wards. Now you cannot get tea before that life he was about to write. The renewal of hour, and then sit gaping, music-bothered the acquaintance was very pleasant to Lamb; perhaps, till half-past twelve brings up the who many years before used to take daily tray; and what you steal of convivial enjoy- walks with Wilson, and to call him "brother." ment after, is heavily paid for in the disquiet The following is Lamb's reply :of to-morrow's head.

"I am pleased with your liking 'John Woodvil,' and amused with your knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Baillie. What a world of fine territory between Land's End and Johnny Groat's have you missed traversing! I could almost envy you to have so much to read. I feel as if I had read all the books I want to read. Oh to forget Fielding, Steele, &c., and read 'em new!

TO MR. WALTER WILSON.

"E. I. H., 16th December, 1822. "Dear Wilson,-Lightning, I was going to call you. You must have thought me negligent in not answering your letter sooner. But I have a habit of never writing letters but at the office; 'tis so much time cribbed out of the Company; and I am but just got out of the thick of a tea-sale, in which most of the entry of notes, deposits, &c., usually falls to my share.

"Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up, cheap, Fox's Journal? There "I have nothing of De Foe's but two or are no Quaker circulating libraries? Elwood, three novels, and the 'Plague History.' I too, I must have. I rather grudge that can give you no information about him. As S―y has taken up the history of your a slight general character of what I remempeople: I am afraid he will put in some ber of them (for I have not looked into them levity. I am afraid I am not quite exempt latterly), I would say that in the appearance from that fault in certain magazine articles, of truth, in all the incidents and conversations where I have introduced mention of them. that occur in them, they exceed any works Were they to do again, I would reform them. of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect Why should not you write a poetical account illusion. The author never appears in these of your old worthies, deducing them from self-narratives (for so they ought to be Fox to Woolman? but I remember you did called, or rather auto-biographies), but the talk of something of that kind, as a counter-narrator chains us down to an implicit belief part to the Ecclesiastical Sketches.' But in everything he says. There is all the would not a poem be more consecutive than a string of sonnets? You have no martyrs quite to the fire, I think, among you; but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions. Think of it; it would be better than a series of sonnets on 'Eminent Bankers.' I like a hit at our way of life, though it does well for me, better than anything short of all one's time to one's self; for which alone I rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and pictures are good, and money to buy them therefore good, but to buy time! in other words, life!

minute detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot choose but believe them. It is like reading evidence given in a court of justice. So anxious the story-teller seems that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that when he has told us a matter-of-fact, or a motive, in a line or two farther down he repeats it, with his favourite figure of speech, 'I say,' so and so, though he had made it abundantly plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master or mistress, who wishes to impress something upon their memories, and has a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed, it is to such principally that he writes. His style is everywhere beautiful, but plain and homely. Robinson Crusoe is delightful to all ranks and classes, but it is easy to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly adapted to

weary way of duty than the poet whose brief dream of literary engrossment incited Lamb to make a generous amends to his ledger for all his unjust reproaches. The references to the booksellers have the colouring of fantastical exaggeration, by which he delighted to

making allowance for this mere play of fancy, how just is the following advice-how wholesome for every youth who hesitates whether he shall abandon the certain reward of plodding industry for the splendid miseries of authorship! *

It is singular that, some years before, Mr. Barton

had received similar advice from a very different poetand it may be interesting to compare the expressions of two men so different on the same subject, I subjoin it

Lord Byron. As the letter has never been published,

the lower conditions of readers; hence it is an especial favourite with seafaring men, poor boys, servant-maids, &c. His novels are capital kitchen-reading, while they are worthy, from their deep interest, to find a shelf in the libraries of the wealthiest, and the most learned. His passion for matter-of-give effect to the immediate feeling; but fact narrative sometimes betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents, which might happen to any man, and have no interest but the intense appearance of truth in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half or two-thirds of 'Colonel Jack' is of this description. The beginning of 'Colonel Jack' is the most affecting natural picture of a young thief that was ever drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding it again when he was in despair, and then being in equal distress at not knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature; and putting out of question the superior romantic interest of the latter, in my mind very much exceed Crusoe. 'Roxana' (first edition) is the next in interest, though he left out the best part of it in subsequent editions from a foolish hypercriticism of his friend Southerne. But 'Moll Flanders,' the Account of the Plague,' &c., are all of one family, and have the same stamp of character. Believe me, with friendly recollections, Brother (as I used to call you),

How bitterly Lamb felt his East-India bondage, has abundantly appeared from his letters during many years. Yet there never was wanting a secret consciousness of the benefits which it ensured for him, the precious independence which he won by his hours of toil, and the freedom of his mind, to work only "at its own sweet will," which his confinement to the desk obtained. This sense of the blessings which a fixed income, derived from ascertained duties, confers, was nobly expressed in reference to a casual fancy in one of the letters of his fellow in clerkly as well as in poetical labours, Bernard Barton-a fancy as alien to the habitual thoughts of his friend, as to his own--for no one has pursued a steadier course on the

here:

"TO BERNARD BARTON, ESQ.

"St. James' Street, June 1, 1812. "Sir,-The most satisfactory answer to the concluding part of your letter is, that Mr. Murray will republish your volume, if you still retain your inclination for the weeks ago my friend Mr. Rogers showed me some of the stanzas in MS., and I then expressed my opinion of their merit, which a further perusal of the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke. I mention this, as it may not be disagreeable to you to learn, that I entertained a very favourable opinion of your powers before I was aware that such sentiments were reciprocal. waving your obliging expressions as to my own productions, for which I thank you very sincerely, and assure approbation is valuable; will you allow me to talk to you that I think not lightly of the praise of one whose you candidly, not critically, on the subject of yours? pointed out to the publisher the propriety of complying You will not suspect me of a wish to discourage, since I with your wishes. I think more highly of your poetical talents than it would perhaps gratify you to hear expressed, for I believe, from what I observe of your mind, that you are above flattery. To come to the point, you deserve success; but we knew before Addison wrote his Cato, that desert does not always command it. But suppose it attained,

experiment, which I trust will be successful. Some

'You know what ills the author's life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.' Do not renounce writing, but never trust entirely to authorship. If you have a profession, retain it; it will Compare Mr. Rogers with other authors of the day; be like Prior's fellowship, a last and sure resource. assuredly he is among the first of living poets, but is it to that he owes his station in society, and his intimacy in the best circles ?-no, it is to his prudence and respectability. The world (a bad one, I own) courts him because he has no occasion to court it. He is a poet, nor sorry to hear that you were not tempted by the vicinity is he less so because he is something more. I am not of Capel Lofft, Esq.,-though, if he had done for you what he has for the Bloomfields, I should never have laughed at his rage for patronising. But a truly well

constituted mind will ever be independent. That you may be so is my sincere wish; and if others think as well of your poetry as I do, you will have no cause to complain of your readers. Believe me,

"Your obliged and obedient servant,

"BYRON."

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"January 9th, 1823. "Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support, beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you !!!'

"Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks and Tartars, when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's length from them. Come not within their grasp. I have known many authors want for bread, some repining, others envying the blessed security of a counting-house, all agreeing they had rather have been tailors, weavers-what not? rather than the things they were. I have known some starved, some to go mad, one dear friend literally dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest set these booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) has made a fortune by book-drudgery, what he has found them. Oh, you know not, may you never know! the miseries of subsisting by authorship. 'Tis a pretty appendage to a situation like yours or mine; but a slavery, worse than all slavery, to be a bookseller's dependant, to drudge your brains for pots of ale, and breasts of mutton, to change your free thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungracious task-work. Those fellows hate us. The reason I take to be, that contrary to other trades, in which the master gets all the credit, (a jeweller or silversmith for instance,) and the journeyman, who really does the fine work, is in the back-ground: in our work the world gives all the credit to us, whom they consider as their journeymen, and therefore do they hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of us out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches! I contend that a bookseller has a relative honesty towards authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world.

"Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public; you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy personage cares. I bless

every star, that Providence, not seeing good
to make me independent, has seen it next
good to settle me upon the stable foundation
of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the
banking-office; what! is there not from six
to eleven P.M. six days in the week, and is
there not all Sunday? Fie, what a super-
fluity of man's-time, if you could think so!
Enough for relaxation, mirth, converse,
poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. Oh
the corroding, torturing, tormenting thoughts,
that disturb the brain of the unlucky wight,
who must draw upon it for daily sustenance!
Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints
of mercantile employment; look upon them
as lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest.
Welcome dead timber of a desk, that makes
me live. A little grumbling is a wholesome
medicine for the spleen, but in my inner
heart do I approve and embrace this our
close, but unharassing way of life. I am
quite serious. If you can send me Fox, I
will not keep it six weeks, and will return it,
with warm thanks to yourself and friend,
without blot or dog's-ear. You will much
oblige me by this kindness.
"Yours truly,

C. LAMB."

Lamb thus communicated to Mr. Barton his prosecution of his researches into Primitive Quakerism.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"February 17th, 1823. "My dear Sir,-I have read quite through the ponderous folio of George Fox. I think Sewell has been judicious in omitting certain parts, as for instance where G. F. has revealed to him the natures of all the creatures in their names, as Adam had. He luckily turns aside from that compendious study of natural history, which might have superseded Buffon, to his proper spiritual pursuits, only just hinting what a philosopher he might have been. The ominous passage is near the beginning of the book. It is clear he means a physical knowledge, without trope or figure. Also, pretences to miraculous healing, and the like, are more frequent than I should have suspected from the epitome in Sewell. He is nevertheless a great spiritual man, and I feel very much obliged by your procuring me the loan of it. How I like the Quaker phrases, though I think they were hardly

completed till Woolman. A pretty little other, without paying anything,* had excited

6

manual of Quaker language (with an endeavour to explain them) might be gathered out of his book. Could not you do it? I have read through G. F. without finding any explanation of the term first volume in the title-page. It takes in all, both his life and his death. Are there more last words of him? Pray how may I return it to Mr. Shewell at Ipswich? I fear to send such a treasure by a stage-coach; not that I am afraid of the coachman or the guard reading it; but it might be lost. Can you put me in a way of sending it in safety? The kindhearted owner trusted it to me for six months; I think I was about as many days in getting through it, and I do not think that I skipt a word of it. I have quoted G. F. in my 'Quakers' Meeting,' as having said he was 'lifted up in spirit,' (which I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase,) and the judge and jury were as dead men under his feet.' I find no such words in his journal, and I did not get them from Sewell, and the latter sentence I am sure I did not mean to invent: I must have put some other Quaker's words into his mouth. Is it a fatality in me, that everything I touch turns into 'a lie?' I once quoted two lines from a translation of Dante, which Hazlitt very greatly admired, and quoted in a book as proof of the stupendous power of that poet, but no such lines are to be found in the translation, which has been searched for the purpose. I must have dreamed them, for I am quite certain I did not forge them knowingly. What a misfortune to have a lying memory! Your description of Mr. Mitford's place makes me long for a pippin and some caraways, and a cup of sack in his orchard, when the sweets of the night come in.

"Farewell.

"C. LAMB."

some gentle remonstrance on the part of Barton's sister, to which Lamb thus replied.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"March 11th, 1823.

"Dear Sir,-The approbation of my little book by your sister is very pleasing to me. The Quaker incident did not happen to me, but to Carlisle the surgeon, from whose mouth I have twice heard it, at an interval of ten or twelve years, with little or no variation, and have given it as exactly as I could remember it. The gloss which your sister or you have put upon it, does not strike me as correct. Carlisle drew no inference from it against the honesty of the Quakers, but only in favour of their surpassing coolness; that they should be capable of committing a good joke, with an utter insensibility to its being any jest at all. I have reason to believe in the truth of it, because, as I have said, I heard him repeat it without variation at such an interval. The story loses sadly in print, for Carlisle is the best story-teller I ever heard. The idea of the discovery of roasting pigs I also borrowed, from my friend Manning, and am willing to confess both my plagiarisms. Should fate ever so order it that you shall ever be in town with your sister, mine bids me say, that she shall have great pleasure in being introduced to her. Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight into the natures of animals must fail, as I shall transcribe the passage. It appears to me that he stopt short in time, and was on the brink of falling with his friend Naylor, my favourite. The book shall be forthcoming whenever your friend can make convenient to call for it.

"They have dragged me again into the Magazine, but I feel the spirit of the thing in my own mind quite gone. 'Some brains (I think Ben Jonson says it) will endure but one skimming.' We are about to have an inundation of poetry from the LakesWordsworth and Southey are coming up strong from the north. How did you like Hartley's sonnets? The first, at least, is vastly fine. I am ashamed of the shabby letters I send, but I am by nature anything but neat. Therein my mother bore me no Quaker. I never could seal a letter without

In the beginning of the year 1823, the Essays of Elia," collected in a volume, were published by Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, who had become the proprietors of the "London Magazine." The book met with a rapid sale, while the magazine in which its contents had appeared, declined. The anecdote of the three Quakers gravely walking out of the inn where they had taken tea on the road, on an extortionate demand, one after the • See "Imperfect Sympathies."-Essays of Elia, p. 74.

Lamb thus records a meeting with the and 400 more pages of the 'Doctrinals,' poets.