Chapter XXXV: Part II: , were published in 1697. The passage quoted is from that "On (2)

Page 220, line 15 from foot. "_Pretty Bessy._" In the old ballad "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green," Bessie was the daughter of Henry, son of Simon de Montfort.

Page 220, line 6 from foot. _Society for the Suppression of Mendicity._ Lamb returned to the attack upon this body in his _Elia_ essay "On the Decay of Beggars," in 1822.

It has recently come to light that Charles Lamb proposed marriage to Miss Kelly on July 20, 1819, and was refused; and this proposal is so intimately associated with two of the _Examiner_ articles that I place the story of it here.

On July 4th appeared Lamb's article on "The Jovial Crew" with Miss Kelly as Rachel. To read this article in ignorance of the critic's innermost feelings for the actress is to experience no more than the customary intellectual titillation that is imparted by a piece of rich appreciation from such a pen; but to read it knowing what was in his mind at the time is a totally different thing. What before was mere inspired dramatic criticism becomes a revelation charged with human interest. Read again the passage from "But the _Princess of Mumpers_, and _Lady Paramount_, of beggarly counterfeit accents, was _she_ that played _Rachel_," down to "'What a lass that were,' said a stranger who sate beside us, speaking of Miss Kelly in _Rachel_, 'to go a gypseying through the world with.'" Knowing what we do of Charles Lamb's little ways, we can be in no doubt as to the identity of the stranger who was fabled to have sate beside him.

Miss Kelly would of course read the criticism, and being a woman, and a woman of genius, would probably be not wholly unaware of the significance of a portion of it; and therefore perhaps she was not wholly unprepared for Lamb's letter of proposal, which he wrote a fortnight later.

"20 July, 1819.

"DEAR MISS KELLY,--We had the pleasure, _pain_ I might better call
it, of seeing you last night in the new Play. It was a most
consummate piece of Acting, but what a task for you to undergo! at
a time when your heart is sore from real sorrow! it has given rise
to a train of thinking, which I cannot suppress.

"Would to God you were released from this way of life; that you
could bring your mind to consent to take your lot with us, and
throw off for ever the whole burden of your Profession. I neither
expect or wish you to take notice of this which I am writing, in
your present over occupied & hurried state.--But to think of it at
your leisure. I have quite income enough, if that were all, to
justify for me making such a proposal, with what I may call even a
handsome provision for my survivor. What you possess of your own
would naturally be appropriated to those, for whose sakes chiefly
you have made so many hard sacrifices. I am not so foolish as not
to know that I am a most unworthy match for such a one as you, but
you have for years been a principal object in my mind. In many a
sweet assumed character I have learned to love you, but simply as
F. M. Kelly I love you better than them all. Can you quit these
shadows of existence, & come & be a reality to us? can you leave
off harrassing yourself to please a thankless multitude, who know
nothing of you, & begin at last to live to yourself & your friends?

"As plainly & frankly as I have seen you give or refuse assent in
some feigned scene, so frankly do me the justice to answer me. It
is impossible I should feel injured or aggrieved by your telling me
at once, that the proposal does not suit you. It is impossible that
I should ever think of molesting you with idle importunity and
persecution after your mind once firmly spoken--but happier, far
happier, could I have leave to hope a time might come, when our
friends might be your friends; our interests yours; our
book-knowledge, if in that inconsiderable particular we have any
little advantage, might impart something to you, which you would
every day have it in your power ten thousand fold to repay by the
added cheerfulness and joy which you could not fail to bring as a
dowry into whatever family should have the honor and happiness of
receiving _you_, the most welcome accession that could be made to
it.

"In haste, but with entire respect & deepest affection, I subscribe
myself

C. LAMB."

This was Miss Kelly's reply to Lamb's letter, returned by hand--the way, I imagine, in which his proposal had reached her:--

"Henrietta Street, July 20th, 1819.

"An early & deeply rooted attachment has fixed my heart on one from
whom no worldly prospect can well induce me to withdraw it, but
while I thus _frankly_ & decidedly decline your proposal, believe
me, I am not insensible to the high honour which the preference of
such a mind as yours confers upon me--let me, however, hope that
all thought upon this subject will end with this letter, & that you
will henceforth encourage no other sentiment towards me than esteem
in my private character and a continuance of that approbation of my
humble talents which you have already expressed so much & so often
to my advantage and gratification.

"Believe me I feel proud to acknowledge myself
"Your obliged friend
"F. M. KELLY."

Lamb also replied at once, and his little romance was over, July 20th, 1819, seeing the whole drama played.

"July 20th, 1819.

"DEAR MISS KELLY,--_Your injunctions shall be obeyed to a tittle._
I feel myself in a lackadaisacal no-how-ish kind of a humour. I
believe it is the rain, or something. I had thought to have written
seriously, but I fancy I succeed best in epistles of mere fun; puns
& _that_ nonsense. You will be good friends with us, will you not?
let what has past 'break no bones' between us. You will not refuse
us them next time we send for them?[68]

"Yours very truly,

"C. L.

"Do you observe the delicacy of not signing my full name? N.B. Do
not paste that last letter of mine into your Book."

[68] By "bones" Lamb here means also the little ivory discs which
were given by the management to friends, entitling them to free
admission to the theatre.

I have said that the drama was played to the end on July 20th; but it had a little epilogue. In _The Examiner_ for August 1st Lamb wrote of the Lyceum again. The play was "The Hypocrite," and this is how he spoke of Miss Kelly: "She is in truth not framed to tease or torment even in jest, but to utter a hearty _Yes_ or _No_; to yield or refuse assent with a noble sincerity. We have not the pleasure of being acquainted with her, but we have been told that she carries the same cordial manners into private life."

That Lamb's wishes with regard to the old footing were realised we may feel sure, for she continued to visit her friends, both in London and at Enfield, and in later years was taught Latin by Mary Lamb. Miss Kelly died unmarried at the age of ninety-two; Charles Lamb died unmarried at the age of fifty-nine.

Page 221. IV.--ISAAC BICKERSTAFF'S "HYPOCRITE."

_Examiner_, August 1 and 2, 1819. Signed ****. This play was produced, in its operatic form, at the English Opera House on July 27, 1819. It was announced as from "Tartuffe," by Molière, with alterations by Cibber, Bickerstaff and others. The music was arranged by Mr. Jolly. Miss Kelly played Charlotte.

Page 221, line 4. _Dowton in Dr. Cantwell._ For Dowton see note to "The New Acting," page 465. Dr. Cantwell was the chief character in "The Hypocrite."

Page 221, line 5. _Mr. Arnold._ Samuel James Arnold (1774-1852), dramatist and manager of the Lyceum. Lamb's friend, William Ayrton, married Arnold's sister.

Page 221, line 6. _Mathews._ The great Charles Mathews (1776-1835), whom Lamb afterwards came to know personally, whose special gift was the rapid impersonation of differing types.

Page 221, line 9. _Our favourite theatre._ The English Opera House--the Lyceum--rebuilt 1816.

Page 221, line 10 from foot. _Mr. Kean._ Edmund Kean (1787-1833).

Page 221, line 9 from foot. "_The City Madam._" A play by Philip Massinger, licensed 1632, in which Luke Frugal is the leading character.

Page 222, lines 3-5. _Whitfield ... Lady Huntingdon._ George Whitefield (1714-1770), the great Methodist preacher, and chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon. Whitefield was actually put on the stage, in "The Mirror," by Foote, in 1760, as Dr. Squintum.

Page 222, line 13. _Mr. Pearman._ William Pearman, the tenor, a popular singer, second only to Braham in sea songs.

* * * * *

Page 222. V.--NEW PIECES AT THE LYCEUM.

_Examiner_, August 8 and 9, 1819. Signed ****. This criticism was introduced by the following note by Leigh Hunt:--

We must make the public acquainted with a hard case of ours.--Here
had we been writing a long elaborate, critical, and analytical
account of the new pieces at the Lyceum, poring over the desk for
two hours in the morning after a late night, and melting away what
little had been left of our brains and nerves from the usual
distillation of the week, when an impudent rogue of a friend, whose
most daring tricks and pretences carry as good a countenance with
them as virtues in any other man, and who has the face, above all,
to be a better critic than ourselves, sends us the following
remarks of his own on those two very pieces. What do we do? The
self-love of your inferior critic must vent itself somehow; and so
we take this opportunity of showing our virtue at the expense of
our talents, and fairly making way for the interloper.

Dear, nine closely-written octavo pages! you were very good after
all, between you and me; and should have given way to nobody else.
If there is room left, a piece of you shall be got in at the end;
for virtue is undoubtedly its own reward, but not quite.

Page 222, foot. "_Belles without Beaux._" This was probably, says Genest, another version of the French piece from which "Ladies at Home; or, Gentlemen, we can do without You" (by J. G. Millingen, and produced also in 1819) was taken. The date of production was August 6, 1819.

Page 223, lines 2-7. _There is Miss Carew, etc._ The seven ladies in the play were: Miss Kelly, who played Mrs. Dashington; Mrs. W. S. Chatterly, _née_ Louisa Simeon (b. 1797), wife of William Simmonds Chatterly, the actor (1787-1822): she was said to be the best representative of a Frenchwoman on the English stage; Miss Carew (b. 1799), a comic opera prima donna, at first the understudy of Miss Stephens, and a special favourite with Barry Cornwall, who says in his _Sicilian Story_, "Give me (but p'r'aps I'm partial) Miss Carew;" Mrs. Grove, probably the wife of Grove, an excellent impersonator of whimsical old men and scheming servants; Miss Love (b. 1801), excellent in chambermaids, to whom Colonel Berkeley turned (see note on page 521) after leaving Miss Foote; Miss Stevenson (see note above); and Mrs. Richardson, who was probably the wife of Richardson, a member of the Covent Garden Company.

Page 223, line 15. _Holcroft's last Comedy._ "The Vindictive Man" (see note "On the Custom of Hissing," page 450).

Page 223, line 19. _Mrs. Harlow._ Sarah Harlowe (1765-1852), a low-comedy actress, who played many of Mrs. Jordan's parts. She left the stage in 1826.

Page 224, line 5. _Wilkinson ... in a "Walk for a Wager."_ In "Walk for a Wager; or, A Bailiff's Bet," a musical farce, the hero, Hookey Walker, was impersonated by John Penbury Wilkinson, and Miss Kelly played Emma.

Page 224, line 12. _"Amateurs and Actors" ... Mr. Peak._ A musical farce, by Richard Brinsley Peake (1792-1847), produced in 1818.

Page 224, last paragraph. _Last week's article._ That on "The Hypocrite," preceding this (see notes above). "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," published 1632, is a comedy by Massinger, in which Sir Giles Overreach is the leading character.

* * * * *

Page 225. FOUR REVIEWS.

These four reviews, together with that of Wordsworth's _Excursion_, written five years earlier (see page 187), and that of Hood and Reynolds' _Odes and Addresses_ (see page 335), make up the total number of reviews that Lamb is known positively to have written. We know from his _Letters_ that in 1803 he was trying to review Godwin's _Chaucer_, and again in 1821 he writes to Taylor that he is busy on a review for a friend; but neither of these articles has come to light. The fact is that Lamb always reviewed with difficulty, and after his bitter experience with Gifford (see note on page 470) he was more than ever disinclined to attempt that form of writing.

Page 225. I.--"FALSTAFF'S LETTERS."

_Examiner_, September 5 and 6, 1819. Signed ****. Reprinted in _The Indicator_, January 24, 1821. Not reprinted by Lamb.

James White, born in the same year as Lamb, was nominally the author of this book, but there is strong reason to believe that Lamb had a big share in it. Jem White, who is now known solely by the pleasant figure that he cuts in the _Elia_ essay "The Praise of Chimney Sweepers," was at school with Lamb at Christ's Hospital, receiving his nomination from Thomas Coventry, Samuel Salt's friend and fellow Bencher. Lamb saw much of White for a few years after leaving school, finding him, on the merry side, as congenial a companion as he could wish.

It was Lamb who, probably in 1795, when they both were only twenty, induced White to study Shakespeare; and it is impossible to believe that a friend of Lamb's, whom he saw nearly every night, could have been composing a full-blooded Shakespearian joke, and Lamb have no hand in it. Southey, indeed, in a letter to Edward Moxon after Lamb's death, states the fact that Lamb and White were joint authors of _Falstaff's Letters_, as if there were no doubt about it.

My own impression is that Lamb's fingers certainly held the pen when the Dedication to Master Samuel Irelaunde was written.

And very characteristically Elian is the following explanation, in the preface, of certain gaps in the _Letters_:--

"Reader, whenever as journeying onward in thy epistolary progress, a chasm should occur to interrupt the chain of events, I beseech thee blame not me, but curse the rump of roast pig. This maiden-sister, conceive with what pathos I relate it, absolutely made use of several, no doubt invaluable letters, to shade the jutting protuberances of that animal from disproportionate excoriation in its circuitous approaches to the fire."

Either Lamb wrote that, or to James White's influence we owe some of the most cherished mannerisms of _Elia_. Be that as it may, it is probably true that White's zest in the making of this book helped towards Lamb's Elizabethanising.

Lamb admired _Falstaff's Letters_ more than it is possible quite to understand except on the supposition that he had a share in it; or, at any rate, that it brought back to him the memory of so many pleasant nights. He never, says Talfourd, omitted to buy a copy when he saw one in the sixpenny box of a bookstall, in order to give it with superlative recommendations to a friend. For example, after sending it to Manning, he asks: "I hope by this time you are prepared to say the _Falstaff Letters_ are a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humours of any these juice-drained latter times have spawned?" The little volume is now very rare. A second edition was published in 1797 and reprints in 1877 and 1905. The full title runs: _Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his friends; now first made public by a gentleman, a descendant of Dame Quickly, from genuine manuscripts which have been in the possession of the Quickly Family near four hundred years_. 1796. "White," said J. M. Gutch, another schoolfellow, "was known as Sir John among his friends." See the footnote to the _Elia_ essay on "The Old Actors".

Page 225, first line of essay. _The Roxburgh sale._ The library of the third Duke of Roxburgh was sold, in a forty-five days' sale, between May 18 and July 8, 1812.

Page 229. II.--CHARLES LLOYD'S POEMS.

_Examiner_, October 24 and 25, 1819. Signed ****. Not reprinted by Lamb. Lamb and Lloyd had been intimate friends in 1797 and 1798, when they produced together _Blank Verse_, and when for a while Lloyd shared rooms with James White. But serious differences arose which need not be inquired into here, and after 1800 they drifted apart and were never really friendly again. Lloyd settled among the Lakes, where at frequent intervals for many years he became the prey of religious mania. In 1818, however, the clouds effectually dispersed for a while, and, returning to London, he resumed the poetical activity of his early life. The new pieces in _Nugæ Canoræ_, 1819, were the first-fruit of this period, which lasted until 1823. He then relapsed into his old state and died, lost to the world, in 1839. Writing to Lloyd concerning his later poetry Lamb said: "Your lines are not to be understood reading on one leg."

In Lloyd's poem, "Desultory Thoughts in London," 1821, are portraits of both Coleridge and Lamb. One stanza on Lamb has these lines:--

It is a dainty banquet, known to few,
To thy mind's inner shrine to have access;
While choicest stores of intellect endue
That sanctuary, in marvellous excess.
Those lambent glories ever bright and new,
Those, privileged to be its inmates, bless!

This shows that Lloyd retained his old affection and admiration for Lamb, just as Lamb's willingness to review Lloyd shows that he had forgotten the past. The quotations have been corrected from Lloyd's pages.

Page 230, line 15. _Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin._ Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1759-1797), the first wife of William Godwin, and the advocate of women's independence. Charles Lloyd had known her in his early London days.

Page 232. III.--BARRON FIELD'S POEMS.

_Examiner_, January 16 and 17, 1820. Signed ****. Not reprinted by Lamb.

Barron Field (1786-1846), son of Henry Field, apothecary to Christ's Hospital, was long one of Lamb's friends, possibly through his brother, a fellow clerk of Lamb's in the India House. See the _Elia_ essays on "Distant Correspondents" and "Mackery End," and notes. Field was in Australia from 1817 to 1824 as Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. His _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_ was printed privately in 1819 and afterwards added as an appendix to _Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales_, 1825.

Page 232. _Motto. "I first adventure...."_ An adaptation of the couplet in Hall's satires:--

I first adventure. Follow me who list,
And be the second English satirist.

This couplet was placed by Field on the threshold of the poems in the _Geographical Memoirs_, borrowed, I imagine, from Lamb's review.

Page 232, line 11 from foot. _Thiefland._ Compare the _Elia_ essay "Distant Correspondents."

Page 232, line 8 from foot. _A merry Captain._ Captain (afterwards Rear-Admiral) James Burney (1750-1821), Lamb's friend, who sailed with Cook on two voyages. Lamb told Mrs. Shelley of the Captain's pun in much the same words; but the pun itself we do not know.

Page 233, line 16. _Jobson, etc._ These characters are in "The Devil to Pay," by Charles Coffey, 1731.

Page 233, line 26. _Braham or Stephens._ John Braham, the tenor; Miss Stephens made her first appearance at Drury Lane, as Polly in "The Beggar's Opera," in 1798.

Page 233, line 12 from foot. _The first...._ The first poem was entitled "Botany Bay Flowers."

Page 234. "_The Kangaroo._" Writing to Barron Field in 1820 Lamb says: "We received your 'Australian First-Fruits,' of which I shall say nothing here, but refer you to **** of 'The Examiner,' who speaks our mind on all public subjects. I can only assure you that both Coleridge and Wordsworth ... were hugely taken with your Kangaroo." The poem is here corrected from the author's text.

Page 235. IV.--KEATS' "LAMIA."

_The New Times_, July 19, 1820. This is the article referred to by Cowden Clarke in his _Recollections of Writers_, 1878: "Upon the publication of the last volume of poems [_Lamia_, etc.] Charles Lamb wrote one of his finely appreciative and cordial critiques in the _Morning Chronicle_." By a slip of memory Clarke gave the wrong paper. Lamb wrote in the _Morning Chronicle_ occasionally (his sonnet to Sarah Burney appeared in it as near to the date in question as July 13, 1820), but it was in _The New Times_ that he reviewed Keats. _The New Times_ was founded by John (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart (1773-1856), Lamb and Coleridge's friend, and the brother-in-law of Hazlitt.

Two days after the appearance of Lamb's review--on July 21, 1820--_The New Times_ printed some further extracts from the book, which presumably had been crowded out of the article.

There is so little doubt in my own mind that this is Lamb's review that I have placed it in the body of this book and not in the Appendix. The internal evidence is very strong, particularly at the end, and in the use of such phrases as "joint strengths" and "younger impressibilities." But there is external evidence too. Leigh Hunt, writing of Keats, in his _Lord Byron and his Contemporaries_, 1828, says:--

I remember Charles Lamb's delight and admiration on reading this
work [_Lamia_]; how pleased he was with the designation of Mercury
as the "star of Lethe" (rising, as it were, and glittering, as he
came upon that pale region); with the fine daring anticipation in
that passage of the second poem,--

"So the two brothers and their _murdered man_,
Rode past fair Florence;"

and with the description, at once delicate and gorgeous, of Agnes
[_i.e._, Madeline], praying beneath the painted window.

Lamb did not know Keats well. He had met him only a few times, the historic occasion being the dinner at Haydon's, in December, 1817, when the Comptroller of Stamps was present. But he admired his work (he told Crabb Robinson he considered it next to Wordsworth's), and he hated the treatment that Keats received from certain critics. Keats, by the way, mentions meeting Lamb at Novello's and having to endure some wretched puns.

* * * * *

Page 239. SIR THOMAS MORE.

_The Indicator_, December 20, 1820. Signed ****. Leigh Hunt introduced the article in these words:--

The author of the _Table-Talk_ in our last [see note on p. 466] has
obliged us with the following pungent morsels of Sir Thomas
More,--devils, we may call them. Brantome, noticing the oaths of
some eminent Christian manslayers, and informing us that "the good
man, Monsieur de la Roche du Maine, swore by 'God's head full of
relics,'" adds in a parenthesis,--"Where the devil did he get
that?"--"Ou diable avoit-il trouvè celuy-la?" We may apply this
vivacious mode of questioning, with a more critical propriety, to
those eminent Christian opposers of reformation, past, present, and
to come, and ask them, where the devil they get a notion that they
are on the side of charity? It is possible to hate for the sake of
a loving theory; but it is a dangerous piece of self-flattery, and
more likely to spring up in hating than loving minds. If it
partakes of the reverent privileges of sorrow in those who are
unsuccessful or oppressed, it is odious in those who are
flourishing, and we are afraid is nothing but sheer dogmatism and
tyranny even in men as great as Sir Thomas More.

Further proof of Lamb's authorship is contained in the circumstance that the passages here quoted are copied in one of his Commonplace Books.

* * * * *

Page 246. THE CONFESSIONS OF H. F. V. H. DELAMORE, ESQ.

_London Magazine_, April, 1821. First reprinted in Mr. Dobell's _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903.

Lamb's "Chapter on Ears" had appeared in the March number, containing the sentence, "I was never, I thank my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, that I ever should be." The main confession aroused by this statement, although it is hedged about by a host of inventions, seems to be perfectly true: Lamb did on one occasion sit in the stocks. Our evidence, which, fortified by this little article (a discovery of Mr. Bertram Dobell's), is very strong, is to be found on the fly-leaf of the annotated copy of Wither described above. On this fly-leaf Pulham has recorded that during a country walk on a certain Sunday Lamb was set in the stocks for brawling while service was in progress. According to Mr. Delamore, the indignity was suffered at Barnet, and it was probably, if what he says about the short duration of the punishment be true, nearly as much a joke on the part of the authorities as on the part of Lamb. I cannot find any record of the incident in the Barnet archives, but the stocks are still standing, on the outskirts of Barnet, on Hadley Green.

Additional proof that Lamb wrote these "Confessions" is to be found in the little note inserted in the following (May) number of the _London Magazine_, under the "Lion's Head":--

"_Spes_ may be assured, that the fact related in the paper in our last Number, signed 'Delamore,' and dated 'Sackville Street,' is genuine, with the exception of the name and date. It is the writer's own story.

"----quæque ipse mìserrima vidi,
Et quorum pars magna fui.
"* * * *."

Four stars was, of course, one of Lamb's commonest non-_Elia_ signatures (see note on page 464). The quotation is from _Aeneid_, II., 5. "The most unhappy scenes which I beheld, and in which I played a leading part."

Page 247, line 15. * * * * * * * * * * *. In the stocks.

Page 247, line 19. _O Clarencieux! O Norroy!_ The two provincial kings-at-arms, Clarencieux, after the Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III., whose office is south of the Trent, and Norroy (North-roy), whose office is north of the Trent.

Page 248, line 4. _Barnet ... Red Rose._ Referring to the battle of Barnet on April 14, 1471, when Edward IV. defeated and slew the Earl of Warwick, and practically destroyed the Lancastrian, or Red Rose, cause, finally doing so at the battle of Tewkesbury a little later.

* * * * *

Page 248. THE GENTLE GIANTESS.

_London Magazine_, December, 1822. Not reprinted by Lamb.

We find the germ of this essay in a letter from Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth, in 1821, when she was staying with her uncle, Christopher Wordsworth, the Master of Trinity:--

"Ask any body you meet, who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and I'll hold you a wager they'll say Mrs. Smith. She broke down two benches in Trinity Gardens, one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a litigation between the societies as to repairing it. In warm weather she retires into an ice-cellar (literally!), and dates the returns of the years from a hot Thursday some 20 years back. She sits in a room with opposite doors and windows, to let in a thorough draft, which gives her slenderer friends toothaches. She is to be seen in the market every morning, at 10 cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge Poulterers are not sufficiently careful to stump."

It was characteristic of Lamb that finding the widow at Cambridge he should have set her in the essay at Oxford. He did the same thing in his Elia essay "On Oxford in the Vacation," which he conceived at the sister university.

Page 248, line 4 of essay. _The maid's aunt of Brainford._ The maid's aunt of Brentford; otherwise Sir John Falstaff in petticoats (see "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Act IV., Scene 2).

* * * * *

Page 251. LETTER TO AN OLD GENTLEMAN WHOSE EDUCATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED.

_London Magazine_, January, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.

De Quincey's "Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected" began in the _London Magazine_ in January, 1823. There were five altogether, ending in July of the same year. From the date at the end of Lamb's "Letter," and from a passage in a Letter to Barton of March 5, 1823, we may suppose him to have meant his parody to appear at the same time. "Your poem," he says, "found me engaged about a humorous Paper for the _London_, which I had called 'A Letter to an _Old Gentleman_ whose Education had been Neglected'--and when it was done Taylor & Hessey would not print it, and it discouraged me from doing anything else."

The problem of De Quincey's "Young Man" was contained in this sentence in the first letter: "To your first question,--whether to you, with your purposes and at your age of thirty-two, a residence at either of our English universities--or at any foreign university, can be of much service."--Writing to Miss Hutchinson in January, 1825, Lamb says: "De Quincey's Parody was submitted to him before printed, and had his Probatum."

I have not been able to discover whether or no any special significance attaches to the name of Grierson; or whether Lamb took the name at random.

Page 255, line 25. _Mr. Hartlib._ Milton's friend, Samuel Hartlib (died about 1670), to whom the _Tractate on Education_, which Lamb slyly plays upon in this paragraph, was addressed by Milton in 1644. Hartlib is said to have brought himself to poverty by his generosity to poor scholars.

* * * * *

Page 257. RITSON _VERSUS_ JOHN SCOTT THE QUAKER.

_London Magazine_, April, 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb.

This was a hoax, as Lamb explained in a letter to Bernard Barton (March 5, 1823): "I took up Scott, where I had scribbled some petulant remarks, and for a make-shift father'd them on Ritson." Scott was John Scott, the Quaker, better known as Scott of Amwell (1730-1783), whose _Critical Essays_, 1785, do actually contain the passages quoted by Lamb, with slight errors of transcription. Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), antiquary and critic, might easily have commented as Lamb has done, but with more savagery. Ritson's library was sold in December, 1803.

* * * * *

Page 265. LETTER OF ELIA TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

_London Magazine_, October, 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb, except in part. See below.

It was Lamb's fate to be misunderstood by the _Quarterly Review_; and in that misunderstanding lay the real origin of the "Letter to Southey." On at least four occasions Lamb was unfairly treated by this powerful organ: in December, 1811, when, in a review of Weber's edition of Ford's works, Lamb was called a poor maniac (see note on page 471); in October, 1814, when his review of Wordsworth's _Excursion_ was hacked to pieces (see same note); in April, 1822, when a reviewer of Reid's _Hypochondriasis_ (believed to be Dr. Robert Gooch, a friend of Southey) stated that he knew for a fact that Lamb's "Confessions of a Drunkard" were autobiographical (see note on page 458); and lastly, in January, 1823, when Southey, in an article on "Theo-philanthropism in France and the Spread of Infidelity," remarked, incidentally and quite needlessly, of _Elia_, then just published, that it wanted a sounder religious feeling, and went on to rebuke Lamb's friend, Leigh Hunt, for his lack of Christian faith. It was this accumulation of affront that stirred Lamb to his remonstrance, far more than anger with Southey--although anger he naturally had. Lamb's real opponent was Gifford; as in a private letter to Southey, after the publication of the article and after Southey had written to him on the matter, he admitted (see below).

Lamb's own remark concerning the "Letter to Southey," there expressed--"My guardian angel was absent at that time"--is perhaps right, although the passage in the article in defence of his friends could be ill spared. As for Southey, while one can see his point of view and respect his honesty, one is glad that so poor a piece of literary criticism and so unlovely a display of self-righteousness should be chastised; without, however, too greatly admiring the chastisement.

Lamb's first idea was to let the review pass without notice, as we see from the following remark to Bernard Barton in July, 1823:--

"Southey has attacked 'Elia' on the score of infidelity in the
_Quarterly_ article, 'Progress of Infidelity.' I had not, nor have
seen the _Monthly_. He might have spared an old friend such a
construction of a few careless flights, that meant no harm to
religion. If all his unguarded expressions were to be collected--!
But I love and respect Southey, and will not retort. I hate his
review, and his being a reviewer. The hint he has dropped will knock
the sale of the book on the head, which was almost at a stop before.
Let it stop, there is corn in Egypt, while there is cash at
Leadenhall. You and I are something besides being writers, thank
God!"

But Lamb thought better, or worse, of his first intention, and wrote the "Letter."

It appeared in October, 1823, and caused some talk among literary people. Southey had many enemies who were glad to see him trounced. _The Times_, for example, of October 2, said:--

The number just published of the _London Magazine_ contains a
curious letter from Elia (Charles Lamb) to Mr. Southey. It treats
the laureat with that contempt which his always uncandid and
frequently malignant spirit deserves. When it is considered that
Mr. Lamb has been the fast friend of Southey, and is besides of a
particularly kind and peaceable nature, it is evident that nothing
but gross provocation could have roused him to this public
declaration of his disgust.

On the other hand, Christopher North (John Wilson), of _Blackwood_, made the letter the text of a homily to literary men, in _Blackwood_, for October, 1823, under the heading of "A Manifesto." After some general remarks on the tendency of authors to take themselves, or at any rate their position in the public eye, too seriously, he continued:--

Our dearly-beloved friend, Charles Lamb, (we would fain call him
ELIA; but that, as he himself says, "would be as good as naming
him,") what is this you are doing? Mr. Southey, having read your
Essays, wished to pay you a compliment, and called them, in the
"Quarterly," "a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling,
to be as delightful as it is original!" And with this eulogy you
are not only dissatisfied, but so irate at the Laureate, that
nothing will relieve your bile, but a Letter to the Doctor of seven
good pages in "The London." Prodigious! Nothing would content your
highness (not serene) of the India-House, but such a sentence as
would sell your lucubrations as a puff; and because Taylor and
Hessey cannot send this to the newspapers, you wax sour, sulky, and
vituperative of your old crony, and twit him with his "old familiar
faces." This is, our dear Charles, most unreasonable--most unworthy
of you; and we know not how to punish you with sufficient severity,
now that Hodge of Tortola[69] is no more; but the inflexible
Higgins of Nevis still survives, and we must import him to flog you
in the market-place.

[69] See note to "Christ's Hospital" essay, in Vol. II.--ED.

Are you, or are you not, a friend to the liberty of the press? of
human thought? feeling? opinion? Is it, Charles, enormous
wickedness in Southey thus to characterize your Essays? If so, what
do you think of the invasion of Spain, the murder of the Franks
family, Pygmalion's amour with the tailor's daughter, the military
execution of the Duc d'Enghien, Palm's death, the massacre at Scio,
Z.'s Letters on the Cockney-School, Don Juan, John Knox, Calvin,
Cock-fighting, the French Revolution, the Reduction of the Five Per
Cents Navy, Godwin's Political Justice, the Tread-Mill, the
Crusades, Gas fighting booty, D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors,
Byron's conduct to the Hunts, and the doctrine of the universal
depravity of the human race?

Is there a sound religious feeling in your Essays, or is there not?
And what is a sound religious feeling? You declare yourself a
Unitarian; but, as a set-off to that heterodoxy, you vaunt your
bosom-friendship with T. N. T., "a little tainted with
Socinianism," and "----, a sturdy old Athanasian." With this
vaunting anomaly you make the Laureate blush, till his face tinges
Derwent-water with a ruddy lustre as of the setting sun. O Charles,
Charles----if we could but "see ourselves as others see us!" Would
that we ourselves could do so! But how would that benefit you? You
are too amiable to wish to see Christopher North humiliated in his
own estimation, and startled at the sight of _Public Derision_,
like yourself! Yes----even Cockneys blush for you; and the many
clerks of the India-House hang down their heads and are ashamed.

You present THE PUBLIC with a list of your friends. "W., the light,
and warm--as light-hearted Janus of the London!" Who the devil is
he? Let him cover both his faces with a handkerchief. "H. C. R.,
unwearied in the offices of a friend;" the correspondent and
caricaturist of Wordsworth, the very identical "W----th," who
"estated" you in so many "possessions," and made you proud of your
"rent-roll." "W. A., the last and steadiest of that little knot of
whist-players." Ah! lack-a-day, Charles, what are trumps? And "M.,
the noble-minded kinsman by wedlock" of the same eternal "W----th."
Pray, what is his wife's name? and were the banns published in St.
Pancras Church?----All this is very vain and very virulent; and you
indeed give us portraits of your friends, each in the
clare-obscure.

We were in the number of your earliest, sincerest, best, and most
powerful friends, Charles; and yet, alas! for the ingratitude of
the human heart, you have never so much as fortified yourself with
the initials of our formidable name----"C. N. the Editor of
Blackwood." Oh, that would have been worth P----r, A---- P----,
G----n, and "the rest," all in a lump; better than the
"Four-and-twenty Fiddlers all in a row." Or had you had the
courage and the conscience to print, at full length, "CHRISTOPHER
NORTH," why, these sixteen magical letters would have opened every
door for you, like Sesame in the Arabian Tales. These four magical
syllables, triumphant over the Laureate's "ugly characters,
standing in the very front of his notice, like some bug-bear, to
frighten all good Christians from purchasing," would have been a
passport for Elia throughout all the kingdoms of Christianity, and
billetted you, a true soldier of the Faith, in any serious family
you chose, with morning and evening prayers; a hot, heavy supper
every night; a pan of hot-coals ere you were sheeted; and a good
motherly body, with six unmarried daughters, to tap at your
bed-room door at day-light, and summon you down stairs from a state
of "_otium cum dignitate_" to one of "gaiety and innocence," among
damsels with scriptural names, short petticoats, and a zealous
attachment to religious establishments.

We may set off against this the comment of Crabb Robinson:--

Nothing that Lamb has ever written has impressed me more strongly
with the sweetness of his disposition and the strength of his
affections.

Coleridge and Hazlitt also both commended the "Letter." Southey displayed a fine temper. He wrote to Lamb on November 19, 1823:--

MY DEAR LAMB--On Monday I saw your letter in the _London Magazine_,
which I had not before had an opportunity of seeing, and I now take
the first interval of leisure for replying to it.

Nothing could be further from my mind than any intention or
apprehension of any way offending or injuring a man concerning whom
I have never spoken, thought, or felt otherwise than with
affection, esteem, and admiration.

If you had let me know in any private or friendly manner that you
felt wounded by a sentence in which nothing but kindness was
intended--or that you found it might injure the sale of your
book--I would most readily and gladly have inserted a note in the
next Review to qualify and explain what had hurt you.

You have made this impossible, and I am sorry for it. But I will
not engage in controversy with you to make sport for the
Philistines.

The provocation must be strong indeed that can rouse me to do this,
even with an enemy. And if you can forgive an unintended offence as
heartily as I do the way in which you have resented it, there will
be nothing to prevent our meeting as we have heretofore done, and
feeling towards each other as we have always been wont to do.

Only signify a correspondent willingness on your part, and send me
your address, and my first business next week shall be to reach
your door, and shake hands with you and your sister. Remember me to
her most kindly and believe me--Yours, with unabated esteem and
regards,

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Lamb replied at once--November 21, 1823:--

DEAR SOUTHEY--The kindness of your note has melted away the mist
which was upon me. I have been fighting against a shadow. That
accursed Q. R. had vexed me by a gratuitous speaking, of its own
knowledge, that the _Confessions of a D----d_ was a genuine
description of the state of the writer. Little things, that are not
ill meant, may produce much ill. _That_ might have injured me alive
and dead. I am in a public office, and my life is insured. I was
prepared for anger, and I thought I saw, in a few obnoxious words,
a hard case of repetition directed against me. I wished both
magazine and review at the bottom of the sea. I shall be ashamed to
see you, and my sister (though innocent) will be still more so; for
the folly was done without her knowledge, and has made her uneasy
ever since. My guardian angel was absent at that time.

I will muster up courage to see you, however, any day next week
(Wednesday excepted). We shall hope that you will bring Edith with
you. That will be a second mortification. She will hate to see us;
but come and heap embers. We deserve it; I for what I've done, and
she for being my sister.

Do come early in the day, by sun-light, that you may see my
_Milton_.

I am at Colebrook Cottage, Colebrook Row, Islington: a detached
whitish house, close to the New River end of Colebrook Terrace,
left hand from Sadler's Wells.

Will you let me know the day before?

Your penitent,

C. LAMB.

_P.S._--I do not think your handwriting at all like ****'s. I do
not think many things I did think.

There the matter ended. Seven years later, however, when _The Literary Gazette_ fell upon Lamb's _Album Verses_, in a paltry attack, Southey sent to _The Times_ a poem in defence and praise of his friend, beginning:--

Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear,
For rarest genius, and for sterling worth,
Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere,
And wit that never gave an ill thought birth ...

Page 265, line 4 of essay. _A recent paper on "Infidelity."_ The passage relating to Lamb and Thornton Hunt ran as follows:--

Unbelievers have not always been honest enough thus to express
their real feelings; but this we know concerning them, that when
they have renounced their birthright of hope, they have not been
able to divest themselves of fear. From the nature of the human
mind this might be presumed, and in fact it is so. They may deaden
the heart and stupify the conscience, but they cannot destroy the
imaginative faculty. There is a remarkable proof of this in Elia's
Essays, a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be
as delightful as it is original. In that upon "Witches and other
Night Fears," he says: "It is not book, or picture, or the stories
of foolish servants, which create these terrors in children. They
can at most but give them a direction. Dear little T. H., who of
all children has been brought up with the most scrupulous exclusion
of every taint of superstition, who was never allowed to hear of
goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad men, or to hear
or read of any distressing story, finds all this world of fear,
from which he, has been so rigidly excluded _ab extra_, in his own
'thick-coming fancies; and from his little midnight pillow this
nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of
tradition, in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned
murderer are tranquillity." This poor child, instead of being
trained up in the way which he should go, had been bred in the ways
of modern philosophy; he had systematically been prevented from
knowing any thing of that Saviour who said, "Suffer little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of
heaven;" care had been taken that he should not pray to God, nor
lie down at night in reliance upon His good Providence.

Page 267, line 14 from foot. _"Given king" in bliss and a "given chamberlain" in torment._ A reference to Southey's "Vision of Judgment," 1820, wherein George III. is received into heaven, among those coming from hell to arraign him being Wilkes, thus described:--

Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day.

Page 268, line 5. _A jest of the Devil._ Southey's early "Ballads and Metrical Tales" are rich in legends of the Devil, somewhat in the vein of Ingoldsby, though lacking Barham's rollicking fun.

Page 268, line 10. _A noble Lord._ Lord Byron, whose "Vision of Judgment," written in 1821 in ridicule of Southey's, begins:--

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate:
His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull.

Page 268, line 19. _A life of George Fox._ Southey was collecting for some years materials for a life of George Fox, the first Quaker, but he did not carry out the project.

Page 268, line 22. _The Methodists are shy._ Southey's _Life of Wesley_ was published in 1820. It was greatly admired by Coleridge.

Page 268, line 24. _The errors of that Church._ See Southey's "Ballads and Metrical Tales" again, for comic versions of legends of saints.

Page 269, line 26. _And N._ Randal Norris, Sub-Treasurer of the Inner Temple, who died in 1827.

Page 269, line 27. _T. N. T._ Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854), the advocate, author of "Ion" who was to become Lamb's executor and biographer. He wrote an enthusiastic and discriminating essay on Wordsworth's genius in the _New Monthly Magazine_.

Page 269, line 31. _And W._ Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1852), essayist, painter and criminal, who contributed gay and whimsical articles to the _London Magazine_ over the signature "Janus Weathercock." Subsequently Wainewright was convicted of forgery, and he became also a poisoner; but he seems to have shown Lamb only his most charming side.

Page 269, line 32. _The translator of Dante._ Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844), whose _Inferno_ appeared in 1805, the whole poem being completed in 1812. He contributed to the _London Magazine_. Later in life Cary, then assistant keeper of the printed books in the British Museum, became one of Lamb's closer friends. He wrote the epitaph on his grave.

Page 269, line 33. _And Allan C._ Allan Cunningham (1784-1842), the Scotch ballad writer and author, and a regular contributor to the _London Magazine_ over the signature "Nalla."

Page 269, line 34. _And P----r._ Bryan Walter Procter (1787-1874), better known as Barry Cornwall, another contributor to the _London Magazine_. He afterwards, 1866-1868, wrote a Memoir of Lamb.

Page 269, line 35. _A----p._ Thomas Allsop (1795-1880), a stock-broker, whose sympathies were with advanced social movements. He has been called the favourite disciple of Coleridge. In 1836 he issued a volume entitled _Letters, Conversations and Recollections of Coleridge_, which contains many interesting references to Lamb.

Page 269, line 35. _G----n._ James Gillman, a doctor, residing at the Grove, Highgate, who received Coleridge into his house, in 1816, as a patient, and kept him there to the end as a friend. He afterwards began a Life of him, which was not, however, completed. Coleridge at this time, 1823, was nearly fifty-one.

Page 269, line 38. _Salutation tavern._ The Salutation and Cat, the tavern at 17 Newgate Street, opposite Christ's Hospital, where Lamb and Coleridge most resorted in the '90's. Now a new building.

Page 269, line 39. _Pantisocracy._ The chief Pantisocrats--Coleridge, Southey and Robert Lovell--who all married sisters, a Miss Fricker falling to each--were, with a few others--George Burnett among them and Favell--to establish a new and ideal communism in America on the banks of the Susquehanna. Two hours' work a day was to suffice them for subsistence, the remaining time being spent in the cultivation of the intellect. This was in 1794. Southey, however, went to Portugal, Lovell died, Coleridge was Coleridge, and Pantisocracy disappeared.

Page 269, line 40. _W----th._ William Wordsworth, the poet.

Page 270, line 1. _And M._ Thomas Monkhouse, who died in 1825, a cousin of Mary Hutchinson, William Wordsworth's wife, and of Sarah Hutchinson, her sister, and Lamb's correspondent.

Page 270, line 2. _H. C. R._ Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867), the diarist and the friend of the Lambs until their death. In Crabb Robinson's reminiscences of Lamb is this passage:--

I felt flattered by the being mingled with the other of Lamb's
friends under the initials of my name. I mention it as an anecdote
which shows that Lamb's reputation was spread even among lawyers,
that a 4 guinea brief was brought to me by an Attorney an entire
stranger, at the following Assizes, by direction of another
Attorney also a stranger, who knew nothing more of me than that I
was Elia's H. C. R.

Page 270, line 3. _Clarkson._ Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), the great opponent of slavery, whom Lamb met in the Lakes in 1802.

Page 270, line 6. _Dyer._ George Dyer (1755-1841), whom we meet so often in Lamb's writings.

Page 270, line 7. _The veteran Colonel._ Colonel Phillips, Admiral Burney's brother-in-law. He married Susanna Burney, who died in 1800. Phillips, once an officer in the Marines, had sailed with Cook, and was a witness of his death. He had known Dr. Johnson, and a letter on the great man from his pen is printed in J. T. Smith's _Book for a Rainy Day_.

Page 270, line 9. _W. A._ William Ayrton (1777-1858), the musical critic; in Hazlitt's praise, "the Will Honeycomb of our set."

Page 270, line 12. _Admiral Burney._ Rear-Admiral Burney (1750-1821), brother of Fanny Burney, Madame D'Arblay. The Admiral lived in Little James Street, Pimlico. For a further account of this circle of friends see Hazlitt's essay "On the Conversation of Authors" (_The Plain Speaker_). Hazlitt's own share in the gathering ceased after an unfortunate discussion of Fanny Burney's _Wanderer_, which Hazlitt condemned in terms that her brother, the Admiral, could not forgive. Hence, perhaps, to some extent, Hazlitt's description of the old seaman as one who "had you at an advantage by never understanding you." Later, in his essay "On the Pleasures of Hating," also in _The Plain Speaker_, Hazlitt wrote:--

What is become of "that set of whist-players," celebrated by ELIA
in his notable _Epistle to Robert Southey, Esq._ (and now I think
of it--that I myself have celebrated in this very volume), "that
for so many years called Admiral Burney friend?" They are
scattered, like last year's snow. Some of them are dead, or gone to
live at a distance, or pass one another in the street like
strangers, or if they stop to speak, do it as coolly and try to
_cut_ one another as soon as possible. Some of us have grown rich,
others poor. Some have got places under Government, others a
_niche_ in the _Quarterly Review_. Some of us have dearly earned a
name in the world; whilst others remain in their original privacy.
We despise the one, and envy and are glad to mortify the other.

On the next page Hazlitt added:--

I think I must be friends with Lamb again, since he has written
that magnanimous Letter to Southey, and told him a piece of his
mind!

It was very soon after that Hazlitt began to visit the Lambs once more; and they never were on bad terms again.

Page 270, line 18. _Authors of "Rimini" and "Table Talk."_ Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), whose _Story of Rimini_ was published in 1816; and William Hazlitt (1778-1830), whose _Table Talk_, first series, which appeared in the _London Magazine_, was published in 1821-1822; other series coming later.

Page 271, line 15. _"Here," say you ..._ This is the passage in Southey's article to which Lamb refers:--