Chapter XCIX: Letter 363: Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton

[Dated at end: 10 February, 1825.]

Dear B.B.--I am vexed that ugly paper should have offended. I kept it as clear from objectionable phrases as possible, and it was Hessey's fault, and my weakness, that it did not appear anonymous. No more of it for God's sake.

The Spirit of the Age is by Hazlitt. The characters of Coleridge, &c. he had done better in former publications, the praise and the abuse much stronger, &c. but the new ones are capitally done. Horne Tooke is a matchless portrait. My advice is, to borrow it rather than read [? buy] it. I have it. He has laid on too many colours on my likeness, but I have had so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much over-measure to Elia as Gentlemen think proper to bestow. Lay it on and spare not.

Your Gentleman Brother sets my mouth a watering after Liberty. O that I were kicked out of Leadenhall with every mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob. The birds of the air would not be so free as I should. How I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and ramble about purposeless as an ideot! The Author-mometer is a good fancy. I have caused great speculation in the dramatic (not _thy_) world by a Lying Life of Liston, all pure invention. The Town has swallowed it, and it is copied into News Papers, Play Bills, etc., as authentic. You do not know the Droll, and possibly missed reading the article (in our 1st No., New Series). A life more improbable for him to have lived would not be easily invented. But your rebuke, coupled with "Dream on J. Bunyan," checks me. I'd rather do more in my favorite way, but feel dry. I must laugh sometimes. I am poor Hypochondriacus, and _not_ Liston.

Our 2'nd N'o is all trash. What are T. and H. about? It is whip syllabub, "thin sown with aught of profit or delight." Thin sown! not a germ of fruit or corn. Why did poor Scott die! There was comfort in writing with such associates as were his little band of Scribblers, some gone away, some affronted away, and I am left as the solitary widow looking for water cresses.

The only clever hand they have is Darley, who has written on the Dramatists, under name of John Lacy. But his function seems suspended.

I have been harassed more than usually at office, which has stopt my correspondence lately. I write with a confused aching head, and you must accept this apology for a Letter.

I will do something soon if I can as a peace offering to the Queen of the East Angles. Something she shan't scold about.

For the Present, farewell.

Thine C.L.

10 Feb. 1825.

I am fifty years old this day. Drink my health.

["That ugly paper" was "A Vision of Horns."

Hazlitt's _Spirit of the Age_ had just been published, containing criticisms, among others, of Coleridge, Horne Tooke, and Lamb. Lamb was very highly praised. Here is a passage from the article:--

How admirably he has sketched the former inmates of the South-Sea
House; what "fine fretwork he makes of their double and single
entries!" With what a firm yet subtle pencil he has embodied "Mrs.
Battle's Opinions on Whist!" How notably he embalms a battered
_beau_; how delightfully an amour, that was cold forty years ago,
revives in his pages! With what well-disguised humour he introduces
us to his relations, and how freely he serves up his friends!
Certainly, some of his portraits are _fixtures_, and will do to hang
up as lasting and lively emblems of human infirmity. Then there is
no one who has so sure an ear for "the chimes at midnight," not even
excepting Mr. Justice Shallow; nor could Master Silence himself take
his "cheese and pippins" with a more significant and satisfactory
air. With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the Inns and Courts of
law, the Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there
for the last two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with
the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or
writings! It is hard to say whether St. John's Gate is connected
with more intense and authentic associations in his mind, as a part
of old London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time out of mind) of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_. He hunts Watling Street like a gentle
spirit; the avenues to the play-houses are thick with panting
recollections; and Christ's Hospital still breathes the balmy breath
of infancy in his description of it!

"Your Gentleman Brother"--John Barton, Bernard's younger half-brother.

"The Author-mometer." I have not discovered to what Lamb refers.

"Dream on J. Bunyan." Probably a poem by Barton, but I have not traced it.

"T. and H."--Taylor & Hessey.

"Poor Scott"--John Scott, who founded the _London Magazine_.

"Darley"--George Darley (1795-1846), author of _Sylvia; or, The May Queen_, 1827.

"The Queen of the East Angles." Possibly Lucy Barton, possibly Anne Knight, a friend of Barton's.]