Kiss, baby, kiss! Mother's lips shine by kisses, So sang a wither'd Beldame energetical, And barr'd the ungiving door with lips prophetical. Mr. Talfourd gives the following description of Lamb's person: "Methinks I see him before me now, as he appeared then, and as he continued with scarcely any perceptible difference to me, during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and were closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that it seemed as if a breath would overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, was surmounted by a head of form and expression the most noble and sweet. His black hair curled crisping about an expanded forehead: his eyes, softly brown, twinkled with varying expression, though the prevalent feeling was sad. And the nose slightly curled and delicately carved at the nostril, with the lower outline of the face regularly oval, completed a head which was finely placed on the shoulders, and gave importance and even dignity to a diminutive and shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, catch its quivering sweetness, and fix it for ever in words? There are none, alas! to answer the vain desires of friendship. Deep thought striving with humour; the lines of suffering wreathed into cordial mirth, and a smile of painful sweetness, present an image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His personal appearance and manner are not unfitly characterised by what he himself says in one of his Letters to Manning of Braham,- a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.' He took my arm and we walked to the Temple; Lamb stammering out fine remarks as we walked, and when we reached his staircase, he detained me with an urgency which would not be denied, and we mounted to the top story, where an old petted servant, Becky, was ready to receive us. We were soon seated before a cheerful fire. Hot water and its better adjuncts were before us; and Lamb insisted on my sitting with him while he smoked one pipe,-for, alas! for poor human nature, he had resumed his acquaintance with his fair traitress. How often the pipe and glasses were replenished, I will not undertake to disclose: but I can never forget the conversation; though the first, it was more solemn and in higher mood than any I ever had with Lamb after, through the whole of our friendship. How it took such a turn between two strangers, one of them a lad of not quite twenty, I cannot tell, but so it happened. We discoursed then of life and death; and our anticipation of a world beyond the grave. Lamb spoke of these awful themes with the simplest piety, but expressed his own fond cleavings to life, to all well-known accustomed things, and a shivering (not shuddering) sense of that which is to come, which he so finely indicated in his New Year's Eve, years afterwards. "It was two o'clock before we parted, when Lamb gave me a hearty invitation to renew my visit at pleasure; but two or three months elapsed before I saw him again," &c. We have little or nothing that we can add of personal recollection, to what Mr. Talfourd has related of this somewhat eccentric, but most excellent person; but what we do know bears witness to the fidelity of the portrait which his accomplished biographer has drawn. The last time we saw Lamb, was at his residence of Colebrook Cottage in Islington; and, though we joined his society when the sun was hardly westering in his course, we did not leave it to return home till the morning star was fast descending, and the "grey dawn" was creeping over the dewy fields and airy heights of Pentonville. There was no one but his sister with us. Lamb was in good spirits, talked of his different friends,-of Coleridge's vast reading,-of Wordsworth,-of Southey, (whose hair, he triumphed to say, was grey, while his own retained its raven lustre)-spoke highly of Keats, and Barry Cornwall. In old poetry, Chapman's Homer detained us long; and Lamb was delighted to be informed, which he was for the first time, that there are two or three distinct translations of the old bard by this same venerable admirer. We offered to lend him one of the earlier translations. "No, no," he said, "I know you wont like the gap it will leave in your library." He liked Ambrose Phillips's delicate little verses. We talked of Milton's Samson Agonistes, when Miss Lamb's memory beat us both at a long distance. In prose, he appeared to know more or less of most of our great authors of Elizabeth and James's time. Fuller, Burton, Sir T. Browne, Feltham, were his favourites; and he was very fond of picking up the little duodecimo volumes of Evelyn; he mentioned his book on "Sallets" with delight. We forget whether we touched on Tom Coryat and the "Water Poet," but remember Randolph was not overlooked. Being asked how he knew his own books, one from the other, (the choice gleanings of many a studious walk at the book stalls in Barbican,) for scarcely any were lettered, and all were to a bibliophilist but a stray set of foundlings; "How does a shepherd know his sheep?" was the answer. At our departure he warned us of the neighbourhood of the New River (only a few feet apart from his door) and the fate of poor George Dyer. We called a few mornings after; Lamb was out, and we sate chatting with Miss Lamb for an hour. Miss Mitford had but just left, who came to consult them on some dramatic reading for a new play. Lamb was then reading the old dramatists at the Museum, and making extracts. His sister expressed her delight in his new employment, as occupying his time, and keeping him from his walks, which she seemed to think over long. Little did we think, that we were never again to enjoy the society of this truly amiable, simple, excellent, and most highly gifted pair. During the evening repast, Lamb sprinkled pretty copiously his puns on albums and other similar evils over the surface of the conversation; and this leads us to add one, on Coleridge's authority, which we do not see in Miss Beetham's collection. "Coleridge said,-Stammering is sometimes the cause of a pun. Some one was mentioning in Lamb's presence the cold-heartedness of the Duke of Cumberland, in restraining the Duchess from rushing up to the embrace of her son, whom she had not seen for a considerable time, and insisting on her receiving him in state. How horribly cold it was, said the narrator; yes, said Lamb, in his stuttering way, but you know he is the Duke of Cu-cum-ber-land." DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE. (Continued from p. 133.) 1813. Read Southey's Omniana. The idea that the state, with respect to different religious sects, like the eyes of a well-drawn portrait, should look on all alike, is very ingenious and happy.-A bull, Southey distinctively defines, "a mental juxta-position of incongruous ideas, with the sensation, but without the sense of connexion." The fancy (p. 117) that triumphant generals in Rome wore rouge to imitate blushes, is admirably facetious. He mentions that a Socinian wit termed original sin, "the crime of being born." The divisions of madness in the next article are far from being clear and distinct. It is stated that the hens which are hatched in Egypt by artificial heat will rarely sit upon their eggs, and on this account only fetch half price. Jan. 29. Pursued Omniana. Whenever Southey attempts to be animated and grand, he becomes inflated and obscure. Met Sir Richard Fletcher at dinner, who spoke in high terms of the Portuguese character-civil without servility but he represented the Spaniards as poisoned and perverted by pride and jealousy.* Finished Southey's Omniana. I cordially agree in the ridicule of West's Immortality of Nelson (p. 224). Tirante's presenting Carmesina for a picture of his mistress with a mirror, is a pretty idea. The figure of the hungry flesh-flies of biographers swarming about the lion, as soon as he expires, is apposite and forcible. Of toads he observes (p. 233), that many that were cased up at the Deluge in rocks, are likely to live till they are baked in their cells at the general conflagration. Feb. 3. Called at Colonel Dupui's. He mentioned an anecdote of the Princess Charlotte of Wales; she vowed she would not go to the Queen's drawing-room, or the Prince's fête, without her mother. Lords Hertford and Yarmouth went down to Windsor, but could make no impression; she would not listen to them. On this the Prince despatched the Chancellor. After some remonstrance and altercation, "Madam," said he, "if you were my daughter, I would lock you up." "My lord," said she, "do you compare the grand-daughter of a collier, to the heiress of the British empire?" Feb. 21. Began Crabbe's Tales. He is very solicitous,-much more so, I think, than the occasion requires,-to maintain, that the poet who paints from reality, from life and nature, and merely describes without any proper exercise of invention, is still entitled to that character. He might have consulted Twining's Aristotle on the subject with advantage. The effect of poetry, Crabbe observes, should be to lift the mind from the painful realities of real existence, by substituting objects which it may contemplate with interest and satisfaction; and this, he thinks, may be effected not only by mere description, but by a description of these very realities, provided they are not the very realities which happen actually to distress the readers. This is certainly fairly meeting the great objection to his poetry, but I am afraid it is only meeting it. Feb. 25. Finished Crabbe's Tales; most of them as tales are too meagre, even for the introduction of his natural and vivid colouring with effect. The 11th (Edward Shore) exhibiting the desperate end of genius misapplied, and the 14th, the Struggles of Conscience, please me the best, as being most in Crabbe's way, who evidently shines most in the terrible. In both he exhibits a masterly instance of hurrying over a part of the narrative on which he must not dwell, with instant dispatch, yet powerful indication of his meaning. Some passages in the 5th (the Patron) touched me-from particular circumstances-nearly. The physical misery of Merchant Paul in the 17th is absolutely agonising in the recital, and the moral sufferings of Sailor George in the 20th are little less so. Sympathy in both is pushed to pain. Crabbe has the art to give an air of truth and reality, and by this means additional force to his fictions, by making his worst characters endowed with some touches of right feeling. This is strikingly exemplified with respect to Brother Isaac in the 20th tale. Feb. 27. In the 15th volume of the Beauties of England and Wales, it "Mi lord Tirauley disoit, qu'après avoir oté a un Espagnol ce qu'il avoit de bon, ce qu'il en restoit étoit un Portugais. Il disoit cela étant Ambassadeur en Portugal."- -v. Œuv. de Chamfort, vol. ii. p. 234.—Es. GENT. MAG. VOL. IX. 30 is stated that William Walker of Darnall, who from many circumstances is supposed to have been the executioner of Charles the First, lies buried near the chancel entrance of Trinity Church, Sheffield. He did not die till 1700, and might, I should think, with safety have let out the secret. March 12. Walked to Whitton; then took a path to the left leading to the paper-mills, and pursued it till the light broke, presenting a most lovely prospect over the valley of the Gippin, of the heights beyond, circling round from Bramfield spire to Claydon church, the river serpentising most sweetly in the bottom. Read the 9th Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on India Affairs 1783, by Burke, in which he evinces astonishing plastic powers over a mass of most multifarious and intractable matter. His laboured diligence in collecting materials must have been immense, and can only be surpassed by the masterly ability with which he arranges and compounds them. Burke's charges against Hastings are so contrived as to carry with them their own evidence in a great measure, and they certainly appear to bring home with irresistible force a confessed and enormous delinquency. April 14. Read Horne Tooke's trial for a libel in 1777. He displays throughout a matchless sagacity and force of mind-reducing his judge Lord Mansfield, and even his prosecutor the Attorney General Thurlow, to comparative insignificance-but most perversely misapplied. Where this is not the case, when in his reply to Thurlow, who in praying for judgment virtually bespoke the pillory, the gentleman breaks out, his eloquent appeal the eloquence of nature and genius and fine feeling-absolutely withers and consumes. I am clear that judgment ought to have been arrested for the insufficiency, the incompleteness of the charge in the information, which no evidence on the trial, (as Mansfield endeavours to help it out by,) could legally supply. It appears, from an allusion, that Burke was present at the trial. H. Tooke, in his address to the jury, expressly mentions that where there is no assertion, there can be no truth or falsehood. Nothing reduces Johnson so much in my estimation as his dreading to meet Thurlow. April 18. Read Horsley's Speeches. His arguments on the Adultery Bill, in favour of prohibiting the seducer from marrying the seduced wife, appear to me quite conclusive. The close is most pathetic, and many of the turns in the course of it original and happy. There is a manly spirit about Horsley, impatient of being overborue, which commands our esteem. He maintains that papal tyranny arose out of the encroachment of metropolitans and patriarchs on the independent authority of bishops. In his last speech he pleads the abolition of the slave trade with surpassing eloquence. Many strokes in the course of it are very bold and fine-" We have reason to conclude (says he) from the mention made of slave-traders by St. Paul, that if any of them find their way to heaven, they must go thither in company with murderers, parricides, and sodomites;" and again, "to contend that uncultivated land justifies the continuance of the trade, is in effect to say, that the possession of a certain quantity of land in a barren state gives the owner a right to manure his soil with the carcasses of murdered Africans." The whole forms a noble finale to his parliamentary harangues. May 7. Read a pamphlet by a Mr. Blakeway,† full of weakness and This expression is inaccurate. Johnson, I think, said that when he expected to meet Thurlow, he always prepared himself first.-ED. The Rev. John Brickdale Blakeway, F.S.A, one of the authors of the excellent History of Shrewsbury.—EDIT, virulence; attempting, on the most ridiculous presumptions, and in defiance of the most decisive evidence, to establish H. Tooke as the author of Junius. H. Tooke told me he was unable to form a satisfactory conjecture on the author.-Read also Dr. Girdlestone's pamphlet on Junius, in which he endeavours to establish that General Lee was the author. It is an odd circumstance certainly that Lee should have represented himself as abroad, when he was actually in England, during the first blaze of Junius; and in the violence of their political animosities, though by no means on the precise objects, they perfectly agree. But Lee seems to have been a hot-headed, impetuous character, easily stirred to anger, and intemperate in the expression of his feelings; whereas Junius, though susceptible of the fiercest indignation, when vehemently moved, always retains the most perfect self-command, and in the very fury, tempest, and whirlwind of his passion" maintains a temperance which enables him to direct it with the deadliest effect. 66 May 30. Read, in Pinkerton's Collection, travels in Barbary, by Addison, the father of the celebrated writer, written in a strange, quaint, pedantical style, but not the less amusing on that account. June 5. Read Stephens's Life of H. Tooke. He is quite correct in representing Tooke as friendly to the Church, and hostile to Dissenters. I have often heard him express himself with much warmth to that effect. When I mentioned Evanson's doctrines to him, he said he had done with theological inquiries. He appears to have been very sanguine and ardent in his youth. I am sorry to find that Paley opposed his degree at Cambridge. Stephens affirms that Tooke told him he knew the author of Junius, and that he lately assured another gentleman that he was still living. S. considers that he completely foiled Junins. I think that he had the best of the argument, but far the worst of the battle. June 7. I am staggered by Tooke's peremptory declaration that he knew the author of Junius. He might have acquired his information since I talked with him on the subject, but it half excites a surmise, that he himself was the author, or connected with him. The acrimony and its objects would pretty well agree, Wilkes and himself excepted. The destruction of the remaining MS. of his epic, beginning with "belief," is most vexations. But I half suspect he found himself unable to satisfy the expectations he had excited. The Treatise on Moral Philosophy, in opposition to Paley's system, is another grievous loss, and I should like above measure to see his notes (the rod in pickle) on Professor Stewart's Stric tures. June 8. Went to the Tower Church, to hear the Bishop of Norwich's charge. The sermon, by Mr. H. Berners, on-" I wish thou wert either hot or cold,"-evidently, but skilfully and delicately, impugning, by anticipation, the Bishop's production. The charge itself conceived in the true spirit of Christian charity, and most impressively delivered, inculcating on every topic moderation and indulgence towards the opinions and feelings of others, delivered as if extemporaneous. The Bishop expressly declared it to be his mature judgment, that all civil disabilities on account of religious opinions were at once useless and injurious, and he concluded with stating that he had adopted early in life the sentiments, religious and political, of Bishop Hoadley; that subsequent reflectiou had confirmed the adoption, and that by these he was content to stand or fall, here and hereafter. June 9. Finished Stephens's Life of Tooke. After all, there is an ad |