
 
 three in a bed. Domestic arrangements (baker, butcher, and 
 
 all) devolve on Mary. Don't come yet to this house of pest 
 
 and age ! We propose, when you and E. agree for the time, 
 
 to come up and meet you at the B 's, say a week hence, 
 
 but do you make the appointment. 
 
 Mind, our spirits are good, and we are happy in your 
 
 happinesses. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Our old and ever nev/ loves to dear Emma. 
 
 The following is Lamb's reply to a welcome communica- 
 tion of Sonnets, addressed by the bridegroom to the fair ob- 
 ject of Lamb's regard — beautiful in themselves — and endear- 
 ed to Lamb by honored memories and generous hopes : — 
 
 TO MR. MOXON. 
 
 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 from 
 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. 
 
J^O- FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 I love the sonnet to my heart, and you shall finish it, and 
 I'll be hanged if I furnish a line towards it. So much for 
 that. The next best is 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 them earlier. On Wednes- 
 day they came, and on Wednesday I was a-gadding. Mary 
 gave me a holiday, and I set ofT to Snow Hill. From Snow 
 Hill I deliberately was marching down, with noble Holborn 
 before me, framing in mental agitation a map of the dear 
 London in prospect, thinking to traverse Wardour Street, &c., 
 when, diabolically, I was interrupted by a too hospitable 
 friend, and prevailed on to spend the day at his friendly 
 hoUvSe, 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 thou as the morning, my young bride," 
 
LETTER TO GARY. 221 
 
 and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but determined not to 
 open thenn till next day, being in a state not to be told of 
 at Chatteris. Tell it not in Gath, Enama, 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 her. I bought a fine embossed card yesterday, 
 and wrote for a fair lady's album. She is a Miss Brown, 
 engaged to a Mr. White. One of the lines was (I forgot 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 will expect you before two on Tues- 
 day. I am well and happy, tell E. 
 
 Lamb's latter days were brightened by the frequent — 
 latterly periodical — hospitality of the admirable translator of 
 Dante, at the British Museum. The following was addressed 
 to this new friend lately acquired, but who became an old 
 friend at once, while Mr. and Mrs. Moxon were on their 
 wedding tour : — 
 
 to rev. h. f. cary. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Your packet I have only just received, owing, I 
 suppose, to the absence of Moxon, who is flaunting it about 
 a la Parisienne, with his new bride our Emma, much to his 
 satisfaction, and not a little to our dullness. We shall be 
 
222 FINAL BIEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 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 D 's act. I wish poets 
 
 would write a little plainer ; he begins some of his words 
 with a letter which is unknown to the 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 En- 
 field. 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 is better 
 in some places, but it merely observes the number of stan- 
 zas; as for images, similes, (fee, he finds 'em himself, and 
 never " troubles Peter for the matter." 
 
 In haste, dear Gary, 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Has M. sent you " Elia," second volume ? if not, he shall. 
 Sept. 9,1833. 
 
 The following is Lamb's letter of acknowledgment to the 
 author of the " Pleasures of Memory," for an early copy of 
 his " Illustrated Poems," of a share in the publication of 
 which, Mr. Moxon was "justly vain." The artistical allu- 
 sions are to Stothard ; the allusions to the poet's own kind- 
 
LETTER TO ROGERS. 223 
 
 nesses need no explanation to those who have been enabled 
 by circumstances, which now and then transpire, to guess at 
 the generous course of his life. 
 
 TO MR. ROGERS. 
 
 Saturday. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of your 
 publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, 
 nor will till to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough read- 
 ing of it. The '- Pleasures of Memory " was the first school- 
 present I made to Mrs. Moxon ; it has those nice woodcuts, 
 and I believe she keeps it still. Believe me, all the kindness 
 you have shown to the husband of that excellent person seems 
 done unto myself. I have tried my hand at a sonnet, in the 
 Times. But the turn I gave it, though I hoped it would not 
 displease you, I thought might not be equally agreeable to 
 your artist. I met that dear old man at poor Henry's, Vv^ith 
 you, and again at Gary's, and it was sublime to see him sit, 
 deaf, and enjoy all that was going on in mirth with the com- 
 pany. He reposed upon the many graceful, many fantastic 
 images he had created ; with them he dined, and took wine. 
 I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses, in the Athe- 
 Kseum, to him, in which he is as every thing, and you as no- 
 thing. He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. But I 
 am jealous of the combination of the sister arts. Let them 
 sparkle apart. What injury (short of theatres) did not Boy- 
 dell's Shakspeare Gallery do me with Shakspeare ? to have 
 Opie's Shakspeare, Northcote's Shakspeare, wooden-headed 
 West's Shakspeare, (though he did the best in Lear), deaf- 
 headed Reynolds' Shakspeare, instead of any and every body's 
 Shakspeare ; to be tied down to an authenlic face of Juliet ! 
 to have Imogen's portrait ! to confine the illimitable ! I like 
 you and Stothard, (you best) but '^ out upon this half-faced 
 
224 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 fellovvsliip !" Sir, when I ]iave read the book, I may trouble 
 you, tlirough Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not 
 the flatteringest compliment in a letter to an author to say, 
 you have not read his book yet. But the devil of a reader 
 he must be, who prances through it in five minutes ; and no 
 longer have I received the parcel. It was a little tantalizing 
 to me to receive a letter from Landor, Gehir Landor, from 
 Florence, to say he was just sitting down to read my " Elia,^' 
 just received ; but the letter was to go out before the reading. 
 There are calamities in authorship, w^iich only authors 
 know. I am going to call on Moxon, on Monday, if the 
 throng of carriages in Dover Street, on the morn of publica- 
 tion, do not barricade me out. 
 
 With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to 
 your sister, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Have you seen Coleridge's happy exemplification in Eng- 
 lish of the Ovidian Elegiac metre ? 
 
 In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery current. 
 In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down. 
 
 My sister is papering up the book — careful soul I 
 
 Lamb and his sister were now, for the last year of their 
 united lives, always to2:ether. What his feelings were in 
 this companionship, when his beloved associate was deprived 
 of reason, will be seen in the following most affecting letter, 
 to an old schoolfellow and very dear friend of Mrs. Moxon's 
 — since dead — who took an earnest interest in their welfare. 
 
LETTER TO MISS FRYER. 225 
 
 TO MISS FRYER. 
 
 Feb. 14, 1834. 
 Dear Miss Fryer, 
 
 Your letter found me just returned from keeping 
 my birthday (pretty innocent !) at Dover Street. I see them 
 pretty often. I have since had letters of business to write, or 
 should have replied earlier. In one word, be less uneasy 
 about me ; I bear my privations very well ; I am not in the 
 depths of desolation, as heretofore. Your admonitions are 
 not'lost upon me. Your kindness has sunk into my heart. 
 Have faith in me ! It is no new thing for me to be left to 
 my sister. When she is not violent, her rambling chat is 
 better to me than the sense and sanity of this world. Her 
 heart is obscured, not buried ; it breaks out occasionally ; and 
 one can discern a strong mind struggling with the billows 
 that have gone over it. I could be nowhere happier than 
 under the same roof with her. Her memory is unnaturally 
 strong ; and from ages past, if we may so call the earliest 
 records of our poor life, she fetches thousands of names and 
 things that never would have dawned upon me again, and 
 thousands from the ten years she lived before me. What 
 took place from early girlhood to her coming of age princi- 
 pally, live again (every important thing and every trifle) in 
 her brain, with the vividness of real presence. For twelve 
 hours incessantly she will pour out without intermission, all 
 her past life, forgetting nothing, pouring out name after name 
 to the Waldens, as a dream ; sense and nonsense ; truths 
 and errors huddled together ; a medley between inspiration 
 and possession. What things we are ! I know you will 
 bear with me talking of these things. It seems to ease me, 
 for I have nobody to tell these things to now. Emma, I see, 
 has got a harp, and is learning to play. She has framed her 
 three Walton pictures, and pretty they look. That is a book 
 you should read ', such sweet religion in it, next to Wool- 
 
 10* 
 
226 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 man's ; though the subject be baits, and hooks, and worms, 
 and fishes. She has my copy at present, to do two more 
 from. 
 
 Very, very tired I began this epistle, having been epis- 
 tolizing all the morning, and very kindly would I end it, 
 could I find adequate expressions to your kindness. We 
 did set our minds on seeing you in spring. One of us will 
 indubitably. But I am not skilled in almanac learning, to 
 know when spring precisely begins and ends. Pardon my 
 blots ; I am glad you like your book. I wish it had been 
 half as worthy of your acceptance as John Woolman. But 
 'tis a good-natured book. 
 
 A few days afterwards Lamb's passionate desire to serve 
 a most deserving friend broke out in the following earnest 
 little letter. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Church Street, Edmonton, 
 
 February 22. 
 Dear Wordsworth, 
 
 I write from a house of mourning. The oldest 
 and best friends 1 have left are in trouble. A branch of 
 them (and they of the best stock of God's creatures, I be- 
 lieve) is establishing a school at Carlisle ; her name is L 
 
 M ; her address, 75 Castle Street, Carlisle ; her qualities 
 
 (and her motives for this exertion) are the most amiable, most 
 upright. For thirty years she has been tried by me, and, on 
 her behavior, I would stake my soul. O, if you could re- 
 commend her, how would I love you — if I could love you 
 better ! Pray, pray, recommend her. She is as good a 
 human creature, — next to my sister, perhaps, the most ex- 
 emplary female I ever knew. Moxon tells me you would 
 
LETTER TO GARY. 227 
 
 like a letter from me ; you shall have one. This I cannot 
 mingle up with any nonsense which you usually tolerate 
 from C. Lamb. Need he add loves to wife, sister, and all ? 
 Poor Mary is ill again, after a short lucid interval of four or 
 five months. In short I may call her half dead to me. How 
 good you are to me ! Yours with fervor of friendship for 
 ever, C. L. 
 
 If you want references, the Bishop of Carlisle may be 
 
 one. L 's sister (as good as she, she can't be better 
 
 though she tries) educated the daughters of the late Earl of 
 Carnarvon, and he settled a handsome annuity on her for 
 life. In short, all the family are a sound rock. 
 
 A quiet dinner at the British Museum with Mr. Gary 
 once a- month, to which Lamb looked forward with almost 
 boyish eagerness, was now almost his only festival. In a 
 little note to his host about this time, he hints at one of his 
 few physical tastes. — " We are thinking," he says, "of roast 
 shoulder of mutton with onion sauce, but I scorn to prescribe 
 to the hospitalities of mine host." The following, after these 
 festivities had been interrupted by Mr. Cary's visit to the 
 Continent, is their last memorial : — 
 
 TO MR GARY. 
 
 Sept. 12, 1834. 
 " By Cot's plessing we will not be absence at the 
 grace." 
 Dear C, 
 
 We long to see you, and hear account of your 
 peregrinations, of the Tun at Heidelburg, the Clock at 
 Strasburg, the statue at Rotterdam, the dainty Rhenish, and 
 
228 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 poignant Moselle wines, Westphalian hams, and Botargoes 
 of Altona. But perhaps you have seen, not tasted any of 
 these things. 
 
 Yours, very glad to chain you back again to your proper 
 centre, books, and Bibliothecse. 
 
 C. and M. Lamb. 
 
 I have only got your note just now pe?' negligeniiam perin- 
 qui Mox&ni. 
 
 The following little note has a mournful interest, as 
 Lamb's last scrap of writing. It is dated on the very day 
 on which erysipelas followed the accident, apparently trifling, 
 which, five days after, terminated in his death. It is ad- 
 dressed to the wife of his oldest surviving friend : — 
 
 to mrs. dyer. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Dyer, 
 
 I am very uneasy about a Book which I either have 
 lost, or left at your house on Thursday. It was the book I 
 went out to fetch from Miss Buffam's, while the tripe was 
 frying. It is called " Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum," but it 
 is an English book. I think I left it in the parlor. It is Mr. 
 Gary's book, and I would not lose it for the world. Pray if 
 you find it, book it at the Swan, Snow Hill, by an Edmonton 
 stage immediately, directed to Mr. Lamb, Church Street, 
 Edmonton, or write to say you cannot find it. I am quite 
 anxious about it. If it is lost, I shall never like tripe again. 
 With kindest love to Mr. Dyer and all. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 C. Lamb, 
 
 Dec. 22, 1834. 
 
CHAPTER THE LAST. 
 
 LAMB S WEDNESDAY NIGHTS COMPARED WITH THE EVENINGS OF HOLLAND 
 HOUSE — HIS DEAD COMPANIONS, DYER, GODWIN, THELWALL, HAZLITT, 
 BARNES, HAYDON, COLERIDGE, AND OTHERS — LAST GLIMPSES OF CHARLES 
 AND MARV LAMB. 
 
 GONE ; ALL ARE GONE, THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES !" 
 
 Tvvo circles of rare social enjoyment — differing as widely 
 as possible in all external circumstances — bat each superior 
 in its kind to all others, were at the same time generously 
 opened to men of letters — now existing only in the memories 
 of those who are fast departing from us — may, without of- 
 fence, be placed side by side in grateful recollection ; they 
 are the dinners at Holland House and the suppers of " the 
 Lambs" at the Temple, Great Russell Street, and Islington. 
 Strange, at first, as this juxtaposition may seem, a little re- 
 flection will convince the few survivors who have enjoyed 
 both, that it involves no injustice to either ; while with those 
 who are too young to have been admitted to these old fes- 
 tivities, we may exercise the privilege of age by boasting 
 what good fellowship was once enjoyed, and what " good 
 talk" there was once in the world ! 
 
 But let us call to mind the aspects of each scene, before 
 we attempt to tell of the conversation, which will be harder 
 to recall and impossible to characterize. And first, let us 
 invite the reader to assist at a dinner at Holland House in 
 
230 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 the height of the London and Parliamentary season, say a 
 Saturday in June. It is scarcely seven — for the luxuries of 
 the house are enhanced by a punctuality in the main object 
 of the day, which yields to no dilatory guest of whatever 
 pretension — and you are seated in an oblong room, rich in 
 old gilding, opposite a deep recess, pierced by large old win- 
 dows through which the rich branches of trees bathed in 
 golden light, just admit the faint outline of the Surrey Hills. 
 Among the guests are some perhaps of the highest rank, al- 
 ways some of high political importance, about whom the in- 
 terest of busy life gathers, intermixed with others eminent 
 already in literature or art, or of that dawning promise which 
 the hostess delights to discover and the host to smile on. All 
 are assembled for the purpose of enjoyment ; the anxieties 
 of the minister, the feverish struggles of the partisan, the 
 silent toils of the artist or critic, are finished for the week ; 
 professional and literary jealousies are hushed ; sickness, 
 decrepitude and death, are silently voted shadows ; and the 
 brilliant assemblage is prepared to exercise to the highest de- 
 gree the extraordinary privilege of mortals to live in the 
 knowledge of mortality without its consciousness, and to 
 people the present hour with delights, as if a man lived and 
 laughed and enjoyed in this world for ever. Every appli- 
 ance of physical luxury which the most delicate art can 
 supply, attends on each ; every faint wish which luxury 
 creates is anticipated ; the noblest and most gracious coun- 
 tenance in the world smiles over the happiness it is diffusing, 
 and redoubles it by cordial invitations and encouraging 
 words, which set the humblest stranger guest at perfect ease. 
 As the dinner merges into the dessert, and the sunset casts 
 a richer glow on the branches, still, or lightly waving in the 
 evening light, and on the scene within, the harmony of all 
 sensations becomes more perfect ; a delighted and delighting 
 chuckle invites attention to some joyous sally of the richest 
 
SOCIAL COMPARISON. 231 
 
 intellectual wit reflected in the faces of all, even to the fa- 
 vorite page in green, who attends his mistress with duty like 
 that of the antique world ; the choicest wines are enhanced 
 in their liberal but temperate use by the vista opened in Lord 
 Holland's tales of bacchanalian evenings at Brookes's, with 
 Fox and Sheridan, when potations deeper and more serious 
 rewarded the Statesman's toils and shortened his days; until 
 at length the serener pleasure of conversation, of the now 
 carelessly scattered groups, is enjoyed in that old, long, un- 
 rivaled library in which Addison drank, and mused, and 
 wrote ; where every living grace attends ; " and more than 
 echoes talk along the walls." One happy peculiarity of 
 these assemblies was, the number of persons in different 
 stations and of various celebrity, who were gratified by see- 
 ing, still more, in hearing and knowing each other ; the 
 statesman was relieved by association with the poet of whom 
 he had heard and partially read ; and the poet was elevated 
 by the courtesy which " bared the great heart" which " beats 
 beneath a star;" and each felt, not rarely, the true dignity 
 of the other, modestly expanding under the most genial aus- 
 pices. 
 
 Now turn to No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, at ten o'clock, 
 when the sedater part of the company are assembled, and the 
 happier stragglers are dropping in from the play. Let it be 
 any autumn or winter month, when the fire is blazing 
 steadily, and the clean-swept hearth and whist-tables speak 
 of the spirit of Mrs. Battle, and serious looks require " the 
 rigor of the game." The furniture is old-fashioned and 
 worn ; the ceiling low, and not wholly unstained by traces 
 of " the great plant," though now virtuously forborne ; but 
 the Hogarths, in narrow black frames, abounding in infinite 
 thought, humor and pathos, enrich the walls ; and all things 
 wear an air of comfort and hearty English welcome. Lamb 
 himself, yetunrelaxed by the glass, is sitting with a sort of Qua- 
 
232 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ker primness at the whist-table, the gentleness of his melan- 
 choly smile half lost in his intentness on the game ; his 
 partner, the author of " Political Justice," (the majestic ex- 
 pression of his large head not disturbed by disproportion of 
 his comparatively diminutive stature,) is regarding his hand 
 with a philosophic but not a careless eye ; Captain Burney, 
 only not venerable because so young in spirit, sits between 
 them ; and H. C. R., who alone now and then breaks the 
 proper silence, to welcome some incoming guest, is his happy 
 partner — true winner in the game of life, whose leisure 
 achieved early, is devoted to his friends. At another table, 
 just beyond the circle which extends from the fire, sit another 
 four. The broad, burly, jovial bulk of John Lamb, the Ajax 
 Telamon of the slender clerks of the old South Sea House, 
 whom he sometimes introduces to the rcioms of his younger 
 brother, surprised to learn from them that he is growing fa- 
 mous, confronts the stately but courteous Alsager ; while P., 
 "his few hairs bristling" at gentle objurgation, watches his 
 partner M. B., dealing, with " soul more white "* than the 
 hands of which Lamb once said, " M., if dirt was trumps, 
 what hands you would hold !" In one corner of the room, 
 you may see the pale earnest countenance of Charles Lloyd, 
 who is discoursing " of fate, free-will, foreknowledge abso- 
 lute," with Leigh Hunt ; and, if you choose to listen, you 
 will scarcely know which most to admire — the severe logic 
 of the melancholy reasoner, or its graceful evasion by the 
 tricksome fantasy of the joyous poet. Basil Montague, gentle 
 enthusiast in the cause of humanity, which he has lived to 
 see triumphant, is pouring into the outstretched ear of George 
 Dyer some tale of legalized injustice, which the recipient is 
 
 * Lamb's Sonnet, dedicatory of his first volume of prose to this 
 cherished friend, thus concludes : — 
 
 " Free from self-seeking, envy, low design, 
 I have not found a whiter soul than thine." 
 
SOCIAL COMPARISON. 233 
 
 vainly endeavoring to comprehend. Soon the room fills ; in- 
 slouches Hazlilt from the theatre, where his stubborn anger 
 for Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo has been softened by Miss 
 Stephens's angelic notes, which might " chase anger, and 
 grief, and fear, and sorrow, and pain from mortal or immor- 
 tal minds;" Kenney, with a tremulous pleasure, announces 
 that there is a crowded house to the ninth representation of 
 his new comedy, of which Lamb lays down his cards to in- 
 quire ; or Ayrton, mildly radiant, whispers the continual tri- 
 umph of " Don Giovanni," for which Lamb, incapable of 
 opera, is happy to take his word. Now and then an actor 
 glances on us from " the rich Cathay " of the world behind 
 the scenes, with news of its brighter human-kind, and with 
 looks reflecting the public favor — Liston, grave beneath the 
 weight of the town's regards — or Miss Kelly, unexhausted in 
 spirit by alternating the drolleries of high farce with the ter- 
 rible pathos of melodrama, — or Charles Kemble mirrors the 
 chivalry of thought, and ennobles the party by bending on 
 them looks beaming with the aristoci'acy of nature. Mean- 
 while Becky lays the cloth on the side-table, under the di- 
 rection of the most quiet, sensible, and kind of women — who 
 soon compels the younger and more hungry of the guests to 
 partake largely of the cold roast lamb or boiled beef, the 
 heaps of smoking roasted potatoes, and the vast jug of porter, 
 often replenished from the foaming pots, which the best tap 
 of Fleet Street supplies. Perfect freedom prevails, save when 
 the hospitable pressure of the mistress excuses excess ; and 
 perhaps, the physical enjoyment of the play-goer exhausted 
 with pleasure, or of the author jaded with the labor of the 
 brain, is not less than that of the guests at the most charm- 
 ing of aristocratic banquets. As the hot water and its ac- 
 companiments appear, and the severities of whist relax, the 
 light of conversation thickens : Hazlitt, catching fhe influence 
 of the spirit from which he has just begun to abstain, utters 
 
234 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 some fine criticism with struggling emphasis ; Lamb stam- 
 mers out puns suggestive of wisdom, for happy Barron Field 
 to admire and echo ; the various driblets of talk combine 
 into a stream, while Miss Lamb moves gently about to see 
 that each modest stranger is duly served ; turning, now and 
 then, an anxious loving eye on Charles, which is softened into 
 a half-humorous expression of resignation to inevitable fate, 
 as he mixes his second tumbler ! This is on ordinary nights, 
 when the accustomed Wednesday-men assemble ; but there 
 is a difference on great extra nights, gladdened by " the 
 bright visitations " of Wordsworth or Coleridge : — the cor- 
 diality of the welcome is the same, but a sedater wisdom 
 prevails. Happy hours were they for the young disciple of 
 the then desperate, now triumphant cause of Wordsworth's 
 genius, to be admitted to the presence of the poet who had 
 opened a new world for him in the undiscovered riches of his 
 own nature, and its affinities with the outer universe ; whom 
 he worshiped the more devoutly for the world's scorn ; for 
 whom he felt the future in the instant, and anticipated the 
 '• All hail hereafter !" which the great poet has lived to en- 
 joy ! To win him to speak of his own poetry — to hear him 
 recite its noblest passages — and to join in his brave defiance 
 of the fashion of the age — was the solemn pleasure of such 
 a season ; and, of course, superseded all minor disquisitions. 
 So, when Coleridge came, argument, wit, humor, criticism 
 were hushed ; the pertest, smartest, and the cleverest felt 
 that all were assembled to listen : and if a card-table had 
 been filled, or a dispute begun before he was excited to 
 continuous speech, his gentle voice, undulating in music, 
 
 soon 
 
 " Suspended whist, and look with ravishment 
 The thronging audience." 
 
 The corftersation which animated each of these memor- 
 able circles, approximated, in essence, much more nearly 
 
SOCIAL COMPARISON. 235 
 
 than mio;ht be surmised from the difTerence in station of the 
 principal talkers, and the contrast in physical appliances ; 
 that of the bowered saloon of FloUand House having more of 
 earnestness and depth, and that of the Temple-attic more of 
 airy grace than would be predicated by a superficial observer. 
 The former possessed the peculiar interest of directly bor- 
 dering on the scene of political conflict — gathering together 
 the most eloquent leaders of the Whig party, whose eager 
 repose from energetic action spoke of the Aveek's conflict, and 
 in whom the moment's enjoyment derived a peculiar charm 
 from the perilous glories of the struggle which the morrow 
 was to renew — when power was just within reach, or held 
 with a convulsive grasp — like the eager and solemn pleasure 
 of the soldiers' banquet in the pause of victory. The 
 pervading spirit of Lamb's parties was also that of social 
 progress ; but it was the spirit of the dreamers and thinkers, 
 not of the combatants of the world — men who, it may be, 
 drew their theories from a deeper range of meditation, and 
 embraced the future with more comprehensive hope — but 
 about whom the immediate interest of party did not gather; 
 whose victories were all within; whose rewards were visions 
 of blessings for their species in the furthest horizon of hope. 
 If a profounder thought was sometimes dragged to light in 
 the dim circle of Lamb's companions than was native to the 
 brighter sphere, it was still a rare felicity to watch there the 
 union of elegance with purpose in some leader of party — the 
 delicate, almost fragile grace of illustration, in some one, 
 perhaps destined to lead advancing multitudes or to withstand 
 their rashness ; — to observe the growth of strength in the 
 midst of beauty, expanding from the sense of the heroic past, 
 as the famed Basil tree of Boccaccio grew from the immo- 
 lated relic beneath it. If the alternations in the former oscil- 
 lated between wider extremes, touching on the wildest farce 
 and most earnest tragedy of life ; the rich space of brilliant 
 
236 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 comedy which lived ever between them in the latter, was 
 diversified by serious interests and heroic allusions. Sydney 
 Smith's wit — not so wild, so grotesque, so deep-searching as 
 Lamb's — had even more quickness of intellectual demonstra- 
 tion ; wedded moral and political wisdom to happiest lan- 
 guage, with a more rapid perception of secret affinities ; was 
 capable of producing epigrammatic splendor reflected more 
 permanently in the mind, than the fantastic brilliancy of 
 inose rich conceits which Lamb stammered out with his 
 painful smile. Mackintosh might vie with Coleridge in vast 
 and various knowledge ; but there the competition between 
 these great talkers would end, and the contrast begin ; the 
 contrast between facility and inspiration ; between the ready 
 access to each ticketed and labeled compartment of history, 
 science, art, criticism, and the genius that fused and reno- 
 vated all. But then a younger spirit appeared at Lord Hol- 
 land's table to redress the balance — not so poetical as Cole- 
 ridge, but more lucid — in whose vast and joyous memory all 
 the mighty past lived and glowed anew ; whose declamations 
 presented, not groups tinged with distant ligiit, like those of 
 Coleridge, but a series of historical figures in relief, pre- 
 sented in bright succession — the embossed surfaces of heroic 
 life.* Roofers too, was there — connecting the literature of 
 
 * I take leave to copy the glowing picture of the evenings of Holland 
 House and of its admirable master, drawn by this favorite guest himself 
 from an article which adorned the" Edinburgh Review," just after Lord 
 Holland's death. 
 
 " The time is coming when, perhaps, a few old men, the last sur- 
 vivors of our generation, will in vain seek, amidst new streets, and 
 squares, and railway stations, for the site of that dwelling which was in 
 their youth the favorite resort of wits and beauties — of painters and 
 poets — of scholars, philosophers, and statesmen. They will then re- 
 member, with strange tenderness, many objects once familiar to them — 
 the avenue and the terrace, the busts and the paintings ; the carving 
 the grotesque gilding, and the enigmatical mottoes. With peculiar 
 
SOCIAL COMPARISON. 237 
 
 the last age with this, partaking of some of the best charac- 
 teristics of both — whose first poem sparkled in the closing 
 darkness of the last century " like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's 
 
 fondness, they will recall that venerable chamber, in which all the 
 antique gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with all 
 that female grace and wit could devise to embellish a drawing-room. 
 They will recollect, not unmoved, those shelves loaded with the varied 
 learning of many lands and many ages ; those portraits in which were 
 preserved the features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two genera* 
 tions. They will recollect how many men who have guided the politics 
 of Europe — who have moved great assemblies by reason and eloquence 
 — who have put life into bronze and canvas, or who have left to pos- 
 terity things so written as it shall not willingly let them die — were there 
 mixed with all that was loveliest and gayest in the society of the most 
 splendid of capitals. They will remember the singular character which 
 belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accomplishment, every 
 art and science, had its place. They will remember how the last debate 
 was discussed in one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in another > 
 while Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Reynolds' Baretti ; while 
 Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation ; while 
 Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxemburg, or 
 his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz. They will remember, 
 above all, the grace — and the kindness, far more admirable than grace — 
 with which the princely hospiiality of that ancient mansion was dis- 
 pensed. They will remember the venerable and benignant countenance, 
 and the cordial voice of him who bade them welcome. They will re- 
 member that temper which years of pain, of sickness, of lameness, of 
 confinement, seemed only to make sweeter and sweeter ; and that frank 
 politeness, which at once relieved all the embarrassment of the youngeSf 
 and most timid writer or artist, who found himself for the first time 
 among Ambassadors and Earls. They will remember that constant 
 flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with 
 observation and anecdote ; that wit which never gave a wound ; that 
 exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading ; that goodness 
 of heart which appeared in every look and accent, and gave additional 
 value to every talent and acquirement. They will remember, too, that 
 he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the 
 inflexible uprightness of his political conduct, than by his loving dis- 
 
238 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ear," and who was advancing from a youth which had antici- 
 pated memory, to an age of kindness and hope ; and Moore, 
 who paused in the fluttering expression of graceful trifles, to 
 whisper some deep-toned thought of Ireland's wrongs and 
 sorrows. 
 
 Literature and Art supplied the favorite topics to each of 
 these assemblies, — both discussed with earnest admiration, 
 but surveyed in different aspects. The conversation at Lord 
 Holland's was wont to mirror the happiest aspects of the living 
 mind ; to celebrate the latest discoveries in science ; to echo 
 the quarterly decisions of imperial criticism ; to reflect the 
 modest glow of young reputations ; — all was gay, graceful, 
 decisive, as if the pen of Jefl*rey could have spoken ; or, if 
 it reverted to old times, it rejoiced in those classical associa- 
 tions which are ever young. At Lamb's, on the other hand, 
 the topics were chiefly sought among the obscure and 
 remote ; the odd, the quaint, the fantastic were drawn out 
 from their dusty recesses ; nothing could be more foreign to 
 its embrace than the modern circulating library, even when 
 it teemed with the Scotch novels. Whatever the subject 
 was, however, in the more aristocratic, or the humbler 
 sphere, it was always discussed by those best entitled to talk 
 on it ; no others had a chance of being heard. This remarka- 
 ble freedom from lores was produced in Lamb's circle by 
 the authoritative texture of its commanding minds ; in Lord 
 Holland's, by the more direct, and more genial influence of 
 the hostess, which checked that tenacity of subject and opin- 
 ion which sometimes broke the charm of Lamb's parties by 
 
 position and his winning manners. They will remember that, in the 
 last lines which he traced, he expressed his joy that he had done 
 nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey ; and they will have 
 reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back on many troubled years, 
 they cannot accuse themselves of having done anything unworthy of 
 men who were distinguished by the friendship of Lord Holland." 
 
SOCIAL COMPARISON. 239 
 
 " a duel in the form of a debate." Perhaps beyond any- 
 other hostess, — certainly far beyond any host, Lady HoUand 
 possessed the tact of perceiving, and the power of evoking 
 the various capacities which lurked in every part of the 
 brilliant circles over which she presided, and restrained each 
 to its appropriate sphere, and portion of the evening. To 
 enkindle the enthusiasm of an artist on the theme over which 
 he had achieved the most facile mastery ; to set loose the 
 heart of the rustic poet, and imbue his speech with the free- 
 dom of his native hills ; to draw from the adventurous trav- 
 eler a breathing picture of his most imminent danger ; or to 
 embolden the bashful soldier to disclose his own share in the 
 perils and glories of some famous battle-field ; to encourage 
 the generous praise of friendship when the speaker and the 
 subject reflected interest on each other ; or win from an 
 awkward man of science the secret history of a discovery 
 which had astonished the world ; to conduct these brilliant 
 developments to the height of satisfaction, and then to shift 
 tlie scene by the magic of a word, were among her nightly 
 successes. And if this extraordinary power over the ele- 
 ments of social enjoyment M-as sometimes wielded without 
 tlie entire concealment of its despotism ; if a decisive check 
 sometimes rebuked a speaker who might intercept the varie- 
 gated beauty of Jeffrey's indulgent criticism, or the jest an- 
 nounced and self-rewarded in Sydney Smith's cordial and 
 triumphant laugh, the authority was too clearly exerted for 
 the evening's prosperity, and too manifestly impelled by an 
 urgent consciousness of the value of these golden hours 
 which were fleeting within its confines, to sadden the enforced 
 silence with more than a momentary regret. If ever her 
 prohibition, — clear, abrupt, and decisive, — indicated more 
 than a preferable regard for livelier discourse, it was when a 
 depreciatory tone was adopted towards genius, or goodness, 
 or honest endeavor, or when some friend, personal or intel- 
 
240 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 lectual, was mentioned in slighting phrase. Habituated to 
 generous partizanship, by strong sympathy with a great 
 political cause, she carried the fidelity of her devotion to 
 that cause into her social relations, and was ever the truest 
 and the fastest of friends. The tendency, often more idle 
 than malicious, to soften down the intellectual claims of the 
 absent, which so insidiously besets literary conversation, and 
 teaches a superficial insincerity, even to substantial esteem 
 and regard, and which was sometimes insinuated into the 
 conversation of Lamb's friends, though never into his own, 
 found no favor in her presence ; and hence the conversations 
 over which she presided, perhaps beyond all that ever flashed 
 with a kindred splendor, were marked by that integrity of 
 good nature which might admit of their exact repetition to 
 every living individual whose merits were discussed, without 
 the danger of inflicting pain. Under her auspices, not only 
 all critical, but all personal talk was tinged with kindness ; 
 the strong interest which she took in the happiness of her 
 friends, shed a peculiar sunniness over the aspects of life 
 presented by the common topics of alliances, and marriages, 
 and promotions ; and there was not a hopeful engagement, 
 or a happy wedding, or a promotion of a friend's son, or a 
 new intellectual triumph of any youth with whose name 
 and history she was familiar, but became an event on which 
 she expected and required congratulation as on a part of her 
 own fortune. Although there was necessarily a preponder- 
 ance in her societ}'- of the sentiment of popular progress, 
 which once was cherished almost exclusively by the party 
 to whom Lord Holland was united by sacred ties, no ex- 
 pression of triumph in success, no virulence in sudden dis- 
 appointment, was ever permitted to wound the most sensitive 
 ears of her conservative guests. It might be that some 
 placid comparison of recent with former times, spoke a sense 
 of freedom's peaceful victory ; or that, on the giddy edge of 
 
GEORGE DYER. 241 
 
 some great party struggle, the festivities of the evening might 
 take a more serious cast, as news arrived from the scene of 
 contest, and the pleasure might be deepened by the peril ; 
 but the feeling was always restrained by the supremacy 
 given to those permanent solaces for the mind, in the beauti- 
 ful and the great, which no political changes could disturb. 
 Although the death of the noble master of the venerated 
 mansion closed its portals for ever on the exquisite enjoy- 
 ments to which they had been so generously expanded, the 
 art of conversation lived a little longer in the smaller circle 
 which Lady Holland still drew almost daily around her ; 
 honoring his memory by following his example, and strug- 
 gling against the perpetual sense of unutterable bereavement, 
 by rendering to literature that honor, and those reliefs, which 
 English aristocracy has too often denied it ; and seeking con- 
 solation in making others proud and happy. That lingering 
 happiness is extinct now ; Lamb's kindred circle — kindred, 
 though so different — dispersed almost before he died ; the 
 "thoughts that wandered through eternity," are no longer 
 expressed in time ; the fancies and conceits, " gay creatures 
 of the element " of social delight, " that in the colors of the 
 rainbow lived, and played in the plighted clouds," flicker 
 only in the backward perspective of waning years ; and for 
 the survivors, I may venture- to affirm, no such conversation 
 as they have shared in either circle will ever be theirs again 
 in this world. 
 
 Before closing these last memorials of Charles and Mary 
 Lamb, it may not be unfitting to glance separately at some 
 of the friends who are grouped around them in memory, and 
 who, like them, live only in recollection, and in the works 
 they have left behind them, 
 
 George Dyer was one of the first objects of Lamb's 
 youthful reverence, for he had attained the stately rank of 
 
 11 
 
242 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Grecian in the venerable school of Christ's Hospital, when 
 Charles entered it, a little, timid, affectionate child ; but this 
 boyish respect, once amounting to awe, gave place to a fami- 
 liar habit of loving banter, which, springing from the depths 
 of old regard, approximated to school-boy roguery, and, now 
 and then, though very rarely, gleamed on the consciousness 
 of the ripe scholar. No contrast could be more vivid than 
 that presented by the relations of each to the literature they 
 both loved ; one divining its inmost essences, plucking out 
 the heart of its mysteries, shedding light on its dimmest re- 
 cesses ; the other devoted, with equal assiduity, to its exter- 
 nals. Books, to Dyer, " were a real world, both pure and 
 good;" among them he passed, unconscious of time, from 
 youth to extreme age, vegetating on their dates and forms, 
 and " trivial fond records," in the learned air of great libra- 
 ries, or the dusty confusion of his own, with the least possible 
 apprehension of any human interest vital in their pages, or 
 of any spirit of wit or fancy glancing across them. His life 
 was an Academic Pastoral. Methinks I see his gaunt, awk- 
 ward form, set off by trousers too short, like those outgrown 
 by a gawky lad, and a rusty coat as much too large for the 
 wearer, hanging about him like those garments which the 
 aristocratic Milesian peasantry prefer to the most comfortable 
 rustic dress ; his long head silvered over with short yet 
 straggling hair, and his dark gray eyes glistening with faith 
 and wonder, as Lamb satisfies the curiosity which has gently 
 disturbed his studies as to the authorship of the Waverly 
 Novels, by telling him, in the strictest confidence, that they 
 are the works of Lord Castlereagh, just returned from the 
 Congress of Sovereigns at Vienna ! Off he runs, with ani- 
 mated stride and shambling enthusiasm, nor stops till he 
 reaches Maida Hill, and breathes his news into the startled 
 ear of Leigh Hunt, who, " as a public writer," ought to be 
 possessed of the great fact with which George is laden ! 
 
GEORGE DYER. 243 
 
 Or shall I endeavor to revive the bewildered look with 
 which, just after he had been announced as one of Lord 
 Stanhope's executors and residuary legatees, he received 
 Lamb's grave inquiry, " Whether it was true, as commonly 
 reported, that he was to be made a Lord ?" " O dear no ! 
 Mr. Lamb," responded he with earnest seriousness, but not 
 without a moment's quivering vanity, " I could not think 
 of such a thing; it is not true, I assure you." "I thought 
 not," said Lamb, "and I contradict it wherever I go; but 
 the government will not ask your consent ; they may raise 
 you to the peerage without your even knowing it." " I hope 
 not, Mr. Lamb ; indeed, indeed, I hope not ; it would not 
 suit me at all," responded Dyer, and went his way, musing 
 on the possibility of a strange honor descending on his reluc- 
 tant brow. Or shall I recall the visible presentiment of his 
 bland unconsciousness of evil when his sportive friend taxed 
 it to the utmost, by suddenly asking what he thought of the 
 murderer Williams, who, after destroying two families in 
 Ratcliffe Highway, had broken prison by suicide, and whose 
 body had just before been conveyed in shocking procession 
 to its cross-road grave ! The desperate attempt to compel 
 the gentle optimist to speak ill of a mortal creature produced 
 no happier success than the answer, " Why, I should think, 
 Mr. Lamb, he must have been rather an eccentric charac- 
 ter." This simplicity of a nature not only unspotted by the 
 world, but almost abstracted from it, will seem the more 
 remarkable, when it is known that it was subjected, at the 
 entrance of life, to a hard battle with fortune. Dyer was 
 the son of very poor parents, residing in an eastern suburb 
 of London, Stepney or Bethnal-greenward, where he attract- 
 ed the attention of two elderly ladies as a serious child, with 
 an extraordinary love for books. They obtained for him a 
 presentation to Christ's Hospital, which he entered at seven 
 years of age ; fought his way through its sturdy ranks to its 
 
244 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHAPtLES LAMB. 
 
 head ; and, at nineteen, quitted it for Cambridge, with only 
 an exhibition and his scholarly accomplishments to help him. 
 On he went, however, placid if not rejoicing, through the 
 difficulties of a life illustrated only by scholarship ; encoun- 
 tering tremendous labors ; unresting yet serene ; until at 
 eighty-five he breathed out the most blameless of lives, which 
 began in a struggle to end in a learned dream ! 
 
 Mr. Godwin, who during the happiest period of Lamb's 
 weekly parties, was a constant assistant at his whist-table, 
 resembled Dyer in simplicity of manner and devotion to 
 letters ; but the simplicity was more superficial, and the 
 devotion more profound than the kindred qualities in the 
 guileless scholar ; and, instead of forming the entire being, 
 only marked the surface of a nature beneath which extraordi- 
 nary power lay hidden. As the absence of worldly wisdom 
 subjected Dyer to the sportive sallies of Lamb, so a like de- 
 ficiency in Godwin exposed him to the coarser mirth of Mr. 
 Home Tooke, who was sometimes inclined to seek relaxation 
 for the iron muscles of his imperturbable mind in trying to 
 make a philosopher look foolish. To a stranger's gaze the 
 author of the " Political Justice" and " Caleb Williams," as 
 he appeared in the Temple, always an object of curiosity 
 except to his familiars, presented none of those characteris- 
 tics with which fancy had invested the daring speculator and 
 relentless novelist ; nor, when he broke silence, did his lan- 
 guage tend to reconcile the reality with the expectation. 
 The disproportion of a frame which, low of stature, was sur- 
 mounted by a massive head which might befit a present- 
 able giant, was rendered almost imperceptible, not by any 
 vivacity of expression, (for his countenance was rarely light- 
 ed up by the deep-seated genius within,) but by a gracious 
 suavity of manner which many " a fine old English gentle- 
 man" might envy. His voice was small ; the topics of his 
 
WILLIAM GODWIN. 245 
 
 ordinary conversation trivial, and discussed with a delicacy 
 and precision which might almost be mistaken for finical ; 
 and the presence of the most interesting persons in literary 
 society, of which he had enjoyed the best, would not prevent 
 him from falling after dinner into the most profound sleep. 
 This gentle, drowsy, spiritless demeanor, presents a striking 
 contrast to a reputation which once filled Europe with its 
 echoes ; but it was, in truth, when rightly understood, per- 
 fectly consistent with those intellectual elements which in 
 some raised the most enthusiastic admiration, and from others 
 elicited the wildest denunciations of visionary terror. 
 
 In Mr. Godwin's mind, the faculty of abstract reason so 
 predominated over all others, as practically to extinguish 
 them ; and his taste, akin to this faculty, sought only for its 
 development through the medium of composition for the press. 
 He had no imagination, no fancy, no wit, no humor ; or, if he 
 possessed any of those faculties, they were obscured by that 
 of pure reason ; and being wholly devoid of the quick sensi- 
 bility which irritates speech into eloquence, and of the pas- 
 sion for immediate excitement and applause, which tends to 
 its presentment before admiring assemblies, he desired no 
 other audience than that which he could silently address, 
 and learned to regard all things through a contemplative me- 
 dium. In this sense, far more than the extravagant applica- 
 tion of his wildest theories, he leveled all around him ; ad- 
 mitted no greatness but that of literature ; and neither de- 
 sired nor revered any triumphs but those of thought. If 
 such a reasoning faculty, guided by such a disposition, had 
 been applied to abstract sciences, no effect remarkable be- 
 yond that of rare excellence, would have been produced ; 
 but the apparent anomalies of Mr. Godwin's intellectual his- 
 tory arose from the application of his power to the passions, 
 the interests, and the hopes of mankind, at a time when they 
 enkindled into frightful action, and when he calmly worked 
 
246 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 out his problems among their burning elements with the "ice- 
 brook's temper," and the severest logic. And if some ex- 
 treme conclusions were inconsistent with the faith and the 
 duty which alone can sustain and regulate our nature, there 
 was no small compensation in the severity of the process to 
 which the student was impelled, for the slender peril which 
 might remain lest the results should be practicall}'' adopted. 
 A system founded on pure reason, which rejected the im- 
 pulses of natural affection, the delights of gratitude, the influ- 
 ences of prejudice, the bondage of custom, the animation of per- 
 sonal hope ; which appealed to no passion — which suggested 
 no luxury — which excited no animosities — and which offered 
 no prize for the observance of its laws, except a participation 
 in the expanding glories of progressive humanity, was little 
 calculated to allure from the accustomed paths of ancient 
 ordinance, any man disposed to walk in them by the lights 
 from heaven. On the other hand, it was a healthful diver- 
 sion from those seductions in which the heart secretly ener- 
 vates and infects the understanding, to invite the revolution- 
 ary speculator to the contemplation of the distant and the 
 refined ; by the pursuit of impracticable error to brace the 
 mind for the achievement of everlasting truth ; and on the 
 " heat and flame of the distemper" of an impassioned demo- 
 cracy to "sprinkle cool patience." The idol, Political Jus- 
 tice, of which he was the slow and laborious architect, if it 
 for a while enchanted, did not long enthral or ever debase 
 its worshipers ; " its bones were marrowless, its blood was 
 cold," — but there was surely " speculation in its eyes" 
 which "glared withall" into the future. Such high casuistry 
 as it evoked has always an ennobling tendency, even when 
 it dallies with error ; the direction of thought in youth is of 
 less consequence than the mode of its exercise ; and it is only 
 when the base interests and sensual passions of mortality 
 pander to the understanding that truth may fear for the 
 issue. 
 
WILLIAM GODWIN. 247 
 
 The author of this cold and passionless intellectual phan- 
 tasy looked out upon the world he hoped to inform from 
 recesses of contemplation which the outward incidents of life 
 did not disturb, and which, when closed, left him a common 
 man, appearing to superficial observers rather below than 
 above the level of ordinary talkers. To his inward gaze the 
 stupendous changes which agitated Europe, at the time he 
 wrote, were silent as a picture. The pleasure of his life 
 was to think ; its business was to write ; all else in it was 
 vanity. Regarding his own being through the same spirit- 
 ualizing medium, he saw no reason why the springs of its 
 existence should wear out, and, in the spring-time of his spe- 
 culation, held that man might become immortal on earth by 
 the effort of the will. His style partook of the quality of his 
 intellect and the character of its purposes — it was pure, 
 simple, colorless. His most imaginative passages are in- 
 spired only by a logic quickened into enthusiasm by the anti- 
 cipation of the approaching discovery of truth — the dawning 
 Eureka of the reasoner ; they are usually composed of " line 
 upon line, precept upon precept," without an involution of 
 style or an eddy in the thought. He sometimes complained, 
 though with the benignity that always marked his estimate 
 of his opponents, that Mr. Malthus's style was too richly or- 
 namented for argument ; and certainly, with all its vivacity 
 of illustration, it lacks the transparent simplicity of his own. 
 The most probable result which he ever produced by his 
 writings was the dark theory of the first edition of the work 
 on Population, which was presented as an answer to his rea- 
 soning on behalf of the perfectibility of man ; and he used 
 to smile at his ultimate triumph, when the writer, who had 
 only intended a striking paradox, tamed it down to the wis- 
 dom of economy, and adapted it to Poor-law uses ; neutralized 
 his giant spectres of Vice and Misery by the practical inter- 
 vention of Moral Restraint ; and left the optimist, Godwin, 
 
248 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 still in unclouded possession of the hope of universal peace 
 and happiness, postponed only to that time when passion shall 
 be subjected to reason, and population, no more rising like a 
 resistless tide, between adamantine barriers to submerge the 
 renovated earth, shall obey the commands of wisdom ; rise 
 and fall as the means of subsistence expand or contract ; and 
 only contribute an impulse to the universal harmony. 
 
 The persons of Mr. Godwin's romances — stranger still — 
 are the naked creations of the same intellectual power, mar- 
 velously endowed with galvanic life. Though with happier 
 symmetry, they are as much made out of chains and links of 
 reasoning, as the monster was fashioned by the chemistry of 
 the student, in the celebrated novel of his gifted daughter. 
 Falkland, and Caleb Williams, are the mere impersonations 
 of the unbounded love of reputation, and resistless curiosity ; 
 these ideas are developed in each with masterly iteration — 
 to the two ideas all causes give way ; and materials are sub- 
 jected, often of remarkable coarseness, to the refinement of 
 the conception. Hazlitt used to observe of these two charac- 
 ters, that the manner they are played into each other, was 
 equal to any thing of the kind in the Drama ; and there is 
 no doubt that the opposition, though at the cost of probability, 
 is most powerfully maintained : but the effect is partly owing 
 to the absence of all extrinsic interest which could interfere 
 with the main purpose ; the beatings of the heart become 
 audible, not only from their own intensity, but from the deso- 
 lation which the author has expanded around them. The 
 consistency in each is that of an idea, not of a character ; 
 and if the effect of form and color is produced, it is, as in 
 line engraving, by the infinite minuteness and delicacy of the 
 single strokes. In like manner, the incidents by which the 
 author seeks to exemplify the wrongs inflicted by pov/er on 
 goodness in civilized society, are utterly fantastical ; nothing 
 can be more minute, nothing more unreal ; the youth being 
 
WILLIAM GODWIN. 249 
 
 involved by a web of circurnstances woven to immesh him, 
 which the condition of society theit the author intends to re- 
 pudiate, renders impossible ; and which, if true, would prove 
 not that the framework of law is tyrannous, but that the will 
 of a single oppressor may elude it. The subject of " St. 
 Leon" is more congenial to the author's power ; but it is, in 
 like manner, a logical development of the consequences of 
 a being prolonged on earth through ages ; and, as the dismal 
 vista expands, the skeleton speculators crowd in to mock and 
 sadden us ! 
 
 JVIr. Godwin was thus a man of two beings, which held 
 little discourse with each other — the daring inventor of 
 theories constructed of air-drawn diagrams, and the simple 
 gentleman, who suffered nothing to disturb or excite him be- 
 yond his study. He loved to walk in the crowded streets of 
 London, not like Lamb, enjoying the infinite varieties of 
 many-colored life around him, but because he felt, amidst 
 the noise, and crowd, and glare, more intensely the imper- 
 turbable stillness of his own contemplations. His means of 
 comfortable support were mainly supplied by a shop in 
 Skinner Street, where, under the auspices of " M. J. God- 
 win & Co.," the prettiest and wisest books for children 
 issued, which old-fashioned parents presented to their chil- 
 dren, without suspecting that the graceful lessons of piety 
 and goodness which charmed away the selfishness of infancy, 
 were published, and sometimes revised, and now and then 
 written, by a philosopher v/hom they would scarcely venture 
 to name ! He met the exigencies which the vicissitudes of 
 business sometimes caused, with the trusting simplicity 
 which marked his course ; he asked his friends for aid with- 
 out scruple, considering that their means were justly the due 
 of one who toiled in thought for their inward life, and had 
 little time to provide for his own outward existence, and took 
 their excuses, when offered, without doubt or offence. The 
 
 11* 
 
250 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 very next day after I had been honored and delighted by an 
 introduction to him at Lamb's chambers, I was made still 
 more proud and happy by his appearance at my own on such 
 an errand — which my poverty, not my will, rendered abor- 
 tive. After some pleasant chat on indifferent matters, he 
 carelessly observed that he had a little bill for 150/. falling 
 due on the morrow, which he had forgotten till that morning, 
 and desired the loan of the necessary amount for a few 
 weeks. At first, in eager hope of being able thus to oblige 
 one whom I regarded with admiration akin to awe, I began 
 to consider whether it was possible for me to raise such a 
 sum ; but, alas ! a moment's reflection sufficed to convince 
 me that the hope was vain, and I was obliged, with much 
 confusion, to assure my distinguished visitor how glad 1 
 should have been to serve him, but that I was only just start- 
 ing as a special pleader, was obliged to wiite for magazines 
 to help me on, and had not such a sum in the world. " Oh 
 dear," said the philosopher, " I thought you were a young 
 gentleman of fortune — don't mention it — don't mention it ; I 
 shall do very well elsewhere :" — and then, in the most gra- 
 cious manner, reverted to our former topics, and sat in my 
 small room for half an hour, as if to convince me that my 
 want of fortune made no difference in his esteem. A slen- 
 der tribute to the literature he had loved and served so well, 
 was accorded to him in the old age to which he attained, by 
 the gift of a sinecure in the Exchequer of about 200/. a 
 year, connected with the custody of the Records ; and the 
 last time I saw him he was heaving an immense key to un- 
 lock the musty treasures of which he was guardian — how 
 unlike those he had unlocked, with finer talisman, for the 
 astonishment and alarm of one generation, and the delight of 
 all others ! 
 
 John Thelwall, who had once exulted in the appellation 
 of Citizen Thel wall, having been associated with Coleridge 
 
JOHN THELWALL. 251 
 
 and Southey in their days of enthusiastical dreaming, though 
 a more precise and practical reformer than either, was 
 introduced by them to Lamb, and was welcomed to his cir- 
 cle, in the true Catholicism of its spirit, although its master 
 cared nothing for the Roman virtue which Thelwali devot- 
 edly cherished, and which Home Tooke kept in uncertain 
 vibration between a rebellion and a hoax. Lamb justly 
 esteemed Thelwali as a thoroughly honest man ; — not honest 
 merely in reference to the moral relations of life, but to the 
 processes of thought ; one whose mind, acute and vigorous, 
 but narrow, perceived only the object directly before it, and, 
 undisturbed by collateral circumstances, reflected, with literal 
 fidelity, the impression it received, and maintained it as 
 sturdily against the beauty that might soften it, or the wis- 
 dom that might mould it, as against the tyranny that would 
 stifle its expression. "If to be honest as the world goes, is 
 to be one man picked out of ten thousand," to be honest as 
 the mind works is to be one man of a million ; and such a 
 man was Thelwali. Starting with imperfect education from 
 the thraldom of domestic oppression, with slender knowledge, 
 but with fiery zeal, into the dangers of political enterprise, 
 and treading fearlessly on the verge of sedition, he saw 
 nothing before him but powers which he assumed to be 
 despotism and vice, and rushed headlong to crush them. 
 The point of time — ^^just that when the accumulated force 
 of public opinion had obtained a virtual mastery over the 
 accumulated corruptions of ages, but when power, still un- 
 convinced of its danger, presented its boldest front to oppos- 
 ing intellect, or strove to crush it in the cruelty of awaking 
 fear — gave scope for the ardent temperament of an orator 
 almost as poor in scholastic cultivation as in external fortune, 
 but strong in integrity and rich in burning words. 
 
 Thus passionate, Thelwali spoke boldly and vehemently 
 — at a time when indignation was thought to be virtue ; but 
 
252 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHAKLES LAMB. 
 
 there is no reason to believe he ever meditated any treason 
 except that accumulated in the architectural sophistry of 
 Lord Eldon, by which he proved a person who desired to 
 awe the Government into a change of policy to be guilty of 
 compassing the king's death — as thus ; — that the king must 
 resist the proposed alteration in his measures — that resisting 
 he must be deposed — and that being deposed, he must neces- 
 sarily die ; — though his boldness of speech placed him in 
 jeopardy even after the acquittals of his simple-minded asso- 
 ciate Hardy, and his enigmatical instructor, Tooke, who for- 
 sook him, and left him, when acquitted, to the mercy of the 
 world. His life, which before this event had been one of 
 self-denial and purity remarkable in a young man who had 
 imbibed the impulses of revolutionary France, partook of 
 considerable vicissitude. At one time, he was raised by his 
 skill in correcting impediments of speech, and teaching elo- 
 cution as a science, into elegant competence — at other times 
 saddened by the difficulties of poorly requited literary toil and 
 wholly unrequited patriotism ; but he preserved his integrity and 
 his cheerfulness — " a man of hope and forward-looking mind 
 even to the last." Unlike Godwin, whose profound thoughts 
 slowly struggled into form, and seldom found utterance in con- 
 versation, — speech was, in him, all in all, his delight, his pro- 
 fession, his triumph, with little else than passion to inspire or 
 color it. The flaming orations of his " Tribune," rendered 
 more piquant by the transparent masquerade of ancient his- 
 tory, which, in his youth, '•' touched monied worldlings with 
 dismay,*' and infected the poor with dangerous anger, seemed 
 vapid, spiritless, and shallow when addressed through the 
 press to the leisure of the thoughtful. The light which 
 glowed with so formidable a lustre before the evening audi- 
 ence, vanished on closer examination, and proved to be only 
 a harmless phantom- vapor, wliich left no traces of destructive 
 energy behind it. 
 
JOHN THELWALL. 253 
 
 Thelwall, in person small, compact, muscular — with a 
 head denoting indomitable resolution, and features deeply 
 furrowed by the ardent workings of the mind, — was as ener- 
 getic in all his pursuits and enjoyments as in political action. 
 He was earnestly devoted to the Drama, and enjoyed its 
 greatest representations with the freshness of a boy who sees 
 a play for the first time. He hailed the kindred energy of Kean 
 with enthusiastic praise ; but abjuring the narrowness of his 
 political vision in matters of taste, did justice to the nobler 
 qualities of Mrs. Siddons and her brothers. In literature and 
 art, also, he relaxed the bigotry of his liberal intolerance, 
 and expatiated in their wider fields with a taste more catho- 
 lic. Here Lamb was ready with his sympathy, which in- 
 deed even the political zeal, that he did not share, was too 
 hearted to repel. Although generally detesting lectures on 
 literature as superficial and vapid substitutes for quiet read- 
 ing, and recitations as unreal mockeries of the true Drama, 
 he sometimes attended the entertainments composed of both, 
 which Thelwall, in the palmy days of his prosperity, gave at 
 his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, not on politics, Avhich he 
 had then forsaken for elocutionary science, though maintain- 
 ing the principles of his youth, but partly on elocution, and 
 partly on poetry and acting, into which he infused the fiery 
 enthusiasm of his nature. Sometimes, indeed, his fervor 
 animated his disquisitions on the philosophy of speech with 
 greater warmth than he reserved for more attractive themes ; 
 the melted vowels were blended into a rainbow, or dispersed 
 'like fleecy clouds ; and the theory of language was made 
 nteresting by the honesty and vigor of the speaker. Like 
 ill men who have been chiefly self-taught, he sometimes pre- 
 sented common-places as original discoveries, with an air 
 which strangers mistggk for quackery ; but they were un- 
 just; to the speaker these were the product of his own medi- 
 tation, though familiar to many, and not rarely possessed the 
 
254 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 charm of originality in their freshness. Lamb, at least, felt 
 that it was good, among other companions of far richer and 
 more comprehensive intelligence, to have one friend who was 
 undisturbed by misgiving either for himself or his cause ; 
 who enunciated wild paradox and worn-out common-place 
 with equal confidence ; and who was ready to sacrifice ease, 
 fortune, fame — every thing but speech, and, if it had been 
 possible, even that — to the cause of truth or friendship. 
 
 William Hazlitt was, for many years, one of the bright- 
 est and most constant ornaments of Lamb's parties ; linked 
 to him in the firm bond of intellectual friendship — which re- 
 mained unshaken in spite of some superficial differences, 
 *' short and far between," arising from Lamb's insensibility 
 to Hazlitt's political animosities and his adherence to Southey, 
 "Wordsworth, and Coleridge, who shared them. Hazlitt in 
 his boyhood had derived from his father that attachment to 
 abstract truth for its own sake, and that inflexible determina- 
 tion to cherish it, which naturally predominated in the being 
 of the minister of a small rural congregation, who cherished 
 religious opinions adverse to those of the great body of his 
 countrymen, and waged a spiritual warfare throughout his 
 peaceful course. Thus disciplined, he was introduced to the 
 friendship of youthful poets, in whom the dawn of the French 
 Revolution had enkindled hope, and passion, and opinions 
 tinctured with hope and passion, which he eagerly embraced ; 
 and when changes passed over the prospects of mankind, 
 which induced them, in maturer years, to modify the doc- 
 trines they had taught, he resented these defections almost as 
 personal wrongs, and, when his pen found scope, and his 
 tongue utterance, wrote and spoke of them with such bitter- 
 ness as can only spring from the depths of old affection. No 
 writer, however, except Wilson, did such noble justice to the 
 poetry of Wordsworth, when most despised, and to the genius 
 
WILLIAM HAZLITT. 255 
 
 of Coleridge, when most obscured; he cherished a true ad- 
 miration for each in " the last recesses of the mind," and de- 
 fended them with dogged resolution against the scorns and 
 slights of the world. Still the superficial difference was, or 
 seemed, too wide to admit of personal intercourse ; and I do 
 not think that during the many years which elapsed between 
 my introduction to Lamb and Hazlitt's death, he ever met 
 either of the poets at the rooms of the man they united in lov- 
 ing. 
 
 Although Mr. Hazlitt was thus staunch in his attachment 
 to principles which he reverenced as true, he was by no 
 means rigid in his mode of maintaining and illustrating them ; 
 but, on the contrary, frequently diminished the immediate 
 effect of his reasonings by the prodigality and richness of the 
 allusions with which he embossed them. He had as un- 
 quenchable a desire for truth as others have for wealth, or 
 power, or fame; he pursued it with sturdy singleness of pur- 
 pose ; and enunciated it without favor or fear. But, besides 
 that love of truth, that sincerity in pursuing it, and that bold- 
 ness in telling it, he had also a fervent aspiration after the 
 beautiful ; a vivid sense of pleasure, and an intense con- 
 sciousness of his own individual being, which sometimes pro- 
 duced obstacles to the current of speculation, by which it 
 was broken into dazzling eddies or urged into devious wind- 
 ings. Acute, fervid, vigorous, as his mind was, it wanted 
 the one great central power of Imagination, which brings all 
 the other faculties into harmonious action ; multiplies them in- 
 to each other ; makes truth visible in the forms of beauty, 
 and substitutes intellectual vision for proof. Thus, in him, 
 truth and beauty held divided empire. In him the spirit was 
 willing, but the flesh was strong ; and, when these contend, 
 it is not diflicult to anticipate the result ; " for the power of 
 beauty shall sooner transform honesty from what it is into a 
 bawd, than the person of honesty shall transform beauty into 
 
256 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 its likeness." This "sometime paradox" was vividly ex- 
 emplified in Hazlitt's personal history, his conversation, and 
 his writings. To the solitudes of the country in which he 
 mused on " fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," a tem- 
 perament of unusual ardor had given an intense interest, akin 
 to that with which Rosseau has animated and oppressed the 
 details of his early years. 
 
 He had not then, nor did he find till long afterwards, 
 power to embody his meditations and feelings in v/ords. The 
 consciousness of thoughts which he could not hope adequately 
 to express, increased his natural reserve, and he turned for 
 relief to the art of painting, in which he might silently re- 
 alize his dreams of beauty, and repay the loveliness of na- 
 ture by fixing some of its fleeting aspects in immortal tints. 
 A few old prints from the old masters awakened the spirit of 
 emulation within him ; the sense of beauty became identi- 
 fied in his mind with that of glory and duration ; while the 
 peaceful labor he enjoyed calmed the tumult in liis veins, 
 and gave steadiness to his pure and distant aim. He pur- 
 sued ihe art with an earnestness and patience which he 
 vividly describes in his essay, "On the Pleasure of Paint- 
 ing;" and to which he frequently reverted in the happiest 
 moods of his conversation ; and, although in this, his chosen 
 pursuit, he failed, the passionate desire for success, and the 
 long struggle to attain it, left deep traces in his mind, height- 
 ening his keen perception of external things, and mingling 
 with all his speculations airy shapes and hues which he had 
 vainly striven to transfer to canvas. A painter may acquire 
 a fine insight into the nice distinctions of character, — he may 
 copy manners in words as he does in colors, — but it may be 
 apprehended that his course as a severe reasoner will be 
 somewhat " troubled with thick coming fancies." And if 
 the successful pursuit of art may thus disturb the process of 
 abstract contemplation, how much more may an unsatisfied 
 
WILLIAM HAZLITT. 257 
 
 ambition ruffle it ; bid the dark threads of thought glitter 
 with radiant fancies unrealized, and clothe the diagrams of 
 speculation with the fragments of picture which the mind 
 cherishes the more fondly, because the hand refused to real- 
 ize ? What wonder, if, in the mind of an ardent youth, thus 
 struggling in vain to give palpable existence to the shapes of 
 loveliness Vv^hich haunted bim, " the homely beauty of the 
 good old cause" should assume the fascinations not properly 
 its own ? 
 
 This association of beauty with reason diminished the 
 immediate effect of Mr. Hazlitt's political essays, while it 
 enhanced their permanent value. It was the fashion, in his 
 life-time, to denounce him as a sour Jacobin ; but no descrip- 
 tion could be more unjust. Under the influence of some 
 bitter feeling, or some wayward fancy, he occasionally 
 poured out a furious invective against those whom he re- 
 garded as the enemies of liberty, or as apostates from her 
 cause ; but, in general, the force of his expostulation, or his 
 reasoning, was diverted (unconsciously to himself) by figures 
 and phantasies, by fine and quaint allusions, by quotations 
 from his favorite authors, introduced with singular felicity, as 
 respects the direct link of association, but tending, by their 
 very beauty, to unnerve the mind of the reader, and substi- 
 tute the sense of luxury for clear conviction, or noble anger. 
 In some of his essays, when the reasoning is most cogent, 
 every other sentence contains some exquisite passage from 
 Shakspeare, or Fletcher, or Wordsworth, trailing after it a 
 line of golden associations ; or some reference to a novel, 
 over which we have a thousand times forgotten the wrongs 
 of mankind ; till, in the recurring shocks of pleasurable sur- 
 prise, the main argument is forgotten. When, for example, 
 he compares the position of certain political waverers to that 
 of Clarissa Harlowe confronting the ravisher who would re- 
 peat his outrage, with the penknife pointed to her breast, and 
 
258 finaL memorials of charles lamb. 
 
 her eyes uplifted to Heaven, and describes them as having 
 been, like her, trepanned into a house of ill-fame, near Pall 
 Mall, and there defending their soiled virtue with their pen- 
 knives ; what reader, at the suggestion of the stupendous 
 scene which the allusion directly revives, can think or care 
 about the renegade of yesterday ? Here, again, is felt the 
 want of that Imagination which brings all things into one, 
 tinges all our thoughts and sympathies with one hue, and re- 
 jects every ornament which does not heighten or prolong the 
 feeling which it seeks to embody. 
 
 Even when he retaliates on Southey for attacking his old 
 co-patriots, the poetical associations which bitter remem- 
 brance suggests, almost neutralize the vituperation ; he 
 brings every " flower which sad embroidery wears to strew 
 the laureate hearse," where ancient regards are interred ; 
 and merges all the censure of the changed politician in praise 
 of the simple dignity, and the generous labors of a singularly 
 noble and unsullied life. So little does he regard the unity 
 of sentiment in his compositions, that in his " Letter to Gif- 
 ford," after a series of just and bitter retorts on his maligner 
 as " the fine link which connects literature with the police," 
 he takes a fancy to teach that ultra-crepidarian critic" his 
 own theory of the natural disinterestedness of the human 
 mind, and develops it, not in the dry, hard, mathematical 
 style in which it was first enunciated, but " o'er informed" 
 with the glow of sentiment, and terminating in an eloquent 
 rhapsody. This latter portion of the letter is one of the 
 noblest of his effusions, but it entirely destroys the first in 
 the mind of the reader ; for who, when thus contemplating 
 the living wheels on which human benevolence is borne on- 
 wards in its triumphant career,, and the spirit with which 
 they are instinct, can think of the literary wasp which had 
 settled for a moment upon them, and who had just before 
 been mercilessly transfixed with minikin arrows ? 
 
WILLIAM HAZLTTT. 259 
 
 But the most signal example of the influences which 
 " the shows of things" exercised over Mr. Hazlitt's mind 
 was his setting up the Emperor Napoleon as his idol. He 
 strove to justify this predilection to himself by referring it 
 to the revolutionary origin of his hero, and the contempt with 
 which he trampled upon the claims of legitimacy, and 
 humbled the pride of kings. But if his " only love" thus 
 sprung " from his only hate," it was not cherished in its blos- 
 som by antipathies. If there had been nothing in his mind 
 which tended to aggrandizement and glory, and which would 
 fain reconcile the principles of freedom with the lavish accu- 
 mulation of power, he might have desired the triumph of 
 young tyranny over legitimate thrones ; but he would scarce- 
 ly have watched its progress and its fall " like a lover and a 
 child." His feeling for Bonaparte in exile was not a senti- 
 ment of respect for fallen greatness ; not a desire to trace 
 " the soul of goodness in things evil ;" not a loathing of the 
 treatment the Emperor received from " his cousin kings" in 
 the day of adversity ; but entire aflectim mingling with the 
 current of the blood, and pervading the moral and intellec- 
 tual being. Nothing less than this strong attachment, at 
 once personal and refined, would have enabled him to en- 
 counter the toil of collecting and arranging facts and dates 
 for four volumes of narrative, which constitute his Life of 
 Napoleon ; — a drudgery too abhorrent to his habits of mind 
 as a thinker, to be sustained by any stimulus which the pros- 
 pect of remuneration or the hope of applause could supply. 
 It is not so much in the ingenius excuses which he discovers 
 for the worst acts of his hero — offered even for the midnight 
 execution of the Duke d'Enghein and the invasion of Spain 
 — that the stamp of personal devotion is obvious, as in the 
 graphic force with which he has delineated the short-lived 
 splendors of the Imperial Court, and " the trivial fond 
 records" he has gathered of every vestige of human feeling 
 
260 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 by which he could reconcile the Imperial Cynic to the species 
 he scorned. The first two volumes of his work, although 
 I'edeemed by scattered thoughts of true originality and depth, 
 are often confused and spiritless ; the characters of tlie prin- 
 cipal revolutionists are drawn too much in the style of awk- 
 ward, sprawling caricatures ; but when the hero casts all his 
 rivals into the distance, erects himself the individual enemy 
 of England, consecrates his power by religious ceremonies, 
 and defines it by the circle of a crown, the author's strength 
 becomes concentrated ; his narrative assumes an epic dignity 
 and fervor ; dallies with the flowers of usurped prerogative, 
 and glows with " the long-resounding march and energy di- 
 vine." How happy and proud is he to picture the meeting 
 of the Emperor with the Pope, and the grandeurs of the co- 
 ronation ! How he grows wanton in celebrating the fetes of 
 the Tuileries, as " presenting all the elegance of enchanted 
 pageants," and laments them as "gone like a fairy revel!" 
 How he "lives along the line" of Austerlitz, and rejoices in 
 its thunder, and hails its setting sun, and exults in the minu- 
 test details of the subsequent meeting of the conquered 
 sovereigns at the feet of the conqueror ! How he expatiates 
 on the fatal marriage with " the deadly Austrian," (as Mr. 
 Cobbett justly called Maria Louisa,) as though it were a 
 chapter in romance, and sheds the grace of beauty on the 
 imperial picture ! How he kindles with martial ardor as 
 he describes the preparations against Russia ; musters the 
 myriads of barbarians with a show of dramatic justice ; and 
 fondly lingers among the brief triumphs of Moskowa on the 
 verge of the terrible catastrophe ! The narrative of that dis- 
 astrous expedition is, indeed, written with a master's hand ; 
 we see the " grand army" marching to its destruction through 
 the immense perspective ; the wild hordes flying before the 
 terror of its " coming ;" the barbaric magnificence of Mos- 
 cow towering in the remote distance ; and when we gaze 
 
WILLIAM HAZLITT. 261 
 
 upon the sacrificial conflagration of the Kremlin, we feel 
 that it is worthy to become the funeral pile of the conqueror's 
 glories. It is well for the readers of this splendid work, 
 that there is more in it of the painter than of the metaphysi- 
 cian ; that its style glows with the fervor of battle, or stiffens 
 with the spoils of victory ; yet we wonder that this monu- 
 ment to imperial grandeur should be raised from the dead 
 level of jacobinism by an honest and profound thinker. The 
 solution is, that although he was this, he was also more — 
 that, in opinion, he was devoted to the cause of the people; 
 but that, in feeling, he required some individual object of 
 worship ; that he selected Napoleon as one in whose origin 
 and career he might at once impersonate his principles and 
 gratify his affections ; and that he adhered to his own idea 
 with heroic obstinacy, when the " child and champion of the 
 Republic" openly sought to repress all feeling and thought, 
 but such as he could cast in his own iron moulds, and scoffed 
 at popular enthusiasm even while it bore him to the accom- 
 plishment of his loftiest desires. 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt had little inclination to talk or write about 
 contemporary authors, and still less to read them. He was 
 with difficulty persuaded to look into the Scotch novels, but 
 when he did so, he found them old in substance though new 
 in form, read them with as much avidity as the rest of the 
 world, and expressed better than any one else what all the 
 world felt about them. Flis hearty love of them, however, 
 did not diminish, but aggravate his dislike of the political 
 opinions so zealously and consistently maintained, of their 
 great author ; and yet the strength of his hatred towards 
 that which was accidental and transitory only set off the 
 unabated power of his regard for the great and the lasting. 
 Coleridge and Wordsworth were not moderns to him, for they 
 were the inspirersof his youth, which was his own antiquity, 
 and the feelings which were the germ of their poetry 
 
262 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 had sunk deep into his heart. With the exception of the 
 works of these, and of his friends Barry Cornwall and Sheri- 
 dan Knowles, in whose successes he rejoiced, he held modern 
 literature in slight esteem, and regarded the discoveries of 
 science and the visions of optimism with an undazzled eye. 
 His '•' large discourse of reason " looked not before, but 
 after. He felt it a sacred duty, as a lover of genius and art, 
 to defend the fame of the mighty dead. When the old paint- 
 ers were assailed in " The Catalogue Raisonnee of the British 
 Institution," he was " touched with noble anger." All his 
 own vain longings after the immortality of the works which 
 were libelled ; — all the tranquillity and beauty they had shed 
 into his soul, — all his comprehension of the sympathy and 
 delight of thousands, which, accumulating through longtime, 
 had attested their worth — were fused together to dazzle and 
 to subdue the daring critic who would disturb the judgment of 
 ages. So, when a popular poet assailed the fame of Rous- 
 seau, seeking to reverse the decision of posterity on what 
 that great though unhappy writer had achieved by suggest- 
 ing the opinion of people of condition in his neighborhood on 
 the figure he made to their apprehensions while in the ser- 
 vice of Madame de Warrens, he vindicated the prerogatives 
 of genius with the true logic of passion. Few things irri- 
 tated him more than the claims set up for the present genera- 
 tion to be wiser and better than those which had gone before 
 it. He had no power of imagination to embrace the golden 
 clouds which hung over the Future, but he rested and expa- 
 tiated in the Past. To his apprehension human good did not 
 appear a slender shoot of yesterday, like the bean-stalk in 
 the fairy tale, aspiring to the skies, and leading to an en- 
 chanted castle, but a huge growth of intertwisted fibres, 
 grasping the earth by numberless roots of custom, habit, and 
 affection, and bearing vestiges of " a thousand storms, a 
 thousand thunders." 
 
WILLIAM HAZLITT. 263 
 
 When I first met Hazlitt, in the year 1815, he was stag- 
 gering under the blow of Waterloo. The re-appearance of 
 his imperial idol on the coast of France, and his triumphant 
 march to Paris, like a fairy vision, had excited his admira- 
 tion and sympathy to the utmost pitch ; and though in many 
 respects sturdily English in feeling, he could scarcely for- 
 give the valor of the conquerors ; and bitterly resented the 
 captivity of the Emperor in St. Helena, which followed it, 
 as if he had sustained a personal wrong. On this subject 
 only, he was "eaten up with passion ;" on all others, he was 
 the fairest, the most candid of reasoners. His countenance 
 was then handsome, but marked by a painful expression ; his 
 black hair, which had curled stifly over his temples had 
 scarcely received its first tints of grey ; his gait was awk- 
 ward ; his dress was neglected; and, in the company of 
 strangers, his bashfulness was almost painful — but, when, in 
 the society of Lamb and one or two others, he talked on his 
 favorite themes of old English books, or old Italian pictures, 
 no one's conversation could be more delightful. The poets, 
 from intercourse with whom he had drawn so much of his 
 taste, and who had contributed to shed the noble infection of 
 beauty through his reasoning faculties, had scarcely the op- 
 portunity of appreciating their progress. It was, in after 
 years, by the fire-side of " the Lambs," that his tongue was 
 gradually loosened, and his passionate thoughts found appro- 
 priate words. There, his struggles to express the fine con- 
 ceptions with which his mind was filled, were encouraged by 
 entire sympathy ; there he began to stammer out his just 
 and original conceptions of Chaucer and Spenser, and other 
 English poets and prose writers, more talked of, though not 
 better known, by their countrymen ; there he was thoroughly 
 understood, and dexterously cheered by Miss Lamb, whose 
 nice discernment of his first efforts in conversation, were 
 dwelt upon by him with afTectionate gratitude, even when 
 
264 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 most out of humor with tlie world. When he mastered 
 his diffidence, he did not talk for effect, to dazzle, or surprise, 
 or annoy, but, with the most smaple and honest desire to 
 make his views of the subject in hand entirely apprehended 
 by his hearer. There was sometimes an obvious struggle to 
 do this to his own satisfaction ; he seemed laboring to drag 
 his thought to light from its deep lurking-place ; and, with 
 timid distrust of that power of expression which he had 
 found so late in life, he often betrayed a fear lest he had 
 failed to make himself understood, and recurred to the subject 
 again and again, that he might be assured he had succeeded. 
 With a certain doggedness of manner, he showed nothing 
 pragmatical or exclusive ; he never drove a principle to its ut- 
 most possible consequences, but, like Locksley, " allowed for 
 the wind." For some years previous to his death, he observed 
 an entire abstinence from fermented liquors, which he had once 
 quaffed with the proper relish he had for all the good things 
 of this life, but which he courageously resigned when he 
 found the indulgence perilous to his health and faculties. The 
 cheerfulness with which he made this sacrifice, was one of 
 the most amiable traits of his character. He had no censure 
 for others, who, in the same dangers, were less wise or less 
 resolute ; nor did he think he had earned, by his own con- 
 stancy, any right to intrude advice which he knew, if want- 
 ed, must be unavailing. Nor did he profess to be a con- 
 vert to the general system of abstinence, which was advanced 
 by one of his kindest and staunchest friends ; he vowed that 
 he yielded to necessity; and, instead of avoiding the sight 
 of that which he could no longer taste, he was seldom so 
 happy as when he sat with friends at their wine, participa- 
 ting the sociality of the time ; and renewing his own past 
 enjoyment in that of his companions, without regret and with- 
 out envy. Like Dr. Johnson, he made himself poor amends 
 for the loss of wine by drinking tea, not so largely, indeed, 
 
WILLIAM HAZLITT. 265 
 
 as the hero of Boswell, but at least of equal potency ; for he 
 might have challenged Mrs. Thrale, and all her sex, to make 
 stronger tea than his own. In society, as in politics, he was 
 no flincher. He loved "to hear the chimes at midnight," 
 without considering them as a summons to rise. At these 
 seasons, when in his happiest mood, he used to dwell on the 
 conversational powers of his friends, and live over again the 
 delightful hours he had passed with them ; repeat the preg- 
 nant puns that one had made ; tell over again a story with 
 which another had convulsed the room ; or expatiate on the 
 eloquence of a third ; always best pleased when he could 
 detect some talent which was unregarded by the world, and 
 giving alike, to the celebrated and the unknown, due 
 honor. 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt delivered three courses of lectures at the Sur- 
 rey Institution, on The English Poets ; on The English Comic 
 Writers ; and on The Age of Elizabeth ; which Lamb (un- 
 der protest against lectures in general) regularly attended, 
 an earnest admirer, amidst crowds with whom the lecturer 
 had '' an imperfect sympathy." They consisted chiefly of 
 Dissenters, who agreed with him in his hatred of Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh, and his love of religious freedom, but who " loved 
 no plays ;" of Quakers, who approved him as the earnest 
 opponent of slavery and capital punishment, but who " heard 
 no music ;" of citizens, devoted to the main chance, who had 
 a hankering after "the improvement of the mind;" but to 
 whom his favorite doctrine of its natural disinterestedness 
 was a riddle ; of a few enemies who came to sneer ; and a 
 few friends, who were eager to learn, and to admire. The 
 comparative insensibility of the bulk of his audience to his 
 finest passages, sometimes provoked him to awaken their at- 
 tention by points which broke the train of his discourse ; 
 after which, he could make himself amends by some abrupt 
 paradox which might set their prejudices on edge, and make 
 
 12 
 
266 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 them fancy they were shocked. He startled many of them 
 at the onset, by observing, that, since Jacob's dream, " the 
 heavens have gone farther off, and became astronomical;" a 
 fine extravagance, which the ladies and gentlemen, who had 
 grown astronomical themselves under the preceding lecturer, 
 felt called on to resent as an attack on their severer studies. 
 When he read a well-known extract from Cowper, compar- 
 ing a poor cottager with Voltaire, and had pronounced the 
 line : " A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew," they 
 broke into a joyous shout of self-gratulation, that they were 
 so much wiser than the scornful Frenchman. When he 
 passed by Mrs. Hannah Moore with observing that " she had 
 written a great deal which he had never read," a voice gave 
 expression to the general commiseration and surprise, by 
 calling out " More pity for you !" They were confounded 
 at his reading with more emphasis, perhaps, than discretion. 
 Gay's epigrammatic lines on Sir Richard Blackstone, in 
 which scriptural persons are too freely hitched into rhyme ; 
 but he went doggedly on to the end, and, by his perseverance, 
 baffled those who, if he had acknowledged himself wrong, by 
 stopping, would have visited him with an outburst of displea- 
 sure which he felt to be gathering. He once had a more 
 edifying advantage over them. He was enumerating the 
 humanities which endeared Dr. Johnson to his mind, and at 
 the close of an agreeable catalogue, mentioned, as last and 
 noblest, " his carrying the poor victim of disease and dissipa- 
 tion on his back, through Fleet Street," at which a titter arose 
 from some, who were struck by the picture, as ludicrous, and 
 a murmur from others, who deemed the allusion unfit for ears 
 polite : he paused for an instant, and then added, in his stur- 
 diest and most impressive manner, — " an act which realizes 
 the parable of the Good Samaritan;" at which his moral 
 and his delicate hearers shrunk, rebuked, into deep silence. 
 He was not eloquent, in the true sense of the term ; for his 
 
WILLIAM HAZLITT. 267 
 
 thoughts were too weighty to be moved along by the shallow 
 stream of feeling which an evening's excitement can rouse. 
 He wrote all his lectures, and read them as they were writ- 
 ten ; but his deep voice and earnest manner suited his mat- 
 ter well. He seemed to dig into his subject, and not in vain. 
 In delivering his long quotations, he had scarcely continuity 
 enough for the versification of Shakspeare and Milton, " with 
 linked sweetness long drawn out ;" but he gave Pope's bril- 
 liant satire and delightful compliments, which are usually 
 complete within the couplet, with an elegance and point 
 which the poet himself, could he have heard, would have 
 felt as indicating their highest praise. 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt, having suffered, for many years, from de- 
 rangement of the digestive organs, for which perhaps a mode- 
 rate use of fermented liquors would have been preferable to 
 abstinence, solaced only by the intense tincture of tea, in 
 which he found refuge, worn out at last, died on 18th Sept. 
 1830, at the age of fifty-two. Lamb frequently visited him 
 during his sufferings, which were not, as has been erroneously 
 suggested, aggravated by the want of needful comforts ; for 
 although his careless habits had left no provision for sickness, 
 his friends gladly acknowledged, by their united aid, the 
 deep intellectual obligations due to the great thinker. In a 
 moment of acute pain, when the needless apprehension for the 
 future rushed upon him, he dictated a brief and peremptory 
 letter to the editor of the " Edinburgh Review," requiring a 
 considerable remittance, to which he had no claim but that 
 of former remunerated services, which the friend, who obeyed 
 his bidding, feared might excite displeasure ; but he mistook 
 Francis Jeffrey ; the sum demanded was received by return of 
 post, with the most anxious wishes for Hazlitt's recovery — 
 just too late for him to understand his error. Lamb joined a 
 few friends in attending his funeral in the church-yard of 
 St. Anne's Soho, where he was interred, and felt his loss — 
 
268 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 not SO violently at the time, as mournfully in the frequent 
 recurrence of the sense that a chief source of intellectual 
 pleasure was stopped. His personal frailties are nothing to 
 us now ; his thoughts survive ; in them we have his better 
 part entire, and in them must be traced his true history. 
 The real events of his life are not to be traced in its external 
 changes ; as his engagement by the Morning Chronicle, or 
 his transfer of his services to the Times, or his introduction 
 to the Edinburgh Review ; but in the progress and develop- 
 ment of his fine understanding as nurtured and checked and 
 swayed by his affections. His warfare was within ; its 
 spoils are ours ! 
 
 One of the soundest and most elegant scholars whom the 
 school of Christ's Hospital ever produced, Mr. Thomas 
 Barnes, was a frequent guest at Lamb's chambers in the 
 Temple ; and though the responsibilities he undertook, before 
 Lamb quitted that, his happiest abode, prevented him from 
 visiting often at Great Russell Street, at Islington, or Enfield, 
 he was always ready to assist, by the kind word of the power- 
 ful journal in which he became most potent, the expanding 
 reputation of his school-mate and friend. After establishing 
 a high social and intellectual character at Cambridge, he had 
 entered the legal profession as a special pleader, but was 
 prevented from applying the needful devotion to that laborious 
 pursuit, by violent rheumatic affections, which he solaced by 
 writing critiques and essays of rare merit. So shattered did 
 he appear in health, that when his friends learned that he 
 had accepted the editorship of the Times newspaper, they 
 almost shuddered at the attempt as suicidal, and anticipated 
 a speedy ruin to his constitution from the pressure of constant 
 labor and anxiety, on the least healthful hours of toil. But 
 he had judged better than they of his own physical and intel- 
 lectual resources, and the mode in which the grave responsi- 
 
THOMAS BARNES. 269 
 
 bility and constant exertion of his office would affect both ; 
 for the regular effort consolidated his feverish strength, gave 
 evenness and tranquillity to a life of serious exertion, and 
 supplied, for many years, power equal to the perpetual de- 
 mand ; affording a striking example how, when finely attuned, 
 the mind can influence the body to its uses. The facile 
 adaptation of his intellect to his new duties, was scarcely 
 less remarkable than the mastery it achieved over his desul- 
 tory habits and physical infirmities ; for, until then, it had 
 seemed more refined than vigorous — more elegant than 
 weighty — too fastidious to endure the supervision and ar- 
 rangement of innumerable reports, paragraphs, and essays ; 
 but, while a scholarly grace was shed by him through all he 
 wrote or moulded, the needful vigor was never wanting to 
 the high office of superintending the great daily miracle ; to 
 the discipline of its various contributors ; or to the com- 
 position of articles which he was always ready, on the instant 
 of emergency, to supply. 
 
 Mr. Barnes, linked by school associations with Leigh 
 Hunt, filled the theatrical department of criticism in the 
 Examiner during the period when the Editor's imprisonment 
 for alleged libel on the Prince Regent precluded his attendance 
 on the theatres. It was no easy office of friendship to supply 
 the place of Hunt in the department of criticism he may be 
 almost said to have invented ; but Mr. Barnes, though in a 
 different style, well sustained the attractions of the " The- 
 atrical Examiner." Fortunately the appearance of Mr. 
 Kean during this interval enabled him to gratify the pro- 
 found enthusiasm of his nature, without doing violence to the 
 fastidious taste to which it was usually subjected. He per- 
 ceived at once the vivid energy of the new actor; understood 
 his faults to be better than the excellencies of ordinary aspi- 
 rants, and hailed him with the most generous praise — the 
 more valuable as it proceeded from one rarely induced to 
 
270 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 render applause, and never yielding it except on the convic- 
 tion of true excellence. Hazlitt, who contributed theatrical 
 criticism, at the same time, to the " Morning Chronicle," 
 and who astounded the tame mediocrity of Mr. Perry's sub- 
 ordinates by his earnest eulogy, and Barnes, had the satis- 
 faction of first appreciating this unfriended performer, and, 
 while many were offended by the daring novelty of his style, 
 and more stood aloof with fashionable indifference from a 
 deserted theatre, of awakening that spirit which retrieved the 
 fortunes of Old Drury — which revived, for a brilliant inter- 
 val, the interest of the English stage — and which bore the 
 actor on a tide of intoxicating success that " knew no retiring 
 ebb" till it was unhappily checked by his own lamentable 
 frailties.* 
 
 * As the Essays of Mr. Barnes have never been collected, I take leave 
 to present to the reader the conclusion of his article in the Examiner of 
 February 27, 1814, on the first appearance of Mr. Kean in Richard : — 
 
 " In the heroic parts, he animated every spectator with his own feel- 
 ings ; when he exclaimed * that a thousand hearts were swelUng in his 
 bosom,' the house shouted to express their accordance to a truth so 
 nobly exemplified by the energy of his voice, by the grandeur of his 
 mien. His death-scene was the grandest conception, and executed in 
 the most impressive manner ; it was a piece of noble poetry, expressed 
 by action instead of language. He fights desperately : he is disarmed 
 and exhausted of all bodily strength : he disdains to fall, and his strong 
 volition keeps him standing: he fixes that head, full of intellectual and 
 heroic power, directly on the enemy : he bears up his chest with an ex- 
 pansion which seems swelling with more than human spirit : he holds 
 his uplifted arm in calm but dreadful defiance of his conqueror. But he 
 is but man, and he falls, after this sublime effort, senseless to the 
 ground. We have felt our eyes gush on reading a passage of exquisite 
 poetry. We have been ready to leap at sight of a noble picture, but we 
 never felt stronger emotion, more overpowering sensations, than were 
 kindled by the novel sublimity of this catastrophe. In matters of mere 
 taste, there will be a difference of opinion ; but here there was no room 
 to doubt, no reason could be imprudent enough to hesitate. Every 
 heart beat an echo responsive to this call of elevated nature, and yearned 
 
THOMAS BARNES. 271 
 
 The manners of Mr. Barnes, though extremely courteous, 
 were so reserved as to seem cold to strangers ; but they were 
 changed, as by magic, by the contemplation of moral or in- 
 tellectual beauty, awakened in a small circle. I well re- 
 member him, late one evening, in the year 1816, when only 
 two or three friends remained with Lamb and his sister, long 
 after "we had heard the chimes at midnight," holding in. 
 veterate but delighted controversy with Lamb, respecting the 
 tragic power of Dante as compared with that of Sliakspeare. 
 Dante was scarcely known to Lamb ; for he was unable to 
 read the original, and Gary's noble translation was not then 
 known to him ; and Barnes aspired to the glory of affording 
 him a glimpse of a kindred greatness in the mighty Italian 
 with that which he had conceived incapable of human rivalry, ^ 
 The face of the advocate of Dante, heavy when in repose, 
 grew bright with earnest admiration as he quoted images, 
 sentiments, dialogues, against Lamb, who had taken his own 
 immortal stand on Lear, and urged the supremacy of the 
 child-changed father against all the possible Ugolinos of the 
 world. Some reference having been made by Lamb to his 
 own exposition of Lear, which had been recently published 
 in a magazine, edited by Leigh Hunt, under the title of " The 
 Reflector," touched another and a tenderer string of feeling, 
 turned a little the course of his enthusiasm the more to in- 
 flame it, and brought out a burst of affectionate admiration 
 for his friend, then scarcely known to the world, which was 
 the more striking for its contrast with his usually sedate de- 
 meanor. I think I see him now, leaning forward upon 
 the little table on which the candies were just expiring in 
 their sockets, his fists clenched, his eyes flashing, and his face 
 
 with fondness towards the man v/ho, while he excited admiration for 
 himself, made also his admirers glow with a warmth of conscious 
 superiority, because they were able to appreciate such an exalted degree 
 of excellence." 
 
272 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 bathed in perspiration, exclaiming to Lamb, " And do I not 
 know, my boy, that you have written about Shakspeare, and 
 Shakspeare's own Lear, finer than any one ever did in the 
 world, and won't I let the world know it ?" He was right ; 
 there is no criticism in the world more worthy of the genius 
 it estimates than that little passage referred to on Lear ; few 
 felt it then like Barnes ; thousands have read it since, here^ 
 and tens of thousands in America ; and have felt as he did ; 
 and will answer for the truth of that excited hour. 
 
 Mr. Barnes combined singular acuteness of understand- 
 ing with remarkable simplicity of character. If he was 
 skillful in finding out those who duped others, he made some 
 amends to the world of sharpers by being abundantly duped 
 himself. He might caution the public to be on their guard 
 against impostors of every kind, but his heart was open to 
 every species of delusion which came in the shape of misery. 
 Poles — real and theatrical — refugees, pretenders of all kinds, 
 found their way to the Times' inner office, and though the 
 inexorable editor excluded their lucubrations from the pre- 
 cious space of its columns, he rarely omitted to make them 
 amends by large contributions from his purse. The intimate 
 acquaintance with all the varieties of life forced on him by 
 his position in the midst of a moving epitome of the world, 
 which vividly reflected them all, failed to teach him distrust 
 or discretion. He was a child in the centre of the most fe- 
 verish agitations ; a dupe in the midst of the quickest appre- 
 hensions; and while, with unbending pride, he repelled the 
 slightest interference with his high functions from the great- 
 est quarters, he was open to every tale from the lowest which 
 could win from him personal aid. Rarely as he was seen 
 in his later years in Lamb's circle, he is indestructibly as- 
 sociated with it in the recollection of the few survivors of its 
 elder days ; and they will lament with me that the influences 
 for good which he shed largely on all the departments of 
 
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. 273 
 
 busy life, should have necessarily left behind them such 
 slender memorials of one of the kindest, the wisest, and the 
 best of men who have ever enjoyed signal opportunities of 
 moulding public opinion, and who have turned them to the 
 noblest and purest uses. 
 
 Among Lamb's early acquaintances and constant admir- 
 ers was an artist whose chequered career and melancholy 
 death give an interest to the recollections with which he is 
 linked independent of that which belongs to his pictures — 
 Benjamin Robert Haydon. The ruling misfortune of his 
 life was somewhat akin to that disproportion in Hazlitt's 
 mind to which I have adverted, but productive in his case of 
 more disastrous results — the possession of two different fac- 
 ulties not harmonized into one, and struggling for mastery — 
 in that disarrangement of the faculties in which the unpro- 
 ductive talent becomes not a mere negative, but neutralizes 
 the other, and even turns its good into evil. Haydon, the 
 son of a respectable tradesman at Plymouth, was endowed 
 with two capacities, either of which, delusively cultivated 
 with the energy of his disposition, might have led to fortune 
 — the genius of a painter, and the passionate logic of a con- 
 troversialist ; talents scarcely capable of being blended in 
 harmonious action except under the auspices of prosperity 
 such as should satisfy the artist by fame, and apppease the 
 literary combatant by triumph. 
 
 The combination of a turbulent vivacity of mind with a 
 fine aptitude for the most serene of arts was rendered more 
 infelicitous by the circumstances of the young painter's early 
 career. He was destined painfully to work his way at once 
 through the lower elements of his art and the difficulties of 
 adverse fortune ; and though by indomitable courage and 
 unwearied industry he became master of anatomic science, 
 of coloring, and of perspective, and achieved a position in 
 
 12* 
 
274 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 which his efforts might be fairly presented to the notice of 
 the world, his impetuous temperament was yet further ruffled 
 by the arduous and complicated struggle. With boundless, 
 intellectual ambition, he sought to excel in the loftiest de- 
 partment of his art ; and undertook the double responsibility 
 of painting great pictures and of creating the taste which 
 should appreciate, and enforcing the patronage which should 
 reward them. 
 
 The patronage of high art, not then adopted by the gov- 
 ernment, and far beyond the means of individuals of the 
 middle class, necessarily appertained to a few members of 
 the aristocracy, who alone could encourage and remunerate 
 the painters of history. Although the beginning of Mr. 
 Haydon's career was not uncheered by aristocratic favor, the 
 contrast between the greatness of his own conceptions and 
 the humility of the course which prudence suggested as ne- 
 cessary to obtain for himself the means of developing them 
 on canvas, fevered his nature, which, ardent in gratitude for 
 the appreciation and assistance of the wealthy to a degree 
 which might even be* mistaken for servility, was also impa- 
 tient of the general indifference to the cause of which he 
 sought to be, not only the ornament, but, unhappily for him, 
 also the champion. Alas ! he there " perceived a divided 
 duty." Had he been contented silently to paint — to endure 
 obscurity and privation for a while, gradually to mature his 
 powers of execution and soften the rigor of his style and of 
 his virtue, he might have achieved works, not only as vast in 
 outline and as beautiful in portions as those which he exhib- 
 ited, but so harmonious in their excellencies as to charm 
 away opposition, and insure speedy reputation, moderate for- 
 tune, and lasting fame. But resolved to battle for that which 
 he believed to be " the right," he rushed into a life-long con- 
 test with the Royal Academy ; frequently suspended the 
 gentle labors of the pencil for the vehement use of the pen ; 
 
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. 275 
 
 and thus gave to his course an air of defiance which pre- 
 vented the calm appreciation of his nobler works, and in- 
 creased the mischief by reaction. Indignant of the scorns 
 " that patient merit of the unworthy takes," he sometimes 
 fancied scorns which impatient merit in return imputes to the 
 worthy ; and thus instead of enjoying the most tranquil of 
 lives (which a painter's should be), led one of the most ani- 
 mated, restless, and broken. The necessary consequence 
 of this disproportion was a series of pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments, the direct result of his struggle with fortune ; a suc- 
 cession of feverish triumphs and disappointments, the fruits 
 of his contest with power ; and worse perhaps than either, 
 the frequent diversion of his own genius from its natural 
 course, and the hurried and imperfect development of its most 
 majestic conceptions. To paint as finely as he sometimes 
 did in the ruffled pauses of his passionate controversy, and 
 amidst the terrors of impending want, was to display large 
 innate resources of skill and high energy of mind ; but how 
 much more unquestionable fame might he have attained if 
 his disposition had permitted him to be content with charming 
 the world of art, instead of attempting also to intruct or re- 
 form it ! 
 
 Mr. Haydon's course, though thus troubled, was one of 
 constant animation, and illustrated by hours of triumph, the 
 more radiant because they were snatched from adverse for- 
 tune and a reluctant people. The exhibition of a single 
 picture by an artist at war with the Academy which exhibit- 
 ed a thousand pictures at the same price — creating a sensa- 
 tion not only among artists and patrons of art, but among 
 the most secluded literary circles — and engaging the highest 
 powers of criticism — was, itself, a splendid occurrence in 
 life ;— and, twice at least, in the instance of the Entry into 
 Jerusalem, and the Lazarus, was crowned with signal sue- 
 cess. It was a proud moment for th^ daring painter, when. 
 
276 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 at the opening of the first of these Exhibitions, while the 
 crowd of visitors, distinguished in rank or talent, stood doubt- 
 ing whether in the countenance of the chief figure the daring 
 attempt to present an aspect differing from that which had 
 enkindled tlie devotion of ages — to mingle the human with 
 the Divine, resolution with sweetness, dignified composure 
 with the anticipation of mighty suffering — had not failed, 
 Mrs. Siddons walked slowly up to the centre of the room, 
 surveyed it in silence for a minute or two, and then ejacula- 
 ted, in her deep, low, thrilling voice, '' It is perfect ;" quelled 
 all opposition, and removed the doubt, from his own mind at 
 least, for ever. 
 
 Although the great body of artists to whose corporate 
 power Mr. Hay don was so passionately opposed, naturally 
 stood aside from his path, it was cheered by the attention and 
 often by the applause of the cliief literary spirits of the age, 
 who were attracted by a fierce intellectual struggle. Sir 
 Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Godwin, Shelley, Hunt, 
 Coleridge, Lamb, Keats — and many young writers for peri- 
 odical works, in the freshness of unhacknied authorship — 
 took an interest in a course so gallant though so troublous, 
 which excited their sympathy yet did not force them to the 
 irksome duty of unqualified praise. Almost in the outset of 
 his career, Wordsworth addressed to him a sonnet in heroic 
 strain, associating the artist's calling with his own ; making 
 common cause with him, " while the whole world seems 
 adverse to desert ;" admonishing him " still to be strenuous 
 for the bright reward, and in the soul admit of no decay ;" 
 and, long after, when the poet had, by a wiser perseverance, 
 gradually created the taste which appreciated his works, he 
 celebrated, in another sonnet, the fine autumnal conception 
 in the picture of Napoleon on the rock of St. Helena, with 
 his back to the spectator, contemplating the blank sea, left 
 desolate by the sunken sun. The Conqueror of Napoleon 
 
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. 277 
 
 also recognized the artist's claims, and supplied him with 
 another great subject, in the contemplation of the solitude of 
 Waterloo by its hero, ten years after the victory. 
 
 Mr. Haydon's vividness of mind burst out in his conver- 
 sation ; which though somewhat broken and rugged, like his 
 career, had also, like that, a vein of beauty streaking it. 
 Having associated with most of the remarkable persons of 
 his time, and seen strange varieties of " many-colored life" 
 — gifted with a rapid perception of character and a painter's 
 eye for effect, — he was able to hit off, with startling facility, 
 sketches in words which lived before the hearer. His anx- 
 ieties and s^orrows did not destroy the buoyancy of his spirits 
 or rob the convivial moment of its prosperity ; so that he 
 struggled, and toiled, and laughed, and triumphed, and failed, 
 and hoped on, till the waning of life approached and found 
 him still in opposition to the world, and far from the threshold 
 of fortune. The object of his literary exertions was partially 
 attained : the national attention had been directed to high art; 
 but he did not personally share in the benefits he had greatly 
 contributed to win. Even his cartoon of the Curse in Para- 
 dise failed to obtain a prize, when he entered the arena with 
 unfledged youths for competitors ; and the desertion of the 
 exhibition of his two pictures of Aristides and Nero, at the 
 Egyptian Hall, by the public, for the neighboring exposure 
 of the clever manikin, General Tom Thumb, quite vanquished 
 him. It was indeed a melancholy contrast; — the unending 
 succession of bright crowds thronging the levees of the small 
 abortion, and the dim and dusty room in which the two latest 
 historical pictures of the veteran hung for hours without a 
 visitor. Opposition, abuse, even neglect he could have borne, 
 but the sense of ridicule involved in such a juxtaposition 
 drove him to despair. No one who knew him ever appre- 
 hended from his disasters such a catastrophe as that which 
 closed them. He had always cherished a belief in the reli- 
 
278 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 gion of our Church, and avowed it among scoffing unbelievers ; 
 and that belief he asserted even in the wild fragments he 
 penned in his last terrible hour. His friends thought that 
 even the sense of the injustice of the world would have con- 
 tributed with his undimmed consciousness of his own powers 
 to enable him to endure. In his domestic relations also he 
 was happy, blessed in the affection of a wife of great beauty 
 and equal discretion, who, by gentler temper and serener wis- 
 dom than his own, had assisted and soothed him in all his 
 anxieties and griefs, and whose image was so identified in his 
 mind with the beautiful as to impress its character on all the 
 forms of female loveliness he has created. Those who knew 
 him best feel the strongest assurance, that notwithstanding 
 the appearances of preparation which attended his extraordi- 
 nary suicide, his mind was shattered to pieces — all distorted 
 and broken — with only one feeling left entire, the perversion 
 of which led to the deed, a hope to awaken sympathy in 
 death for those whom living he could not shelter. The last 
 hurried lines he wrote, entitled " Haydon's last Thoughts," 
 consisted of a fevered comparison between the Duke of Wel- 
 lington and Napoleon, in which he seemed to wish to repair 
 some supposed injustice which in speech or writing he had 
 done to the Conqueror. It was enclosed in a letter addressed 
 to three friends, written in the hour of his death, and contain- 
 ing sad fragmental memorials of those passionate hopes, 
 fierce struggles, and bitter disappointments which brought 
 him through distraction to the grave ! 
 
 A visit of Coleridge was always regarded by Lamb as 
 an opportunity to afford a rare gratification to a few friends, 
 who, he knew, would prize it ; and I well remember the 
 flush of prideful pleasure which came over his face as he 
 would hurry, on his way to the India House, into the office 
 in which I was a pupil, and stammer out the welcome invi- 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 279 
 
 tation for the evening. This was true self-sacrifice ; for 
 Lamb would have infinitely preferred having his inspired 
 friend to himself and his sister, for a brief renewal of the old 
 Salutation delights; but, I believe, he never permitted him- 
 self to enjoy this exclusive treat. The pleasure he conferred 
 was great ; for of all celebrated persons I ever saw, Cole- 
 ridge alone surpassed the expectation created by his writings ; 
 for he not only was, but appeared to be, greater than the no- 
 blest things he had written. 
 
 Lamb used to speak, sometimes with a moistened eye and 
 quivering lip, of Coleridge when young, and wish that we 
 could have seen him in the spring-time of his genius, at a 
 supper in the little sanded parlor of the old Salutation hostel. 
 The promise of those days was never realized, by the execu- 
 tion of any of the mighty works he planned ; but the very 
 failure gave a sort'- of mournful interest to the " large dis- 
 course, looking before and after," to which we were en- 
 chanted listeners ; to the wisdom which lives only in our 
 memories, and must perish with them. 
 
 From Coleridge's early works, some notion may be glean- 
 ed of what he was ; when the steep ascent of fame rose di- 
 rectly before him, while he might loiter to dally with the ex- 
 pectation of its summit, without ignobly shrinking from its 
 labors. His endowments at that time — the close of the last 
 century — when literature had faded into a fashion of poor 
 language, must have seemed, to a mind and heart like Lamb's, 
 no less than miraculous. 
 
 A rich store of classical knowledge — a sense of the 
 beautiful, almost verging on the effeminate — a facile power 
 of melody, varying from the solemn stops of the organ to a 
 bird -like flutter of airy sound — the glorious faculty of poetic 
 hope, exerted on human prospects, and presenting its results 
 with the vividness of prophecy ; a power of imaginative rea- 
 soning which peopled the nearer ground of contemplation 
 with thoughts 
 
280 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 " All plumed like estriches, like eagles bathed, 
 As full of spirit as the month of May, 
 And gorgeous as the sun at Midsummer," 
 
 endowed the author of " The Ancient Mariner," and "Chris- 
 tabel." Thus gifted, he glided from youth into manhood, as 
 a fairy voyager on a summer sea, to eddy round and round 
 in dazzling circles, and to make little progress, at last, to- 
 wards any of those thousand mountain summits which, glori- 
 fied by aerial tints, rose before him at the extreme verge of 
 the vast horizon of his genius. "■ The Ancient Mariner," 
 printed with the "Lyrical Ballads," one of his earliest works, 
 is still his finest poem — at once the most vigorous in design 
 and the most chaste in execution — developing the intensest 
 human affection, amidst the wildest scenery of a poet's 
 dream. Nothing was too bright to hope from such a dawn. 
 The mind of Coleridge seemed the harbinger of the golden 
 years his enthusiasm predicted and painted : of those days of 
 peace on earth and good will among men, which the best 
 and greatest minds have rejoiced to anticipate — and the earn- 
 est belief in which is better than all frivolous enjoyments, all 
 worldly wisdom, all worldly success. And if the noontide 
 of his genius did not fulfill his youth's promise of manly 
 vigor, nor the setting of his earthly life honor it by an an- 
 swering serenity of greatness — they still have left us abun- 
 dant reason to be grateful that the glorious fragments of his 
 mighty and imperfect being were ours. Cloud after cloud 
 of German metaphysics rolled before his imagination — which 
 it had power to irradiate with fantastic beauty, and to break 
 into a thousand shifting forms of grandeur, though not to 
 conquer ; mist after mist ascended from those streams where 
 earth and sky should have blended in one imagery, and were 
 turned by its obscure glory to radiant haze ; indulgence in 
 the fearful luxury of that talismanic drug, which opens glit- 
 tering scenes of fantastic beauty on the waking soul to leave 
 
• SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 281 
 
 it in arid desolation, too often veiled it in partial eclipse, and 
 blended fitful light with melancholy blackness over its vast 
 domain ; but the great central light remained unquenched, 
 and cast its gleams through every department of human 
 knowledge. A boundless capacity to receive and retain 
 intellectual treasure made him the possessor of vaster stores 
 of lore, classical, antiquarian, historical, biblical, and miscel- 
 laneous, than were ever vouchsafed, at least in our time, to 
 a mortal being ; goodly structures of divine philosophy rose 
 before him like exhalations on the table-land of that his prodi- 
 gious knowledge ; but, alas ! there was a deficiency of the 
 power of voluntary action which would have left him unable 
 to embody the shapes of a shepherd's dreams, and made him 
 feeble as an infant before the overpowering majesty of his 
 own ! Hence his literary life became one splendid and sad 
 prospectus — resembling only the portal of a mighty temple 
 which it was forbidden us to enter — but whence strains of 
 rich music issuing " took the prisoned soul and lapped it in 
 Elysium," and fragments of oracular wisdom startled the 
 thought they could not satisfy. 
 
 Hence the riches of his mind were developed, not in writ- 
 ing, but in his speech — conversation I can scarcely call it — 
 which no one who once heard can ever forget. Unable to 
 work in solitude, he sought the gentle stimulus of social ad- 
 miration, and under its influence poured forth, without stint, 
 the marvelous resources of a mind rich in the spoils of time 
 — richer — richer far in its own glorious imagination and 
 delicate fancy ! There was a noble prodigality in these out- 
 pourings ; a generous disdain of self ; an earnest desire to 
 scatter abroad the seeds of wisdom and beauty, to take root 
 •wherever they might fall, and spring up without bearing his 
 name or impress, which might remind the listener of the first 
 days of poetry before it became individualized by the press, 
 when the Homeric rhapsodist wandered through new-born cities 
 
282 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 and scattered hovels, flashing upon the minds of the wonder- 
 ing audience the bright train of heroic shapes, the series of 
 godlike exploits, and sought no record more enduring than 
 the fleshly tablets of his hearers' hearts ; no memory but 
 that of genial tradition ; when copy-right did not ascertain 
 the reciter's property, nor marble at once perpetuate and 
 shed chillness on his fame — 
 
 " His bounty was as boundless as the sea, 
 His love as deep." 
 
 Like the ocean, in all its variety of gentle moods, his dis- 
 course perpetually ebbed and flowed, — nothing in it angular, 
 nothing of set purpose, but now trembling as the voice of 
 divine philosophy, " not harsh nor crabbed, as dull fools sup- 
 pose, but musical as is Apollo's lute," was wafted over the 
 summer wave ; now glistening in long line of light over 
 some obscure subject, like the path of moonlight on the black 
 water; and, if ever receding from the shore, driven by some 
 sudden gust of inspiration, disclosing the treasures of the 
 deep, like the rich strond in Spenser, " far sunken in their 
 sunless treasuries," to be covered anon by the foam of the 
 same immortal tide. The benignity of his manner befitted 
 the beauty of his disquisitions ; his voice rose from the gen- 
 tlest pitch of conversation to the height of impassioned elo- 
 quence without effort, as his language expanded from some 
 common topic of the-day to the loftiest abstractions ; ascend- 
 ing by a winding track of spiral glory to the highest truths 
 which the naked eye could discern, and suggesting starry 
 regions beyond, which his own telescopic gaze might possi- 
 bly decipher. If his entranced hearers often were unable 
 to perceive the bearings of his argument — too mighty for any • 
 grasp but his own — and sometimes reaching beyond his own 
 — they understood " a beauty in the words, if not tlie words ;" 
 and a wisdom and piety in the illustrations, even when unable 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 283 
 
 to connect them with the idea which he desired to illustrate. 
 If an entire scheme of moral philosophy was never developed 
 by him either in speaking or writing, all the parts were 
 great : vast biblical knowledge, though sometimes eddying in 
 splendid conjecture, was always employed with pious rever- 
 ence ; the morality suggested was at once elevated and ge- 
 nial ; the charity hoped all things ; and the mighty imagina- 
 tive reasoner, seemed almost to realize the condition susc- 
 gested by the great Apostle, " that he understood all myste- 
 ries and all knowledge, and spake with the tongues both of 
 men and angels !" 
 
 After Coleridge had found his last earthly refuge, under 
 the wise and generous care of Mr. Gilman, at Highgate, he 
 rarely visited Lamb, and my opportunities of observing him 
 ceased. From those who were more favored, as well as 
 from the fragments I have seen of his last effusions, I know 
 that, amidst suffering and weakness, his mighty mind con- 
 centrated its energies on the highest subjects which had 
 ever kindled them ; that the speculations, which sometimes 
 seemed like paradox, because their extent was too vast to be 
 comprehended in a single grasp of intellectual vision, were 
 informed by a serener wisdom ; that his perceptions of the 
 central truth became more undivided, and his piety more 
 profound and humble. His love for Charles and Mary Lamb 
 continued, to the last, one of the strongest of his human af- 
 fections — of which, by the kindness of a friend,* I possess an 
 affecting memorial under his hand, written in the margin of 
 a volume of his " Sybilline Leaves," which — after his life- 
 long habit — he has enriched by manuscript annotations. 
 The poem, beside which it is inscribed, is entitled, " The 
 Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," composed by the poet in 
 June, 1796, when Charles and Mary Lamb, who were visit- 
 
 * Mr. Richard Welch, of Reading, editor of the Berkshire Chroni- 
 cle — one of the ablest productions of the Conservative Periodical Press. 
 
284 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 ing at his cottage near Bristol, left him for a walk, which an 
 accidental lameness prevented him from sharing. The vi- 
 sitors are not indicated l)y the poem, except that Charles is 
 designated by the epithet, against which he jestingly remon- 
 strated, as "gentle-hearted Charles;" and is represented as 
 " winning his way, with sad and patient soul, through evil 
 and pain, and strange calamity." Against the title is writ- 
 ten as follows : — 
 
 CH. & MARY LAMB, 
 
 dear to my heart, yea, 
 
 as it were, my heart, 
 
 S. T. C. ^t. 63. 1834 
 
 1797 
 
 1834. 
 
 37 years ! 
 
 This memorandum, which is penned with remarkable 
 neatness, must have been made in Coleridge's last illness, as 
 he suffered acutely for several months before he died, in July 
 of this same year, 1834. What a space did that thirty-seven 
 years of fond regard for the brother and sister occupy in a 
 mind like Coleridge's, peopled with immortal thoughts which 
 might multiply in the true lime, dialed in heaven, its minutes 
 into years ! 
 
 These friends of Lamb's whom I have ventured to sketch 
 in companionship with liim, and Southey also, whom I only 
 once saw, are all gone ; — and others of less note in the world's 
 eye have followed them. Among those of the old set who 
 are gone, is Manning, perhaps, next to Coleridge, the dearest 
 of them, whom Lamb used to speak of as marvelous in a 
 iete-d-tete, but who, in company, seemed only a courteous 
 gentleman, more disposed to listen than to talk. In good old 
 
lamb's dead companions. 285 
 
 age, departed Admiral Burney, frank-hearted voyager with 
 Captain Cook round the world, who seemed to unite our so- 
 ciety with the circle over which Dr. Johnson reigned ; who 
 used to tell of school-days under the tutelage of Eugene 
 Aram ; how he remembered the gentle usher pacing the 
 play-ground, arm-in-arm with some one of the elder boys, 
 and seeking relief from the unsuspected burthen of his con- 
 science by talking of strange murders, and how he, a child, 
 had shuddered at the handcuffs on his teacher's hands when 
 taken away in the post-chaise to prison ; — the Admiral being 
 himself the centre of a little circle which his sister, the fa- 
 mous authoress of " Evelina," " Cecelia," and "Camilla," 
 sometimes graced. John Lamb, the jovial and burly, who 
 dared to argue with Hazlitt on questions of art ; Barron 
 Field, who with veneration enough to feel all the despised 
 greatness of Wordsworth, had a sparkling vivacity, and, con- 
 nected with Lamb by the link of Christ's Hospital associa- 
 tions, shared largely in his regard ; Rickman, the sturdiest 
 of jovial companions, severe in the discipline of whist as at 
 the table of the House of Commons, of which he was the 
 principal clerk; and Alsager, so calm, so bland, so consider- 
 ate — all are gone. These were all Temple-guests — friends 
 of Lamb's early days ; but the companions of a later time, 
 who first met in Great Russell Street, or Dalston, or Isling- 
 ton, or Enfield, have been wofully thinned ; Allan Cunning- 
 ham, stalwart of form and stout of heart and verse, a ruder 
 Burns ; Cary, Lamb's " pleasantest of clergymen," whose 
 sweetness of disposition and manner would have prevented 
 a stranger from guessing that he was the poet who had ren- 
 dered the adamantine poetry of Dante into English with kin- 
 dred power ; Hood, so grave and sad and silent, that you 
 were astonished to recognize in him the outpourer of a thou- 
 sand wild fancies, the detecter of the inmost springs of pa- 
 thos, and the powerful vindicator of poverty and toil before 
 
286 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 the hearts of the prosperous ; the Reverend Edward Irving, 
 who, after fulfilling an old prophecy he made in Scotland to 
 Hazlitt that he would astonish and shake the world by his 
 preaching, sat humbly at the feet of Coleridge to listen to 
 wisdom, — are all gone ; the forms of others associated with 
 Lamb's circle by more accidental links (also dead) come 
 thronging on the memory from the mist of years — Alas ; 
 it is easier to count those that are left of the old familiar 
 faces ! 
 
 The story of the lives of Charles and Mary Lamb is now 
 told ; nothing more remains to be learned respecting it. The 
 known collateral branches of their stock are extinct, and 
 their upward pedigree lost in those humble tracks on which 
 the steps of Time leave so light an impress, that the dust of a 
 few years obliterates all trace, and affords no clue to search 
 collaterally for surviving relatives. The world has, there- 
 fore, all the materials for judging of them which can be pos- 
 sessed by those who, not remembering the delightful pecu- 
 liarities of their daily manners, can only form imperfect 
 ideas of what they were. Before bidding them a last adieu, 
 we may be permitted to linger a little longer to survey their 
 characters by the new and solemn lights which are now, for 
 the first time, fully cast upon them. 
 
 Except to the few who were acquainted with the tragical 
 occurrences of Lamb's early life, some of his peculiarities 
 seemed strange — to be forgiven, indeed, to the excellencies of 
 his nature, and the delicacy of his genius — but still, in them- 
 selves, as much to be wondered at as deplored. The sweet- 
 ness of his character, breathed through his writings, was felt 
 even by strangers ; but its heroic aspect vvas unguessed, 
 even by many of his friends. Let them now consider it, 
 and ask if the annals of self-sacrifice can show any thing in 
 human action and endurance, more lovely than its self-devo- 
 tion exhibits ! It was not merely that he saw (which his 
 
LAMB FULLY KNOWN. 287 
 
 elder brother cannot be blamed for not immediately perceiv- 
 ing) through the ensanguined cloud of misfortune which had 
 fallen upon his family, the unstained excellence of his 
 sister, whose madness had caused it ; that he was ready to 
 take her to his own home with reverential affection, and 
 cherish her through life ; that he gave up, for her sake, all 
 meaner and more selfish love, and all the hopes which youth 
 blends with the passion which disturbs and ennobles it ; not 
 even that he did all this cheerfully, and without pluming 
 himself upon his brotherly nobleness as a virtue, or seeking 
 to repay himself (as some uneasy martyrs do) by small in- 
 stalments of long repining, — but that he carried the spirit of 
 the hour in which he first knew and took his course, to his 
 last. So far from thinking that his sacrifice of youth and 
 love to his sister, gave him a license to follow his own ca- 
 price at the expense of her feelings, even in the lightest mat- 
 ters, he always wrote and spoke of her as his wiser self; 
 his generous benefactress, of whose protecting care he was 
 scarcely worthy. How his pen almost grew wanton in her 
 praise, even when she was a prisoner in the Asylum after 
 the fatal attack of lunacy, his letters of the time to Coleridge 
 show ; but that might have been a mere temporary exalta- 
 tion — the attendant fervor of a great exigency and a great 
 resolution. It was not so ; nine years afterwards (1805), in 
 a letter to Miss Wordsworth, he thus dilates on his sister's 
 excellencies, and exaggerates his own frailties : — 
 
 • " To say all that I know of her would be more than I 
 think anybody could believe or even understand ; and when 
 I hope to have her well again with me, it would be sinning 
 against her feelings to go about to praise her ; for I can con- 
 ceal nothing that I do from her. She is older, and wiser, and 
 better than I, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to 
 myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would 
 
288 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives 
 but for me ; and 1 know I have been wasting and teasing 
 her life for five years past incessantly with my cursed ways 
 of going on. But even in this upbraiding of myself, I am 
 offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me 
 for better, for worse ; and if the balance has been against 
 her hitherto, it ' was a noble trade.' *' 
 
 Let it also be remembered that this devotion of the entire 
 nature was not exercised merely in the consciousness of a 
 past tragedy ; but during the frequent recurrences of the 
 calamity which caused it, and the constant apprehension of 
 its terrors ; and this for a large portion of life, in poor lodg- 
 ings, where the brother and sister were, or fancied them- 
 selves, '^marked people;" where from an income incapable 
 of meeting the expense of the sorrow without sedulous pri- 
 vations, he contrived to hoard, not for holiday enjoyment, or 
 future solace, but to provide for expected distress. Of the 
 misery attendant on this anticipation, aggravated by jealous 
 fears lest some imprudence or error of his own should have 
 hastened the inevitable evil, we have a glimpse in the letter 
 to Miss Wordsworth above quoted, and which seems to have 
 been written in reply to one which that excellent lady had 
 addressed to Miss Lamb, and which had fallen into the bro- 
 ther's care during one of her sad absences. 
 
 " Your kind letter has not been thrown away, but poor 
 Mary, to whom it is addressed, cannot yet relish it. She 
 has been attacked by one of her severe illnesses, and is at 
 present from home. Last Monday week was the day she 
 left me ; and I hope I may "calculate upon having her again 
 in a month or little more. I am rather afraid late hours 
 have, in this case, contributed to her indisposition. But 
 when she begins to discover symptoms of approaching ill- 
 
LAMB FULLY KNOWN. 289 
 
 ness, it is not easy to say what is best to do. Being by our. 
 selves is bad, and going out is bad. I get so irritable and 
 wretched with fear, that I constantly hasten on the disorder. 
 You cannot conceive the misery of such a foresight. I am 
 sure that, for the week before she left me, I was little better 
 than light-headed. I now am calm, but sadly taken down 
 and flat. I have every reason to suppose that this illness, 
 like all her former ones, will be but temporary. But I can- 
 not always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me!" 
 
 The constant impendency of this giant sorrow saddened 
 to " the Lambs" even' their holidays; as the journey which 
 they both regarded as the relifif and charm of the year was 
 frequently followed by a seizure ; and, when they ventured 
 to take it, a strait-waistcoast, carefully packed by Miss Lamb 
 herself, was their constant companion. Sad experience, at 
 last, induced the abandonment of the annual excursion, and 
 Lamb was contented with walks in and near London, during 
 the interval of labor. Miss Lamb experienced, and full 
 well understood the premonitory symptoms of the attack, in 
 restlessness, low fever, and the inability to sleep ; and, as 
 gently as possible, prepared her brother for the duty he must 
 soon perform ; and thus, unless he could stave off the terri- 
 ble separation till Sunday, obliged him to ask leave of ab- 
 sence from the office as if for a day's pleasure — a bitter 
 mockery ! On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them, 
 slowly pacing together a little footpath in Hoxton fields, both 
 weeping bitterly, and found on joining them, that they were 
 taking their solemn way to the accustomed Asylum ! 
 
 Will any one, acquainted with these secret passages of 
 Lamb's history, wonder that, with a strong physical inclina- 
 tion for the stimulus and support of strong drinks — which 
 man is framed moderately to rejoice in — he should snatch 
 some wild pleasure " between the acts" (as he called them) 
 
 13 
 
290 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 " of his distressful drama," and that, still more, during the 
 loneliness of the solitude created by his sister's absences, he 
 should obtain the solace of an hour's feverish dream ? That, 
 notwithstanding that frailty, he performed the duties of his 
 hard lot with exemplary steadiness and discretion is indeed 
 wonderful — especially when it is recollected that he had 
 himself been visited, when in the dawn of manhood, with his 
 sister's malady, the seeds of which were doubtless in his 
 frame. While that natural predisposition may explain some 
 occasional flightiness of expression on serious matters, fruit 
 of some wayward fancy, which flitted through his brain, 
 without disturbing his constant reason or reaching his heart, 
 and some little extravagances of fitful mirth, how does it 
 heighten the moral courage by which the disease was con- 
 trolled and the severest duties performed ! Never surely 
 was there a more striking example of the power of a vir- 
 tuous, rather say, of a pious, wish to conquer the fiery sug- 
 gestions of latent insanity than that presented by Lamb's 
 history. Nervous, tremulous, as he seemed — so slight of 
 frame that he looked only fit for the most placid fortune — 
 when the dismal emergencies which checkered his life arose, 
 he acted with as much promptitude and vigor as if he had 
 never penned a stanza nor taken a glass too much, or was 
 strung with herculean sinews. None of those temptations, 
 in which misery is the most potent, to hazard a lavish expen- 
 diture for an enjoyment to be secured against fate and for- 
 tune, ever tempted him to exceed his income, when scantiest, 
 by a shilling. He had always a reserve for poor Mary's 
 periods of seclusion, and something in hand besides for a 
 friend in need ; — and on his retirement from the India House, 
 he had amassed, by annual savings, a sufficient sum (invest- 
 ed, after the prudent and classical taste of Lord Stowell, in 
 " the elegant simplichy of the Three per Cents.") to secure 
 comfort to Miss Lamb, when his- pension should cease with 
 
LAMB FULLY KNOWN. 291 
 
 him, even if the India Company, his great employers, had 
 not acted nobly by the memory of their inspired clerk — as 
 they did — and gave her the annuity to which a wife would 
 have been entitled — but of which he could not feel assured. 
 Living among literary men, some less distinguished and less 
 discreet than those whom we have mentioned, he was constantly 
 importuned to relieve distresses which an improvident specu- 
 lation in literature produced, and which the recklessness at- 
 tendant on the empty vanity of self-exaggerated talent ren- 
 ders desperate and merciless ; — and to the importunities of 
 such hopeless petitioners he gave too largely — though he 
 used sometimes express a painful sense that he was diminish- 
 ing his own store without conferring any real benefit. 
 " Heaven," he used to say, " does not owe me sixpence for 
 all I have given, or lent (as they call it) to such importunity ; 
 I only gave it because I could not bear to refuse it ; and 1 
 have done good by my weakness." On the other hand, he 
 used to seek out occasions of devoting a part of his surplus 
 to those of his friends whom he believed it would really 
 serve, and almost forced loans, or gifts in the disguise of 
 loans, upon them. If he thought one, in such a position, 
 would be the happier for 50/. or 100/., he would carefully 
 procure a note for the sum, and, perhaps, for days before he 
 might meet the object of his friendly purpose, keep the note 
 in his waistcoat pocket, burning in it to be produced, and, 
 when the occasion arrived — " in the sweet of the night" — he 
 would crumple it up in his hand and stammer out his diffi- 
 culty of disposing of a little money ; " I don't know what to 
 do with it — pray take it — pray use it — you will do me a kind- 
 ness if you will" — he would say ; and it was hard to diso- 
 blige him ! Let any one who has been induced to regard 
 Lamb as a poor, slight, excitable, and excited being, 
 consider that such acts as these were not infrequent — that he 
 exercised hospitality of a substantial kind, without stint, all 
 
292 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 his life — that he spared no expense for the comfort of his sis- 
 ter, there only lavish — and that he died leaving sufficient to 
 accomplish all his wishes for survivors — and think what the 
 sturdy quality of his goodness must have been amidst all the 
 heart-aches and head-aches of his life — and ask the virtue 
 which has been supported by strong nerves, whether it has 
 often produced any good to match it ? 
 
 The influence of the events now disclosed may be traced 
 in the development and direction of Lamb's faculties and 
 tastes, and in the wild contrasts of expression which some- 
 times startled strangers. The literary preferences disclosed 
 in his early letters, are often inclined to the superficial in 
 poetry and thought — the theology of Priestly, though em- 
 braced with pious earnestness — the " divine chit-chat" of 
 Cowper — the melodious sadness of Bowles; and his own 
 style, breathing a graceful and modest sweetness, is without 
 any decided character. But by the terrible realities of his 
 experience, he was turned to seek a kindred interest in the 
 "sterner stuff" of old tragedy — to catastrophes more fearful 
 even than his own — to the aspects of " pale passion" — to 
 shapes of heroic daring and more heroic suffering — to 
 the agonizing contests of opposing affections, and the victories 
 of the soul over calamity and death, which the old English 
 drama discloses, and in the contemplation of which he saw 
 his own suffering nature at once mirrored and exalted. 
 Thus, instead of admiring, as he once admired, Rowe and 
 Otway, even Massinger seemed too declamatory to satisfy 
 him ; in Ford, Decker, Marlowe, and Webster, he found the 
 most awful struggles of affection, and the " sad embroidery" 
 of fancy-streaked grief, and expressed his kindred feelings in 
 those little quintessences of criticism which are appended to 
 the noblest scenes in his " Specimens;" and, seeking amidst 
 the sunnier and more varied world of Shakspeare for the pro- 
 foundest and most earnest passion developed there, obtained 
 
LAMB FULLY KNOWN. 293 
 
 that marvelous insight into the soul of Lear which gives to 
 his presentment of its riches almost the character of creation. 
 On the other hand, it was congenial pastime with him to 
 I'evel in the opposite excellencies of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 who changed the domain of tragedy into fairy-land ; turned 
 all its terror and its sorrow " to favor and to prettiness ;" 
 shed the rainbow hues of sportive fancy with equal hand 
 among tyrants and victims, the devoted and the faithless, 
 suffering and joy ; represented the beauty of goodness as a 
 happy accident, vice as a wayward aberration, and invoked 
 the remorse of a moment to change them as with a harle- 
 quin's wand ; unrealized the terrible, and left " nothing 
 serious in mortality," but reduced the struggle of life to a 
 glittering and heroic game, to be played splendidly out, and 
 quitted without a sigh. But neither Lamb's own secret 
 griefs, nor the tastes which they nurtured, ever shook his 
 faith in the requisitions of duty, or induced him to dally with 
 that moral paradox to which near acquaintance with the 
 great errors of mighty natures is sometimes a temptation. 
 Never, either in writing or in speech, did he purposely con- 
 found good with evil. For the new theories of morals which 
 gleamed out in the conversation of some of his friends, he 
 had no sympathy ; and though, in his boundless indulgence 
 to the perversities and faults of those whom long familiarity 
 had endeared to him, he did not suffer their frailties to impair 
 his attachment to the individuals, he never palliated the frail- 
 ties themselves ; still less did he emblazon them as virtues. 
 
 No one, acquainted with Lamb's story, will wonder at 
 the eccentric wildness of his mirth — his violent changes from 
 the serious to the farcical — the sudden reliefs of the " heat- 
 oppressed brain," and heart weighed down by the sense of 
 ever-impending sorrow. Flis whim, however, almost always 
 bordered on wisdom. It was justly said of him by Hazlitt, 
 " his serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his 
 
294 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 best. No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, 
 eloquent things in half-a-dozen half sentences ; his jests scald 
 like tears, and he probes a question with a play on words." 
 
 Although Lamb's conversation vibrated between the in- 
 tense and the grotesque, his writings are replete with quiet 
 pictures of the humbler scenery of middle life, touched with 
 a graceful and loving hand. We may trace in them the 
 experience of a nature bred up in slender circumstances, 
 but imbued with a certain innate spirit of gentility, suggest- 
 ing a respect for all its moderate appliances and unambitious 
 pleasures. The same spirit pervaded all his own domestic 
 arrangements, so that the intensity of his affliction was 
 ameliorated by as much comfort as satisfaction in the out- 
 ward furniture of life can give to slender fortune. 
 
 The most important light, however, shed on Lamb's 
 intellectual life by a knowledge of his true history, is that 
 which elucidates the change from vivid religious impressions, 
 manifested in his earlier letters, to an apparent indifference 
 towards immortal interests and celestial relations, which he 
 confesses in a letter to Mr. "Walter Wilson.* The truth is, 
 not that he became an unbeliever, or even a skeptic, but that 
 the peculiar disasters in which he was plunged, and the ten- 
 dency of his nature to seek immediate solaces, induced an 
 habitual reluctance to look boldly out into futurity. That 
 conjugal love, which anticipates with far-looking eye pro- 
 longed existence in posterity, was denied to his self-sacrifice ; 
 irksome labor wearied out the heart of his days ; and over 
 his small household, Madness, like Death in the vision of 
 Milton, continually " shook its dart," and only, at the best, 
 " delayed to strike." Not daring to look onward, even for a 
 little month, he acquired the habitual sense of living 
 entirely in the present ; enjoying with tremulous zest the 
 
 * Page 96. 
 
LAMB FULLY KNOWN. 295 
 
 security of the moment, and making some genial, but 
 sad, amends for the want of all the perspective of life* 
 by cleaving, with fondness, to its nearest objects, and 
 becoming attached to them, even when least interesting in 
 themselves. 
 
 This perpetual grasping at transient relief from the minute 
 and vivid present, associated Lamb's affections intimately 
 and closely with the small details of daily existence ; these 
 became to him the " jutting frieze " and •' coigne of vantage " 
 in which his homebred fancy '• made its bed and procreant 
 cradle ;" these became imbued with his thoughts, and echoed 
 back to him old feelings and old loves, till his inmost soul 
 shivered at the prospect of being finally wrenched from 
 them. Enthralled thus in the prison of an earthly home, he 
 became perplexed and bewildered at the idea of an existence, 
 which, though holier and happier, would doubtless be entirely 
 different from that to which he was bound by so many deli- 
 cate films of custom. " Ah !" he would say, " we shall have 
 none of these little passages of this life hereafter — none of 
 our little quarrels and makings-up — no questionings about 
 sixpence at whist ;" and, thus repelled, he clung more 
 closely to " the bright minutes " which he strung " on the 
 thread of keen domestic anguish !" " It is this intense feel- 
 ing of the " nice regards of flesh and blood ;" this dwelling 
 in petty felicities ; which makes us, apart from religious 
 fears, unwilling to die. Small associations make death ter- 
 rible, because we know, that parting with this life, we part 
 from their company ; whereas great thoughts make death 
 less fearful, because we feel that they will be our companions 
 in all worlds, and link our future to our present being in all 
 ages. Such thoughts assuredly were not dead in a heart 
 like Lamb's ; they were only veiled by the nearer presences 
 of familiar objects, and sometimes, perhaps,, bursting in upon 
 him in all their majesty, produced those startling references 
 
296 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 to sacred things, in which, though not to be quoted with ap- 
 proval, there was no profaneness, but rather a wayward* 
 fitful, disturbed piety. If, indeed, when borne beyond the 
 present, he sought to linger in the past ; to detect among the 
 dust and cobwebs of antiquity, beauty which had lurked 
 there from old time, than to " rest and expatiate in a life to 
 come," no anti-christian sentiment spread its chillness over 
 his spirit. The shrinking into mortal life was but the weak- 
 ness of a nature which shed the sweetness of the religion of 
 its youth through the sorrows and the snatcHes of enjoyment 
 which crowded his after years, and only feebly perceived its 
 final glories, which, we may humbly hope, its immortal part 
 is now enjoying. 
 
 Shortly before his deaths Lamb had borrowed of Mr. Cary, 
 Phillips's " Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum," which, when 
 returned by Mr. Moxon, after the event, was found with the 
 leaf folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sydney. Its 
 receipt was acknowledged by the following lines: — 
 
 " So should it be, my gentle friend ; 
 Thy leaf last closed at Sydney's end. 
 Thou, too, like Sydney, wouldst have given 
 The water, thirsting and near heaven ; 
 Nay, were it wine, fill'd to the brim. 
 Thou hadst looked hard, hvti given, like him. 
 
 And art thou mingled then among 
 
 Those famous sons of ancient song ? 
 
 And do they gather round, and praise 
 
 Thy relish of their nobler lay« ? 
 
 Waxing in mirth to hear thee tell 
 
 With what strange mortals thou didst dweli ; 
 
 At thy quaint sallies more delighted. 
 
 Than any's long among them lighted \ 
 
 'Tis done ; and thou hast join'd a crew. 
 To whom thy soul was justly due ;, 
 
MARY LAMB. 297 
 
 And yet I think, where'er thou be. 
 They'll scarcely love thee more than we."* 
 
 Little could any one, observing Miss Lamb in the habitual 
 serenity of her demeanor, guess the calamity in which she 
 had partaken, or the malady which frightfully chequered 
 her life. From Mr. Lloyd, who, although saddened by im- 
 pending delusion, was always found accurate in his recollec- 
 tion of long past events and conversations, I learned that she 
 had described herself, on her recovery from the fatal attack, 
 as having experienced, while it was subsiding, such a con- 
 viction, that she was absolved in heaven from all taint of the 
 deed in which she had been the agent — such an assurance, 
 that it was a dispensation of Providence for good, though so 
 terrible — such a sense, that her mother knew her entire in- 
 nocence, and shed down blessings upon her, as though she 
 had seen the reconcilement in solemn vision — that she was 
 not sorely afflicted by the recollection. It was as if the old 
 Greek notion, of the necessity for the unconscious shedder 
 of blood, else polluted though guiltless, to pass through a re- 
 ligious purification, had, in her case, been happily accom- 
 plished ; so that, not only was she without remorse, but 
 without other sorrow than attends on the death of an infirm 
 parent in a good old age. She never shrank from alluding 
 to her mother, when any topic connected with her own youth 
 made such a reference, in ordinary respects, natural ; but 
 spoke of her as though no fearful remembrance was asso- 
 ciated with the image ; so that some of her most intimate 
 friends who knew of the disaster, believed that she had never 
 become aware of her own share in its horrors. It is still 
 
 * These lin*'s, characteristic both of the writer and the subject, are 
 copied from the Memoir of the translator of Dante, by his son, the Rev. 
 Henry Gary, which, enriched by many interesting memorials of contem- 
 poraries, presents as valuable a picture of rare ability and excellence as 
 ever was traced by the fine observation of filial love. 
 
298 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 more singular that, in the wanderings of her insanity, amidst 
 all the vast throngs of imagery she presented of her early 
 days, this picture never recurred, or, if ever, not associated 
 with shapes of terror. 
 
 Miss Lamb would have been remarkable for the sweet- 
 ness of her disposition, the clearness of her understanding, 
 and the gentle wisdom of all her acts and words, even if 
 these qualities had not been presented in marvelous contrast 
 with the distraction under which she suffered for weeks, lat- 
 terly for months, in every year. There was no tinge of in- 
 sanity discernible in her manner to the most observant eye ; 
 not even in those distressful periods when the premonitory 
 symptoms had apprised her of its approach, and she was 
 making preparations for seclusion. In all its essential sweet- 
 ness, her character was like her brother's ; while, by a 
 temper more placid, a spirit of enjoyment more serene, she 
 was enabled to guide, to counsel, to cheer him ; and to pro- 
 tect him on the verge of the mysterious calamity, from the 
 depths of which she rose so often unruffled to his side. To 
 a friend in any difficulty she was the most comfortable of ad- 
 visers, the wisest of consolers. Hazlitt used to say, that he 
 never met with a woman who could reason, and had met 
 with only one thoroughly reasonable — the sole exception 
 being Mary Lamb. She did not wish, however, to be made 
 an exception, to a general disparagement of her sex ; for in 
 all her thouglits and feelings she was most womanly — keep- 
 ing, under even undue subordination, to lier notion of a wo- 
 man's province, intellect of rare excellence, which flashed 
 out when the restraints of gentle habit and humble manner 
 were withdrawn by the terrible force of disease. Though 
 her conversation in sanity was never marked by smartness 
 or repartee ; seldom rising beyond that of a sensible quiet 
 gentlewoman appreciating and enjoying the talents of her 
 friends, it was otherwise in her madness. Lamb, in his letter 
 
MARY LAMB. 299 
 
 to a female friend, announcing his determination to be entirely 
 with her, speaks of her pouring out memories of all the 
 events and persons of her younger days ; — but he does not 
 mention, what I am able from repeated experiences to add, 
 that her ramblings often sparkled with brilliant description 
 and shattered beauty. She would fancy herself in the days 
 of Queen Anne or George the First ; and describe 'the bro- 
 caded dames and courtly manners, as though she had been 
 bred among them, in the best style of the old comedy. It 
 was all broken and disjointed, so that the hearer could re- 
 member little of her discourse ; i)ut the fragments were 
 like the jeweled speeches of Congreve, only shaken from 
 their setting. There was sometimes even a vain of crazy 
 logic running through them, associating things essentially most 
 dissimilar, but connecting them by a verbal association in 
 strange order. As a mere physical instance of deranged 
 intellect, her condition was, I believe, extraordinary ; it was 
 as if the finest elements of mind had been shaken into fan- 
 tastic combinations like those of a kaleidoscope ; — but not 
 for the purpose of exhibiting a curious phenomenon of mental 
 aberration are the aspects of her insanity unveiled, but to 
 illustrate the moral force of gentleness by which the facul- 
 ties that thus sparkled when restraining wisdom was with- 
 drawn, were subjected to its sway, in her periods of reason. 
 
 The follovvinfT letter from Miss Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, 
 on one of the chief external events of Lamb's history, the re- 
 moval from the Temple to Covent Garden, will illustrate the 
 cordial and womanly strain of her observation on the occur- 
 rences of daily life, and afford a good idea of her habitual 
 conversation among her friends. 
 
 My dear Miss Wordsworth, 
 
 Your kind letter has given us very great pleasure, 
 the sight of your handwriting was a most welcome surprise 
 
300 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 to US. We have heard good tidings of you by all our friends 
 who were so fortunate as to visit you this summer, and re- 
 joice to see it confirmed by yourself. You have quite the 
 advantage, in volunteering a letter ; there is no merit in re- 
 plying to so welcome a stranger. 
 
 We have left the Temple. I think you will be sorry to 
 hear this. I know I have never been so well satisfied with 
 thinking of you at Rydal Mount, as when 1 could connect the 
 idea of you with your own Grasmere Cottage. Our rooms 
 were dirty, and out of repair, and the inconveniences of living 
 in chambers became every year more irksome, and so, at 
 last, we mustered up resolution enough to leave the good old 
 place that so long had sheltered us, and here we are, living 
 at a brazier's shop. No. 20 in Russell Street, Covent Garden, 
 a place all alive with noise and bustle ; Drury Lane Theatre 
 in sight from our front, and Covent Garden from our back 
 windows. The hubbub of the carriages returning from the 
 play does not annoy me in the least ; strange that it does not, 
 for it is qufte tremendous. I quite enjoy looking out of the 
 window, and listening to the calling up of the carriages, and 
 the squabbles of the coachmen and linkboys. It is the oddest 
 scene to look down upon ; I am sure you would be amused 
 with it. It is well t am in a cheerful place, or I should have 
 many misgivings about leaving the Temple. I look forward 
 with great pleasure to the prospect of seeing my good friend, 
 Miss Hutchinson. I wish Rydal Mount, with all its inhabit- 
 ants inclosed, were to be transplanted with her, and to re- 
 main stationary in the midst of Covent Garden. 
 
 Charles has had all his Hogarths bound in a book ; they 
 were sent home yesterday; and now that I have them alto- 
 gether, and perceive the advantage of peeping close at them 
 through my spectacles, I am reconciled to the loss of them 
 
MARY LAMB. 301 
 
 hanging round the room, which has been a great mortifica- 
 tion to me — in vain I tried to console myself with looking at 
 our new chairs and carpets, for we have got new chairs, 
 and carpets covering all over our two sitting-rooms; I 
 missed my old friends, and could not be comforted — then 
 1 would resolve to learn to look out of the window, a habit 
 I never could attain in my life, and I have given it up as a 
 thing quite impracticable — yet when I was at Brighton, last 
 summer, the first week I never took my eyes off from the 
 sea, not even to look in a book : I had not seen the sea for 
 sixteen years. Mrs. M , who was with us, kept her lik- 
 ing, and continued her seat in the window till the very last, 
 while Charles and I played truants, and wandered among 
 the hills, which we magnified into little mountains, and almost 
 as good as Westmoreland scenery : certainly we made dis- 
 coveries of many pleasant walks, which few of the Brighton 
 visitors have ever dreamed of — for like as is the case in the 
 neighborhood of London, after the first two or three miles we 
 were sure to find ourselves in a perfect solitude. *I hope we 
 shall meet before the walking faculties of either of us fail ; 
 you say you can walk fifteen miles with ease, that is exactly 
 my stint, and more fatigues me ; four or five miles every 
 third or fourth day, keeping very quiet between, was all Mrs. 
 
 M could accomplish, 
 
 God bless you and yours. Love to all and each one. 
 I am ever yours most affectionately, 
 
 M. Lamb. 
 
 Of that deeper vein of sentiment in Mary Lamb, seldom 
 revealed, the following passages, from a letter to the same 
 lady, referring to the death of a brother of her beloved cor- 
 respondent, may be ofTered as a companion specimen. 
 
302 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 My dear Miss Wordsworth, 
 
 I thank you, my kind friend, for your most com- 
 fortable letter ; till I saw your own handwriting, I could not 
 persuade myself that I should do well to write to you, though 
 I have often attempted it; but I always left off, dissatisfied 
 with what I had written, and feeling that I was doing an 
 improper thing to intrude upon your sorrow. I wished to 
 tell you that you would one day feel the kind of peaceful 
 state of mind and sweet memory of the dead, which you so 
 happily describe, as now almost begun ; but I felt that it was 
 improper, and most grating to the feelings of the afflicted, to 
 say to ihem that the memory of their affection would in time 
 become a constant part, not only of their dream, but of their 
 most wakeful sense of happiness. That you would see every 
 object with, and through your lost brother, and that that 
 would at last become a real and everlasting source of com- 
 fort to you, I felt, and well knew, from my own experience 
 in sorrow ; but till you yourself began to feel this, I did not 
 dare tell you so ; but I send you some poor lines, which I 
 wrote under this conviction of mind, and before I heard Cole- 
 ridge was returning home. I will transcribe them now, be- 
 fore I finish my letter, lest a false shame prevent me then, 
 for I know they are much worse than they ought to be, writ- 
 ten, as they were, with strong feeling, and on such a subject, 
 every line seems to me to be borrowed, but I had no better 
 way of expressing my thoughts, and I never have the power 
 of altering or amending any thing I have once laid aside with 
 dissatisfaction. 
 
 Why is he wandering on the sea ? — 
 Coleridge should now with Wordsworth be. 
 By slow degrees he'd steal away 
 Their woe, and gently bring a ray 
 (So happily he'd time relief,) 
 Of comfort from their very grief. 
 
MARY LAMB. 303 
 
 He'd tell them that their brother dead. 
 When years have passed o'er their head. 
 Will be remembered with such holy. 
 True, and perfect melancholy, 
 That ever this lost brother John 
 Will be their heart's companion. 
 His voice they'll always hear, 
 
 His face they'll always see ; 
 There's nought in life so sweet 
 
 As such a memory. 
 
 The excellence of Mary Lamb's nature was happily de- 
 veloped in her portion of those books for children — " wisest, 
 virtuousest, discreetest, best," — which she wrote in conjunc- 
 tion with her brother, the " Poetry for Children," the " Tales 
 from Shakspeare," and " Mrs. Leicester's School." How 
 different from the stony nutriment provided for those delicate, 
 apprehensive, affectionate creatures, in the utilitarian books, 
 which starve their little hearts, and stuff their little heads 
 with shallow science, and impertinent facts, and selffsh mor- 
 als ! One verse, which she did not print — the conclusion of 
 a little poem supposed to be expressed in a letter by the son 
 of a family who, when expecting the return of its father from 
 sea, received news of his death, — recited by her to Mr. Martin 
 Burney, and retained in his fond recollection, may afford a 
 concluding example of the healthful wisdom of her lessons : — 
 
 " I can no longer feign to be 
 A thoughtless child in infancy ; 
 I tried to write like young Marie, 
 
 But I am James, her brother ; 
 And I can feel — but she's too young — 
 Yet blessings on her pftttling tongue, 
 
 She sweetly soothes my mother." 
 
 Contrary to Lamb's expectation, who feared (as also his 
 friends feared with him) the desolation of his own survivor- 
 ship, which the difference of age rendered probable, Miss 
 
304 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Lamb survived him for nearly eleven years. When he died, 
 she was mercifully in a state of partial estrangement, which, 
 while it did not wholly obscure her mind, deadened her feel- 
 ings, so that as she gradually regained her perfect senses, 
 she felt as gradually the full force of the blow, and was the 
 better able calmly to bear it. For awhile she declined the 
 importunities of her friends that she would leave Edmonton 
 for a residence nearer London, where they might more fre- 
 quently visit her. He was there, asleep in the old church- 
 yard, beneath the turf near which they had stood together, 
 and had selected for a resting-place ; to this spot she used, 
 when well, to stroll out mournfully in the evening, and to 
 this spot she would contrive to lead any friend who came in 
 the summer evenings to drink tea and went out with her 
 afterwards for a walk.* At length, as her illness became 
 more frequent, and her frame much weaker, she was induced 
 
 * The following Sonnet, by Mr. Moxon, written at this period of 
 tranquil sadness in Miss Lamb's life, so beautifully embodies the rever- 
 ential love with which the sleeping and the mourning were regarded by 
 one of their nearest friends, that I gratify myself by extracting it from 
 the charming little volume of his Sonnets, which it adorns: 
 
 Here sleeps, beneath this bank, where daisies grow, 
 
 The kindliest sprite earth holds within her breast ; 
 
 In such a spot I would this frame should rest, 
 When I to join my friend far hence shall go. 
 His only mate is now the minstrel lark. 
 
 Who chants her morning music o'er his bed. 
 Save she who comes each evening, ere the bark 
 
 Of watch-dog gathers (Jjowsy folds, to shed 
 A sister's tears. Kind Heaven, upon her head, • 
 
 Do thou in dove-like guise thy spirit pour, 
 And in her aged path some flowrets spread 
 
 Of earthly joy, should Time for her in store 
 Have weary days and nights, ere she shall greet 
 Him whom she longs in Paradise to meet. 
 
MARY LAMB. 305 
 
 to take up her abode under genial care, at a pleasant house 
 in St. John's Wood, where she was surrounded by the old 
 books and prints, and was frequently visited by her reduced 
 number of surviving friends. Repeated attacks of her mal- 
 ady weakened her mind, but she retained to the last her 
 sweetness of disposition unimpaired, and gently sunk into 
 death on the 20th May, 1847. 
 
 A few survivors of the old circle, now sadly thinned, at- 
 tended her remains to the spot in Edmonton church-yard, 
 where they were laid above those of her brother. With them 
 was one friend of latter days — but who had become to Lamb 
 as one of his oldest companions, and for whom Miss Lamb 
 cherished a strong regard — Mr. John Forster, the author of 
 " The Life of Goldsmith," in which Lamb would have re- 
 joiced, as written in a spirit congenial with his own. In ac- 
 cordance with Lamb's own feeling, so far as it could be ga- 
 thered from his expressions on a subject to which he did not 
 often, or willingly, refer, he had been interred in a deep 
 grave, simply dug, and wattled round, but without any af- 
 fectation of stone or brickwork to keep the human dust from 
 its kindred earth. So dry, however, is the soil of the quiet 
 church-yard that the excavated earth left perfect walls of stiff 
 clay, and permitted us just to catch a glimpse of the still un- 
 tarnished edges of the coffin in which all the mortal part of 
 one of the most delightful persons wlio ever lived was con- 
 tained, and on which the remains of her he had loved, with 
 love " passing the love of woman," were henceforth to rest ; 
 — the last glances we shall ever have even of that covering; 
 — concealed from us as we parted, by the coffin of the sister. 
 We felt, I believe after a moment's strange shuddering, 
 that the re-union was well accomplished ; and although the 
 true-hearted son of Admiral Burney, who had known and 
 loved the pair we quitted, from a child, and who had been 
 
 14 
 
306 
 
 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LaMB. 
 
 among the dearest objects of existence to him, refused to be 
 comforted, — even he will now join the scanty remnant of 
 their friends in the softened remembrance that " they were 
 lovely in their lives," and own with them the consolation of 
 adding, at last, " that in death they are not divided !" 
 
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