something paternal. But whether in all "Yours, and yours most sincerely, CHAPTER XII. [1820 to 1823.] LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, FIELD, WILSON, AND BARTON. THE widening circle of Lamb's literary friends now embraced additional authors and actors, famous, or just bursting into fame. He welcomed in the author of the "Dramatic Scenes," who chose to appear in print as Barry Cornwall, a spirit most congenial with his own in its serious moods,-one whose genius he had assisted to impel towards its kindred models, the great dramatists of Elizabeth's time, and in whose success he received the first and best reward of the efforts he had made to inspire a taste for these old masters of humanity. Mr. Macready, who had just emancipated himself from the drudgery of representing the villains of tragedy, by his splendid performance of Richard, was introduced to him by his old friend Charles Lloyd, who had visited London for change of scene, under great depression of spirits. Lloyd owed a debt of gratitude to Macready which exemplified the true uses of the acted drama with a force which it would take many sermons of its stoutest opponents to reason away. A deep gloom had gradually overcast his mind, and threatened wholly to encircle it, when he was induced to look in at Covent-Garden Theatre and witness the performance of Rob Roy. The picture which he then beheld of the generous outlaw, the frank, gallant, noble bearing,-the air and movements, as of one "free of mountain solitudes," the touches of manly pathos and irresistible cordiality, delighted and melted him, won him from his painful introspections, and brought to him the unwonted relief of tears. He went home " a gayer and a wiser man ;" returned again to the theatre, whenever the healing enjoyments could be renewed there; and sought the acquaintance of the actor who had broken the melancholy spell in which he was enthralled, and had restored the pulses of his nature to their healthful beatings. The year 1820 gave Lamb an interest in Macready beyond that which he had derived from the introduction of Lloyd, arising from the power with which he animated the first production of one of his oldest friends-"Virginius." Knowles had been a friend and disciple of Hazlitt from a boy; and Lamb had liked and esteemed him as a hearty companion; but he had not guessed at the extraordinary dramatic power which lay ready for kindling in his brain, and still less at the delicacy of tact with which he had unveiled the sources of the most profound affections. Lamb had almost lost his taste for acted tragedy, as the sad realities of life had pressed more nearly on him; yet he made an exception in favour of the first and happiest part of "Virginius," those paternal scenes, which stand alone in the modern drama, and which Macready informed with the fulness of a father's affection. The establishment of the "London Magazine," under the auspices of Mr. John Scott, occasioned Lamb's introduction to the public by the name, under colour of which he acquired his most brilliant reputation— " Elia." The adoption of this signature was purely accidental. His first contribution to the magazine was a description of the Old South-Sea House, where Lamb had passed a few months' noviciate as a clerk, thirty years before, and of its inmates who had long passed away; and remembering the name of a gay, light-hearted foreigner, who fluttered there at that time, he subscribed his name to the essay. It was afterwards affixed to subsequent contributions; and Lamb used it until, in his "Last Essays of Elia," he bade it a sad farewell. The perpetual influx of visitors whom he could not repel; whom indeed he was always glad to welcome, but whose visits unstrung him, induced him to take lodgings at Dalston, to which he occasionally retired when he wished for repose. The deaths of some who were dear to him cast a melancholy tinge on his mind, as may be seen in the following: TO MR. WORDSWORTH. for a few years between the grave and the desk they are the same, save that at the "March 20th, 1822. latter you are the outside machine. The "My dear Wordsworth,-A letter from foul enchanter -, 'letters four do form his you is very grateful; I have not seen a name '-Busirare is his name in hell-that Kendal postmark so long! We are pretty has curtailed you of some domestic comforts, well, save colds and rheumatics, and a certain hath laid a heavier hand on me, not in deadness to everything, which I think I may present infliction, but in the taking away the date from poor John's loss, and another hope of enfranchisement. I dare not whisper accident or two at the same time, that has to myself a pension on this side of absolute made me almost bury myself at Dalston, incapacitation and infirmity, till years have where yet I see more faces than I could wish. sucked me dry;-Otium cum indignitate. I Deaths overset one, and put one out long had thought in a green old age (Oh green after the recent grief. Two or three have thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End, died within this last two twelvemonths, and emblematic name, how beautiful! in the so many parts of me have been numbed, Ware Road, there to have made up my One sees a picture, reads an anecdote, starts accounts with Heaven and the company, a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this toddling about between it and Cheshunt, person in preference to every other: the anon stretching, on some fine Isaac Walton person is gone whom it would have peculiarly morning, to Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless suited. It won't do for another. Every as a beggar; but walking, walking ever till departure destroys a class of sympathies. I fairly walked myself off my legs, dying There's Capt. Burney gone! What fun has whist now? what matters it what you lead, if you can no longer fancy him looking over you? One never hears anything, but the image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would care to share the intelligence—thus one distributes oneself about-and now for so many parts of me I have lost the market. Common natures do not suffice me. Good people, as they are called, won't serve. I want individuals. I am made up of queer points, and I want so many answering needles. The going away of friends does not make the remainder more precious. It takes so much from them as there was a common link. A. B. and C. make a party. A. dies. B. not only loses A.; but all A.'s part in C. C. loses A.'s part in B., and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of interchangeables. I express myself muddily, capite dolente. I have a dulling cold. My theory is to enjoy life, but my practice is against it. I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the air of four pent walls, without relief, day after day, all the golden hours of the day between ten and four, without ease or interposition. Tædet me harum quotidianarum formarum, these pestilential clerk-faces always in one's dish. Oh walking! The hope is gone. I sit like Jem White, in Elia's Essay, See the account of the meeting between Dodd and "C. L." "I had almost forgot to say, I think you thoroughly right about presentation copies. I should like to see you print a book I should grudge to purchase for its size. Hang me, but I would have it though!" honour him. I send you a frozen epistle, pardon me if I stop somewhere-where the but it is winter and dead time of the year fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher with me. May Heaven keep something like smack than the sensual rarity, there my spring and summer up with you, strengthen friends (or any good man) may command your eyes, and make mine a little lighter me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein to encounter with them, as I hope they shall am nearest to myself. Nay, I should think yet and again, before all are closed. it an affront, an undervaluing done to Nature "Yours, with every kind remembrance. who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of remorse was when a child-my kind old aunt had strained her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my way home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, -but thereabouts; a look-beggar, not a verbal petitionist; and in the coxcombry of taught-charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a little in all the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my old aunt's kindness crossed me; the sum it was to her; the pleasure she had a right to expect that I—not the old impostor-should take in eating her cake; the cursed ingratitude by which, under the colour of a Christian virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and took it to heart so grievously, that I think I never suffered the like—and I was right. It was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. The following letter, containing the germ of the well-known "Dissertation on Roast Pig," was addressed to Coleridge, who had received a pig as a present, and attributed it erroneously to Lamb. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose. "Dear C.,-It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out so well-they are interesting creatures at a certain agewhat a pity such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had all some of the crackling-and brain sauce-did you remember to rub it with butter, and gently dredge it a little, just before the crisis? Did the eyes come away kindly with no Edipean avulsion? Was the crackling the colour of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed complement of boiled neck of mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? Did you flesh maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form the remotest guess what part O- could play in the business. I never knew him give anything away in my life. He would not begin with strangers. I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow went round to Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things I could never think of sending "My dear F.,-I scribble hastily at office. away. Teals, wigeons, snipes, barn-door Frank wants my letter presently. 1 and fowl, ducks, geese-your tame villatic things sister are just returned from Paris!! We -Welsh mutton, collars of brawn, sturgeon, have eaten frogs. It has been such a treat! fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss You know our monotonous tenor. Frogs cheeses, French pies, early grapes, musca- are the nicest little delicate things-rabbitydines, I impart as freely unto my friends as flavoured. Imagine a Lilliputian rabbit ! to myself. They are but self-extended; but They fricassee them; but in my mind, drest, "Yours (short of pig) to command in everything. C. L." In the summer of 1822 Lamb and his sister visited Paris. The following is a hasty letter addressed to Field on his return. TO MR. BARRON FIELD. seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would "Our joint hearty remembrances to both have been the decision of Apicius. a glorious picturesque old city. looks mean and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after it. But they have no St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinbro' stone (0 the glorious antiques!) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about 401. English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows-a lovely picture, corresponding with the folio head. The bellows has old carved wings round it, and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I remember, not divided into rhyme-I found out the rhyme Whom have we here But the Prince of good fellows, At top O base and coward luck! To be here stuck.-POINS. At bottom Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd, Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind. PISTOL. "This is all in old carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling, sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as he was immeasurable. It may be a forgery. They laugh at me and tell me, Ireland is in Paris, and has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood may be imitated I cannot say. Ireland was not found out by his parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side the Channel could have painted any thing near like the face I saw. Again, would such a painter and forger have taken 407. for a thing, if authentic, worth 40007.? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming over with it, and, my life to Southey's Thalaba, it will gain universal faith. "The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with all kind things. Soon after Lamb's return from Paris he became acquainted with the poet of the Quakers, Bernard Barton, who, like himself, was engaged in the drudgery of figures. The pure and gentle tone of the poems of his new acquaintance was welcome to Lamb, who had more sympathy with the truth of nature in modest guise than in the affected fury of Lord Byron, or the dreamy extravagancies of Shelley. Lamb had written in "Elia" of the Society of Friends with the freedom of one, who, with great respect for the principles of the founders of their faith, had little in common with a sect who shunned the pleasures while they mingled in the business of the world; and a friendly expostulation on the part of Mr. Barton led to such cordial excuses as completely won the heart of the Quaker bard. Some expression which Lamb let fall at their meeting in London, from which Mr. Barton had supposed that Lamb objected to a Quaker's writing poetry as inconsistent with his creed, induced Mr. Barton to write to Lamb on his return to Woodbridge, who replied as follows: TO BERNARD BARTON. "India House, 11th Sept. 1822. "Dear Sir,-You have misapprehended me sadly, if you suppose that I meant to impute any inconsistency in your writing poetry with your religious profession. I do not remember what I said, but it was spoken sportively, I am sure-one of my levities, which you are not so used to as my older friends. I probably was thinking of the light in which your so indulging yourself would appear to Quakers, and put their objection in my own foolish mouth. I would eat my words (provided they should be written on not very coarse paper) rather than I would throw cold water upon your, and my once, harmless occupation. "I have read Napoleon and the rest with delight. I like them for what they are, and for what they are not. I have sickened on the modern rhodomontade and Byronism, and your plain Quakerish beauty has captivated me. It is all wholesome cates, ay, and toothsome too, and withal Quakerish. If I were George Fox, and George Fox licenser of the press, they should have my absolute it will satisfy the bigots on our side the imprimatur. I hope I have removed the impression. "I am, like you, a prisoner to the desk. I have been chained to that galley thirty years, a long shot. I have almost grown to the wood. If no imaginative poet, I am sure I am a figurative one. Do 'Friends' allow puns verbal equivocations ?-they are unjustly accused of it, and I did my little best in the 'Imperfect Sympathies' to vindicate them. I am very tired of clerking it, but have no remedy. Did you see a Sonnet to this purpose in the Examiner ?— 'Who first invented work, and bound the free Of business, in the green fields and the town, "I fancy the sentiment exprest above will be nearly your own. The expression of it probably would not so well suit with a follower of John Woolman. But I do not know whether diabolism is a part of your creed, or where, indeed, to find an exposition of your creed at all. In feelings and matters not dogmatical, I hope I am half a Quaker. Believe me, with great respect, yours, "C. LAMB." "I shall always be happy to see or hear from you." Encouraged by Lamb's kindness, Mr. Barton continued the correspondence, which became the most frequent in which Lamb had engaged for many years. The following letter is in acknowledgment of a publication of Mr. Barton's chiefly directed to oppose the theories and tastes of Lord Byron and his friends:: TO BERNARD BARTON. "East-India House, 9th Oct. 1822. water. Something like a parody on the song of Ariel would please them better:— 'Full fathom five the Atheist lies, Of his bones are hell-dice made.' 66 I want time, or fancy, to fill up the rest. I sincerely sympathise with you on your doleful confinement. Of time, health, and riches, the first in order is not last in excel lence. Riches are chiefly good, because they give us Time. What a weight of wearisome prison hours have I to look back and forward to, as quite cut out of life! and the sting of the thing is, that for six hours every day I have no business which I could not contract into two, if they would let me work taskwork. I shall be glad to hear that your grievance is mitigated. "I am returning a poor letter. I was formerly a great scribbler in that way, but my hand is out of order. If I said my head too, I should not be very much out, but I will tell no tales of myself; I will therefore end (after my best thanks, with a hope to see you again some time in London), begging you to accept this letteret for a letter-a leveret makes a better present than a grown hare, and short troubles (as the old excuse goes) are best. "I remain, dear sir, yours truly, The next letter will speak for itself. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Dec. 23rd, 1822. "Dear Sir, I have been so distracted with business and one thing or other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary purposes. Christmas, too, is come, which always puts a rattle into my morning skull. It is a visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with company. I hope you have some holidays at this period. I have one day-Christmas-day; alas! too few to commemorate the season. All work and no play dulls me. Company is not play, but many times hard work. To play, is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing Ito go about soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life to have outlived the good hours, the nine o'clock suppers, with a bright hour or two to clear up in after "Dear Sir, I am ashamed not sooner to have acknowledged your letter and poem. think the latter very temperate, very serious, and very seasonable. I do not think it will convert the club at Pisa, neither do I think |