Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

originally). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no memory, when you come back. You cannot

write things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which I shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of actors and actresses. I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable to St. Paul's, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder, every morning at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger

saffron, for saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray, to avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heart-burn. Shave the upper lip. Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages (they are nothing but lies), only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy under. Above all, don't go to any sights of wild beasts. That has been your ruin. Accustom yourself to write familiar letters, on common subjects, to your friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think has not much taste for the fine arts. Is any about common things more. I supped last night with Rickman, and met a merry natural captain, who pleases himself vastly with once having made a pun at Otaheite in the O. language.* "Tis the same man who said Shakspeare he liked, because he was so much of the gentleman. Rickman is a man absolute in all numbers.' I think I may one day bring you acquainted, if you do not go to Tartary first; for you'll never come back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi! their stomachs are always craving. 'Tis terrible to be weighed out at fivepence a-pound. To sit at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland), not as a guest,

[blocks in formation]

"Not a sentence, not a syllable of Trismegistus, shall be lost through my neglect. I am his word-banker, his store-keeper of puns and syllogisms. You cannot conceive (and if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange joy which I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to give me a learned importance, which placed me above all who had not Parisian correspondents. Believe that I shall carefully husband every scrap, which will save you the trouble of

* Captain, afterwards Admiral Burney, who became one of the most constant attendants on Lamb's parties, and whose son, Martin, grew up in his strongest regard,

and received the honour of the dedication of the second volume of his works.

night-walk comparable to a walk from St. Paul's to Charing Cross, for lighting, and paving, crowds going and coming without respite, the rattle of coaches, and the cheerfulness of shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging ? are the women all painted, and the men all monkeys? or are there not a few that look like rational of both sexes? Are you and the first consul thick? All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure; but are to serve as memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordising recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a letter should be, crammed, and very funny. Every part of it pleased me, till you came to Paris, and your philosophical indolence, or indifference, stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! What the devil! are men nothing but word-trumpets? are men all tongue and ear? have these creatures, that you and I profess to know something about, no faces, gestures, gabble, no folly, no absurdity, no induction of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women, no similitude nor dissimilitude to English! Why! thou cursed Smellfungus! your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen, (I forget how you spell it, it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time,) was exactly in that minute style which Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a It appears to me, as if I should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the nearest pleasure, which a grown man can substitute for that unknown one, which he can never know, the pleasure of the first entrance into life from the womb. I dare

say, in a short time, my habits would come laughter in excess? or can a Frenchman back like a 'stronger man' armed, and drive laugh? Can they batter at your judicious out that new pleasure; and I should soon ribs till they shake, nothing loth to be so sicken for known objects. Nothing has shaken? This is John Bull's criterion, and transpired here that seems to me of sufficient it shall be mine. You are Frenchified. Both importance to send dry-shod over the water: your taste and morals are corrupt and perbut I suppose you will want to be told some verted. By-and-by you will come to assert, news. The best and the worst to me is, that that Buonaparte is as great a general as the I have given up two guineas a week at the old Duke of Cumberland, and deny that one 'Post,' and regained my health and spirits, Englishman can beat three Frenchmen. which were upon the wane. I grew sick, Read Henry the Fifth to restore your orthoand Stuart unsatisfied. Ludisti satis, tempus doxy. All things continue at a stay-still in abire est; I must cut closer, that's all. Mister London. I cannot repay your new novelties Fell, or as you, with your usual facetiousness with my stale reminiscences. Like the and drollery, call him Mr. F + 11 has stopped short in the middle of his play. Some friend has told him that it has not the least merit in it. O! that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in a libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis! That's all the A propos (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well? methinks, my thoughts fall naturally into it)C. L."

news.

TO MR. MANNING.

prodigal, I have spent my patrimony, and
feed upon the superannuated chaff and dry
husks of repentance; yet sometimes I re-
member with pleasure the hounds and horses,
which I kept in the days of my prodigality.
I find nothing new, nor anything that has so
much of the gloss and dazzle of novelty, as
may rebound in narrative, aud cast a reflec-
tive glimmer across the channel. Did I send
you an epitaph I scribbled upon a poor girl
who died at nineteen, a good girl, and a
pretty girl, and a clever girl, but strangely
neglected by all her friends and kin?

Under this cold marble stone
Sleep the sad remains of one

Who, when alive, by few or none

Was loved, as loved she might have been,
If she prosperous days had seen,
Or had thriving been, I ween.
Only this cold funeral stone
Tells she was beloved by one,
Who on the marble graves his moan.'

"Brief, and pretty, and tender, is it not? I send you this, being the only piece of poetry I have done, since the muses all went with T. M. to Paris. I have neither stuff in my brain, nor paper in my drawer, to write you a longer letter. Liquor, and company, and wicked tobacco, a'nights, have quite

"My dear Manning,-Although something of the latest, and after two months' waiting, your letter was highly gratifying. Some parts want a little explication; for example, 'the god-like face of the first consul.' What god does he most resemble, Mars, Bacchus, or Apollo or the god Serapis, who, flying (as Egyptian chronicles deliver) from the fury of the dog Anubis (the hieroglyph of an English mastiff), lighted upon Monomotapa (or the land of apes), by some thought to be Old France, and there set up a tyranny, &c. Our London prints of him represent him gloomy and sulky, like an angry Jupiter. I hear that he is very small, even less than me. I dispericraniated me, as one may say; but envy you your access to this great man, much more than your séances and conversaziones, which I have a shrewd suspicion must be something dull. What you assert concerning the actors of Paris, that they exceed our comedians, bad as ours are, is impossible. In one sense it may be true, that their fine gentlemen, in what is called genteel comedy, may possibly be more brisk and dégagé than Mr. Caulfield, or Mr. Whitfield; but have any of them the power to move

you, who spiritualise upon Champagne, may continue to write long long letters, and stuff 'em with amusement to the end. Too long they cannot be, any more than a codicil to a will, which leaves me sundry parks and manors not specified in the deed. But don't be two months before you write again.-These from merry old England, on the day of her valiant patron St. George.

"C. LAMB."

LETTERS TO

CHAPTER VIII.

[1804 to 1806.]

MANNING, WORDSWORTH, RICKMAN, AND HAZLITT." MR. H." WRITTEN,-ACCEPTED,-DAMNED.

THERE is no vestige of Lamb's correspondence in the year 1804, nor does he seem to have written for the press. This year, however, added to his list of friends-one in whose conversation he took great delight, until death severed them-William Hazlitt. This remarkable metaphysician and critic had then just completed his first work, the "Essay on the Principles of Human Action," but had not entirely given up his hope of excelling as a painter. After a professional tour through part of England, during which he satisfied his sitters better than himself, he remained some time at the house of his brother, then practising as a portrait painter with considerable success; and while endeavouring to procure a pub-woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, lisher for his work, painted a portrait of Lamb, of which an engraving is prefixed to the present volume.* It is one of the last of Hazlitt's efforts in an art which he afterwards illustrated with the most exquisite criticism which the knowledge and love of it could inspire.

What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has heard of me. I did not immediately recognise the donor; but one of Richard's cards, which had acciin a moment. Dick, you know, was always dentally fallen into the straw, detected him remarkable for flourishing. His card imports, that 'orders (to wit, for brawn) from any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly executed,' &c. At first, I thought of declining the present; but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched upon brawn. 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal (dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers, runaway gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender effusions of laxative

Among the vestiges of the early part of 1805, are the four following letters to Manning. If the hero of the next letter, Mr. Richard Hopkins, is living, I trust he will not repine at being ranked with those who

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

TO MR. MANNING.
"16, Mitre-court Buildings,
"Saturday, 24th Feb. 1805.
very unwell

“Dear Manning,—I have been
since I saw you. A sad depression of spirits,
a most unaccountable nervousness; from
which I have been partially relieved by an
odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the
swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by
industry and agility, has thrust himself into
the important situations (no sinecures, believe
me) of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius
College and the generous creature has con-
trived, with the greatest delicacy imaginable,
to send me a present of Cambridge brawn.
Edition, 1837.

leveret's ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been ordinary presents, the everyday courtesies of dish washers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common gullet-fancier that can properly esteem of it. It is like a picture of one of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As Wordsworth sings of a modest poet,

you must love him, ere to you he will seem worthy of your love;' so brawn, you must taste it ere to you it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept : those that will send out their tongue and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely court you, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's pictures (they call him Darveed), compared with the plain russet-coated wealth of a Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated above. reserved collegiate worth of brawn. Do me of a corporation dinner, compared with the

the favour to leave off the business which you may be at present upon, and go immeand make my most respectful compliments diately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his brawn is most excellent; and that I am moreover obliged to him for his innuendo

about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other way you may best like to show your gratitude to my friend. Richard Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary character. Adieu: I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where we will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a cheerful but moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life as Mr. R. Hopkins. Crisp, the barber, of St. Mary's, was just such another. I wonder he never sent me any little token, some chesnuts, or a puff, or two pound of hair: just to remember him by. Gifts are like nails. Præsens ut absens; that is, your present makes amends for your absence.

"Yours, C. LAMB."

TO MR. MANNING.

"Dear Archimedes,―Things have gone on badly with thy ungeometrical friend; but they are on the turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of convalescence, and will shortly resume the power of the keys, so I sha'n't be cheated of my tea and liquors. Wind in the west, which promotes tranquillity. Have leisure now to anticipate seeing thee again. Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming address. Had thought that vein had long since closed up. Find I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying mathematics, to restrain the fire of my genius, which G. D. recommends. Have frequent bleedings at the nose, which shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular; shave oftener, and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and gallantry.

"Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of peas with bacon, and stout. Will not refuse Nature, who has done such things for me!

"Nurse! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes.-What! the gentleman in spectacles? -Yes.

[blocks in formation]

TO MR. MANNING.

"Dear Manning,-I sent to Brown's immediately. Mr. Brown (or Pijou, as he is called by the moderns) denied the having received a letter from you. The one for you

he remembered receiving, and remitting to Leadenhall Street; whither I immediately posted (it being the middle of dinner), my teeth unpicked. There I learned that if you want a letter set right, you must apply at the first door on the left hand before one o'clock. I returned and picked my teeth. And this morning I made my application in form, and have seen the vagabond letter, which most likely accompanies this. If it does not, I will get Rickman to name it to the Speaker, who will not fail to lay the matter before Parliament the next sessions, when you may be sure to have all abuses in the Post Department rectified.

"N.B. There seems to be some informality epidemical. You direct yours to me in Mitre Court; my true address is Mitre Court Buildings. By the pleasantries of Fortune, who likes a joke or a double entendre as well as the best of us her children, there happens to be another Mr. Lamb (that there should be two!!) in Mitre Court.

[ocr errors]

'Farewell, and think upon it.

TO MR. MANNING.

C. L."

"Dear Manning,-Certainly you could not have called at all hours from two till ten, for we have been only out of an evening Monday and Tuesday in this week. But if you think you have, your thought shall go for the deed. We did pray for you on Wednesday night. Oysters unusually luscious-pearls of extraordinary magnitude found in them. I have made bracelets of them-given them in clusters to ladies. Last night we went out in despite, because you were not come at your hour.

"This night we shall be at home, so shall we certainly both Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Take your choice, mind I don't say of one: but choose which evening you will not, and come the other four. Doors open at five o'clock. Shells forced about nine. Every gentleman smokes or not as he pleases. C. L."

During the last five years, tobacco had been at once Lamb's solace and his bane. In the hope of resisting the temptation of late conviviality to which it ministered, he formed a resolution, the virtue of which can be but dimly guessed, to abandon its use, and embodied the floating fancies which had attended on his long wavering in one of the richest of his poems-"The Farewell to Tobacco." After many struggles he divorced himself from his genial enemy; and though he afterwards renewed acquaintance with milder dalliance, he ultimately abandoned it, and was guiltless of a pipe in his later years. The following letter, addressed while his sister was laid up with severe and protracted illness, will show his feelings at this time. Its affecting self-upbraidings refer to no greater failings than the social indulgences against which he was manfully struggling.

TO MISS WORDSWORTH.

"14th June, 1805. "My dear Miss Wordsworth,-I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all Mary's former ones, will be but temporary. But I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I should think wrong; so used am I to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all that I know of her would be more than I think anybody could believe or ever 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 conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older, and wiser, and better than me, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me; and I 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. I am stupid, and lose myself in what I write. I write rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) than

express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid.

"I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which poor Mary made upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an auction only one week before she left home. They are sweet lines and upon a sweet picture. But I send them only as the last memorial of her.

VIRGIN AND CHILD, L. DA VINCI.

'Maternal Lady with thy virgin-grace,
Heaven-born, thy Jesus seemeth sure,
And thou a virgin pure.

Lady most perfect, when thy angel face
Men look upon, they wish to be

A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.'

"You had her lines about the 'Lady Blanch.' You have not had some which she which I had hung up where that print of wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light and pretty.

'Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?
Come, fair and pretty, tell to me
Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be?
Thou pretty art and fair,

But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare.
No need for Blanch her history to tell,
Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well;
But when I look on thee, I only know,
There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago.'

"This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all. But my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. That you may go on gathering strength and peace is the next wish to Mary's recovery.

"I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will be well and able, there is another ability which you may guess at, which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little we have got beforehand. My best love, however, to you all; and to that most friendly creature, Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see or write to her.

"CHARLES LAMB."

« AnteriorContinuar »