"CHARLES LAMB." he held in high esteem, though Lamb cared her love: I, great good-liking. Bid us a nothing for forensic eloquence, and thought personal farewell before you see the Vatican. very little of eloquence of any kind; which, it must be confessed, when printed is the most vapid of all reading. What political interest could not excite, personal regard produced in favour of his new friend; and Lamb supplied several versified squibs and snatches of electioneering songs to grace Wilde's contests at Newark. With these slender avocations his life was dull, and only a sense of duty induced him to persist in absence from London. The following letter was written in acknowledgment of a parcel sent to Miss Lamb, comprising (what she had expressed a wish to have) a copper coal-scoop, and a pair of elastic spectacles, accompanied by a copy of "Pamela," which having been borrowed and supposed to be lost, had been replaced by another in Lamb's library. TO MR. H. C. ROBINSON. 66 'Enfield, Feb. 27th, 1829. “Dear R.,—Expectation was alert on the receipt of your strange-shaped present, while yet undisclosed from its fusc envelope. Some said, 'tis a viol da Gamba, others pronounced it a fiddle; I, myself, hoped it a liqueur case, pregnant with eau-de-vie and such odd nectar. When midwifed into daylight, the gossips were at a loss to pronounce upon its species. Most took it for a marrow-spoon, an applescoop, a banker's guinea-shovel; at length its true scope appeared, its drift, to save the back-bone of my sister stooping to scuttles. A philanthropic intent, borrowed, no doubt, from some of the Colliers. You save people's backs one way, and break 'em again by loads of obligation. The spectacles are delicate and Vulcanian. No lighter texture than their steel did the cuckoldy blacksmith frame to catch Mrs. Vulcan and the Captain in. For ungalled forehead, as for back unbursten, you have Mary's thanks. Marry, for my own peculium of obligation, 'twas supererogatory. A second part of Pamela was enough in conscience. Two Pamelas in a house are too much, without two Mr. B.'s to reward 'em. "Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends The following letter to his friend, who so prosperously combines conveyancing with poetry, is a fair sample of Lamb's elaborate and good-natured fictions. It is hardly necessary to say, that the reference to a coolness between him and two of his legal friends, is part of the fiction. TO MR. PROCTER. "Jan. 19th, 1829. "My dear Procter,—I am ashamed not to have taken the drift of your pleasant letter, which I find to have been pure invention. But jokes are not suspected in Boeotian Enfield. We are plain people, and our talk is of corn, and cattle, and Waltham markets. Besides, I was a little out of sorts when I received it. The fact is, I am involved in a case which has fretted me to death, and I have no reliance except on you to extricate me. I am sure you will give me your best legal advice, having no professional friend besides, but Robinson and Talfourd, with neither of whom, at present, I am on the best of terms. My brother's widow left a will, made during the lifetime of my brother, in which I am named sole executor, by which she bequeaths forty acres of arable property, which it seems she held under covert baron, unknown to my brother, to the heirs of the body of Elizabeth Dowden, her married daughter by a first husband, in fee simple, recoverable by fine; invested property, mind, for there is the difficulty; subject to leet and quit-rent; in short, worded in the most guarded terms, to shut out the property from Isaac Dowden, the husband. Intelligence has just come of the death of this person in India, where he made a will, entailing this property (which seemed entangled enough already) to the heirs of his body, that should not be born of his wife, for it seems by the law in India, natural children can recover. They have put the cause into Exchequer process here, removed by certiorari from the native courts; and the question is, whether I should, as executor, try the cause here, or again re-remove it to the Supreme Sessions at Bangalore, which I understand I can, or TO MR. PROCTER. plead a hearing before the Privy Council inserted in one of them. He thus complains here. As it involves all the little property of these grievances in a letter which he of Elizabeth Dowden, I am anxious to take wrote on the marriage of the daughter of a the fittest steps, and what may be least friend to a great theoretical chemist. expensive. For God's sake assist me, for the case is so embarrassed that it deprives me of sleep and appetite. M. Burney thinks there is a case like it in chap. 170, sec. 5, in 'Fearn's Contingent Remainders.' Pray read it over with him dispassionately, and let me have the result. The complexity lies in the questionable power of the husband to alienate in usum; enfeoffments whereof he was only collaterally seised, &c. "Jan. 22nd, 1829. "Rumour tells us that Miss ried. Who is ? Have I seen him at Montacutes? I hear he is a great chemist. I am sometimes chemical myself. A thought strikes me with horror. Pray heaven he may not have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon her,—young female subjects are so scarce. An't you glad about Burke's case! We may set off the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels. Hare, the Great Unhanged. "I had another favour to beg, which is the beggarliest of beggings. A few lines of verse for a young friend's album (six will be enough). M. Burney will tell you who she is I want 'em for. A girl of gold. Six lines "M. B. is richly worth your knowing. He -make 'em eight-signed Barry C is on the top scale of my friendship ladder, They need not be very good, as I chiefly want on which an angel or two is still climbing, 'em as a foil to mine. But I shall be seriously and some, alas! descending. Did you see a obliged by any refuse scrap. We are in the sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last? Curious last ages of the world, when St. Paul pro- construction! Elaborata facilitas! And now phesied that women should be 'headstrong, I'll tell. "Twas written for 'The Gem,' but lovers of their own wills, having albums.' I the editors declined it, on the plea that it fled hither to escape the albumean persecution, would shock all mothers; so they published and had not been in my new house twenty-The Widow' instead. I am born out of time. four hours, when the daughter of the next house came in with a friend's album to beg a contribution, and the following day inti mated she had one of her own. Two more have sprung up since. If I take the wings of the morning and fly unto the uttermost parts of the earth, there will albums be. New Holland has albums. But the age is to be complied with. M. B. will tell you the sort of girl I request the ten lines for. Somewhat of a pensive cast, what you admire. The lines may come before the law question, as that cannot be determined before Hilary Term, and I wish your deliberate judgment on that. The other may be flimsy and superficial. And if you have not burnt your returned letter, pray resend it me, as a monumental token of my stupidity." Lamb was as unfortunate in his communications with the annuals, as unhappy in the importunities of the fair owners of albums. His favourite pieces were omitted; and a piece not his, called "The Widow," was, by a license of friendship, which Lamb forgave, I have no conjecture about what the present world calls delicacy. I thought 'Rosamund Gray' was a pretty modest thing. Hessey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow into an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed, 'Hang the age, I will write for antiquity!" "Erratum in sonnet.-Last line but something, for tender, read tend. The Scotch do not know our law terms; but I find some remains of honest, plain, old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy-mouthed as to refuse my verses. Maybe 'tis their oatmeal. "Blackwood sent me 207. for the drama. Somebody cheated me out of it next day; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath, 'All tailors are cheats, and all men are tailors.' Then I was better. "C. L." The next contains Lamb's thanks for the verses he had begged for Miss Isola's album. They comprehended a compliment turning on the words Isola Bella. TO MR. PROCTER. "When Miss TO MR. PROCTER. "Jan. 29th, 1829. was at Enfield, which she was in summer-time, and owed her health to its sun and genial influences, she visited (with young lady-like impertinence) a poor man's cottage that had a pretty baby (O the yearning!), gave it fine caps and our two maids uproarious. 'O ma'am, who do you think Miss has been working a cap for?' 'A child,' answered Mary, in true Shandean female simplicity. 'It's the man's child as was taken up for sheepstealing.' Miss was staggered, and would have cut the connection, but by main force I made her go and take her leave of more, the Abactor or Abactor's wife (vide Ainsworth) would suppose she had heard something; and I have delicacy for a sheepstealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mutton-pie at the baker's (his first, last, and only hope of mutton-pie), which he never came to eat, and thence inferred his guilt. Per occasionem cujus, I framed the sonnet; observe its elaborate construction. I was four days about it. "The comings in of an incipient conveyancer are not adequate to the receipt of three twopenny post non-paids in a week. Therefore, after this, I condemn my stub to long and deep silence, or shall awaken it to write to lords. Lest those raptures in this honey-sweetmeats. On a day, broke into the parlour moon of my correspondence, which you avow for the gentle person of my Nuncio, after passing through certain natural grades, as Love, Love and Water, Love with the chill off, then subsiding to that point which the heroic suitor of his wedded dame, the noblespirited Lord Randolph in the play, declares to be the ambition of his passion, a reciprocation of complacent kindness,'-should her protégée. I thought, if she went no suddenly plum down (scarce staying to bait at the mid point of indifference, so hungry it is for distaste) to a loathing and blank aversion, to the rendering probable such counter expressions as this,-'Hang that infernal two-penny postman,' (words which make the not yet glutted inamorato 'lift up his hands and wonder who can use them.') While, then, you are not ruined, let me assure thee, O thou above the painter, and next only under Giraldus Cambrensis, the most immortal and worthy to be immortal Barry, thy most ingenious and golden cadences do take my fancy mightily. But tell me, and tell me truly, gentle swain, is that Isola Bella a true spot in geographical denomination, or a floating Delos in thy brain. Lurks that fair island in verity in the bosom of Lake Maggiore, or some other with less poetic name, which thou hast Cornwallized for the occasion. And what if Maggiore itself be but a coinage of adaptation? Of this, pray resolve me immediately, for my albumess will be catechised on this subject; and how can I prompt her? Lake Leman I know, and Lemon Lake (in a punch bowl) I have swum in, though those lymphs be long since dry. But Maggiore may be in the moon. Unsphinx this riddle for me, for my shelves have no gazetteer." The following letters contain a noble instance of Lamb's fine consideration, and exquisite feeling in morality. 'THE GIPSY'S MALISON. "Suck, baby, suck! mother's love grows by giving, Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting; Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living Kiss, baby, kiss! mother's lips shine by kisses, blessings; Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses clinging; Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses So sang a wither'd beldam energetical, And bann'd the ungiving door with lips prophetical.' "Barry, study that sonnet. It is curiously and perversely elaborate. "Tis a choking subject, and therefore the reader is directed to the structure of it. See you? and was this a fourteener to be rejected by a trumpery annual? forsooth, 'twould shock all mothers; and may all mothers, who would so be shocked, be hanged! as if mothers were such sort of logicians as to infer the future hanging of their child from the theoretical hangibility ledgment of a sonnet I sent him on the loss (or capacity of being hanged, if the judge of his brother. pleases) of every infant born with a neck on. Oh B. C. my whole heart is faint, and my whole head is sick (how is it?) at this cursed, canting, unmasculine age!" "It is too long to transcribe, but I hope to show it you some day, as I hope some time again to see you, when all of us are well. Only it ends thus, 'We were nearly of an age (he was the elder); he was the only person in the world in whose eyes I always There is a little Latin letter about the appeared young."" same time to the same friend. TO MR. PROCTER. "Feb. 2nd, 1829. What a lesson does the following read to us from one who, while condemned to unin"Facundissime Poeta ! quanquam istius-teresting industry, thought happiness conmodi epitheta oratoribus potiùs quam poetis sisted in an affluence of time! TO BERNARD BARTON. "Enfield Chase-side, Saturday, 25th July, A.D. 1829, 11 A.M. attinere facilè scio-tamen, facundissime! "Commoratur nobiscum jamdiu, in agro Enfeldiense, scilicet, leguleius futurus, illustrissimus Martinus Burneius, otium agens, negotia nominalia, et officinam clientum "There a fuller, plumper, juicier date vacuam, paululum fugiens. Orat, implorat te-nempe, Martinus-ut si (quòd Dii faciant) fortè fortunâ, absente ipso, advenerit tardus cliens, eum certiorem feceris literas hûc missas. Intelligisne? an Anglicè et barbarice ad te hominem perdoctum scribere oportet? C. AGNUS." per me "Si status de franco tenemento datur avo, et in eodem facto si mediate vel immediate datur hæredibus vel hæredibus corporis dicti avi, postrema hæc verba sunt Limitationis non Perquisitionis. "Dixi. CARLAGNULUS." never dropt from Idumean palm. Am I in the dative case now? if not, a fig for dates, which is more than a date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary specialities. Least of all, since the date of my superannuation. 'What have I with time to do? Slaves of desks, 'twas meant for you.' But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, the shops are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about An allusion to Rogers, worthy of both, anybody. The bodies I cared for are in occurs in a letter TO BERNARD BARTON. graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so long, and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our "June 3rd, 1829. adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas "Dear B. B.,-to get out of home themes, heavy unfeeling rain, and I had no where to have you seen Southey's 'Dialogues?' His go. Home have I none, and not a sympalake descriptions, and the account of his thising house to turn to in the great city. library at Keswick, are very fine. But he Never did the waters of heaven pour down needed not have called up the ghost of on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at More to hold the conversations with; which a sort of a friend's house, but it was large and might as well have passed between A. and straggling,-one of the individuals of my B., or Caius and Lucius. It is making too long knot of friends. card-players, pleasant free with a defunct Chancellor and Martyr. companions, that have tumbled to pieces, "I feel as if I had nothing farther to write into dust and other things; and I got home about. O! I forget the prettiest letter I on Thursday, convinced that I was better to ever read, that I have received from get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide 'Pleasures of Memory' Rogers, in acknow- like a sick cat in my corner. And to make old me more alone, our ill-tempered maid is gone, The cares of housekeeping pressed too who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece heavily on Miss Lamb, and her brother of furniture, a record of better days; the resolved to resign the dignity of a houseyoung thing that has succeeded her is good keeper for the independence of a lodger. A and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have couple of old dwellers in Enfield, hard by his no one here to talk over old matters with. cottage, had the good fortune to receive Scolding and quarrelling have something of them. Lamb refers to the change in the familiarity, and a community of interest; following letter, acknowledging the receipt they imply acquaintance; they are of re- of Wilson's "Life of De Foe," in which a sentment, which is of the family of dear- criticism from his pen was inserted, embodying the sentiments which he had expressed some years before. ness. TO MR. WALTER WILSON. “I can neither scold nor quarrel at this insignificant implement of household services; she is less than a cat, and just better than a deal dresser. What I can do, and do over-do, is to walk; but deadly long are the days, these "Enfield, 15th November, 1829. summer all-day days, with but a half hour's "My dear Wilson,—I have not opened a candle-light, and no fire-light. I do not packet of unknown contents for many years, write, tell your kind inquisitive Eliza, and that gave me so much pleasure as when I can hardly read. In the ensuing Blackwood disclosed your three volumes. I have given will be an old rejected farce of mine, which them a careful perusal, and they have taken may be new to you, if you see that same their degree of classical books upon my medley. "Tis cold work authorship, without shelves. De Foe was always my darling, but something to puff one into fashion. Could what darkness was I in as to far the larger you not write something on Quakerism, for part of his writings! I have now an epiQuakers to read, but nominally addressed to tome of them all. I think the way in which Non-Quakers, explaining your dogmas- you have done the 'Life' the most judicious waiting on the Spirit-by the analogy of you could have pitched upon. You have human calmness and patient waiting on the made him tell his own story, and your comjudgment? I scarcely know what I mean, ments are in keeping with the tale. Why, I but to make Non-Quakers reconciled to your never heard of such a work as 'the Review.' doctrines, by showing something like them Strange that in my stall-hunting days I in mere human operations; but I hardly never so much as lit upon an odd volume of understand myself, so let it pass for nothing. it. This circumstance looks as if they were I pity you for over-work, but, I assure you, never of any great circulation. But I may no work is worse. The mind preys on itself, have met with 'em, and not knowing the the most unwholesome food. I bragged prize, overpast 'em. I was almost a stranger formerly that I could not have too much to the whole history of Dissenters in those time. I have a surfeit. With few years to reigns, and picked my way through that come, the days are wearisome. But weari- strange book the 'Consolidator' at random. ness is not eternal. Something will shine out How affecting are some of his personal to take the load off that flags me, which is appeals: what a machine of projects he set at present intolerable. I have killed an hour on foot, and following writers have picked or two in this poor scrawl. I am a sanguinary his pocket of the patents! I do not undermurderer of time, and would kill him inch-stand whereabouts in Roxana he himself left meal just now. But the snake is vital. off. I always thought the complete-touristWell I shall write merrier anon. 'Tis the present copy of my countenance I send, and to complain is a little to alleviate. May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked world will let you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am! Health to Lucia, and to Anna, and kind remembrances. "Your forlorn C. L." sort of description of the town she passes through on her last embarkation miserably unseasonable, and out of place. I knew not they were spurious. Enlighten me as to where the apocryphal matter commences. I, by accident, can correct one A. D., ' Family Instructor,' vol. ii. 1718; you say his first volume had then reached the fourth edition; |