Chapter XXXI: Appendix: Essays and Notes Not Certain to Be Lamb's, but Probably His

SCRAPS OF CRITICISM

(1822)

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.

_Gray's Elegy_.

There has always appeared to me a vicious mixture of the figurative with the real in this admired passage. The first two lines may barely pass, as not bad. But the _hands_ laid in the earth, must mean the identical five-finger'd organs of the body; and how does this consist with their occupation of _swaying rods_, unless their owner had been a schoolmaster; or _waking lyres_, unless he were literally a harper by profession? Hands that "might have held the plough," would have some sense, for that work is strictly manual; the others only emblematically or pictorially so. Kings now-a-days sway no rods, _alias_ sceptres, except on their coronation day; and poets do not necessarily strum upon the harp or fiddle, as poets. When we think upon dead cold fingers, we may remember the honest squeeze of friendship which they returned heretofore; we cannot but with violence connect their living idea, as opposed to death, with uses to which they must become metaphorical (i.e. less real than dead things themselves) before we can so with any propriety apply them.

* * * * *

He saw, but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.

_Gray's Bard_.

Nothing was ever more violently distorted, than this material fact of Milton's blindness having been occasioned by his intemperate studies, and late hours, during his prosecution of the defence against Salmasius--applied to the dazzling effects of too much mental vision. His corporal sight was blasted with corporal occupation; his inward sight was not impaired, but rather strengthened, by his task. If his course of studies had turned his brain, there would have been some fitness in the expression.

* * * * *

And since I cannot, I will prove a _villain_,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

_Soliloquy in Richard III_.

The performers, whom I have seen in this part, seem to mistake the import of the word which I have marked with italics. Richard does not mean, that because he is by shape and temper unfitted for a _courtier_, he is therefore determined to prove, in our sense of the word, a _wicked man_. The word in Shakspeare's time had not passed entirely into the modern sense; it was in its passage certainly, and indifferently used as such; the beauty of a world of words in that age was in their being less definite than they are now, fixed, and petrified. _Villain_ is here undoubtedly used for a _churl_, or _clown_, opposed to a _courtier_; and the incipient deterioration of the meaning gave the use of it in this place great spirit and beauty. A _wicked man_ does not necessarily hate _courtly pleasures_; a _clown_ is naturally opposed to them. The mistake of this meaning has, I think, led the players into that hard literal conception with which they deliver this passage, quite foreign, in my understanding, to the bold gay-faced irony of the soliloquy. Richard, upon the stage, looks round, as if he were literally apprehensive of some dog snapping at him; and announces his determination of procuring a looking-glass, and employing a tailor, as if he were prepared to put both in practice before he should get home--I apprehend "a world of figures here."

* * * * *

_Howell's Letters_. "The Treaty of the Match 'twixt our Prince [afterwards Charles I.] and the Lady Infanta, is now strongly afoot; she is a very comely Lady, _rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair hair'd_, and carrieth a most pure mixture of red and white in her Face. She is full and _big-lipp'd, which is held a Beauty rather than a Blemish or any Excess in the Austrian Family, it being a thing incident to most of that Race_; she goes now upon 16, and is of a tallness agreeable to those years." This letter bears date, 5th Jan. 1622. Turn we now to a letter dated 16th May, 1626. The wind was now changed about, the Spanish match broken off, and Charles had become the husband of Henrietta. "I thank you for your late Letter, and the several good Tidings sent me from Wales. In requital I can send you gallant news, for we have now a most Noble new Queen of England, who in true Beauty is beyond the Long-woo'd Infanta; for she was of a _fading Flaxen-hair, Big-lipp'd_, and somewhat Heavy-eyed; but this Daughter of France, this youngest Branch of Bourbon (being but in her Cradle when the Great Henry her Father was put out of the World) is of a more _lovely and lasting Complexion_, a dark brown; she hath Eyes that sparkle like Stars; and for her Physiognomy, she may be said to be a Mirror of Perfection." He hath a rich account, in another letter, of Prince Charles courting this same Infanta. "There are Comedians once a week come to the Palace [at Madrid], where under a great Canopy, the Queen and the Infanta sit in the middle, our Prince and Don Carlos on the Queen's right hand, the king and the little Cardinal on the Infanta's left hand. I have seen the Prince have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half an hour together in a thoughtful speculative posture, _which sure would needs be tedious, unless affection did sweeten it_." Again, of the Prince's final departure from that court. "The king and his two Brothers accompanied his Highness to the Escurial some twenty miles off, and would have brought him to the Sea-side, but that the Queen is big, and hath not many days to go. When the King and he parted, there past wonderful great Endearments and Embraces _in divers postures_ between them a long time; and in that place there is a Pillar to be erected as a monument to Posterity." This scene of royal congées assuredly gave rise to the popular, or reformed sign (as Ben Jonson calls it), of _The Salutation_. In the days of Popery, this sign had a more solemn import.

THE MISCELLANY

(1822)

THE CHOICE OF A GRAVE

In Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead, Mary Stuart meets Rizzio, and by way of reconciling him to the violence he had suffered, says to him, "I have honoured thy memory so far as to place thee in the tomb of the Kings of Scotland." "How," says the musician, "my body entombed among the Scottish Kings?" "Nothing more true," replies the queen. "And I," says Rizzio, "I have been so little sensible of that good fortune, that, believe me, this is the first notice I ever had of it."

I have no sympathy with that feeling, which is now-a-days so much in fashion, for picking out snug spots to be buried in. What is the meaning of such fancies? No man thinks or says, that it will be agreeable to his dead body to be resolved into dust under a willow, or with flowers above it. No--it is, that while alive he has pleasure in such anticipations for his coxcomical clay. I do not understand it--there is no _quid pro quo_ in the business to my apprehension. It will not do to reason upon of course; but I can't feel about it. I am to blame, I dare say--but I can only laugh at such under-ground whims. "A good place" in the church-yard!--the boxes!--a front row! but why? No, I cannot understand it: I cannot feel _particular_ on such a subject: any part for me, as a plain man says of a partridge.

* * * * *

WILKS

It is very pleasing to discover redeeming points in characters that have been held up to our detestation. The merest trifles are enough, if they taste but of common humanity. I have never thought very ill of Wilks since I discovered that he was exceedingly fond of South-Down mutton. But better than this: "My cherries," he says, "are the prey of the blackbirds--and they are most welcome." This is a little trait of character, which, in my mind, covers a multitude of sins.

* * * * *

MILTON

Milton takes his rank in English literature, according to the station which has been determined on by the critics. But he is not read like Lord Byron, or Mr. Thomas Moore. He is not _popular_; nor perhaps will he ever be. He is known as the Author of "Paradise Lost;" but his "Paradise Regained," "severe and beautiful," is little known. Who knows his Arcades? or Samson Agonistes? or half his minor poems? We are persuaded that, however they may be spoken of with respect, few persons take the trouble to read them. Even Comus, the child of his youth, his "florid son, young" Comus--is not well known; and for the little renown he may possess, he is indebted to the stage. The following lines (_excepting only the first four_) are not printed in the common editions of Milton; nor are they generally known to belong to that divine "Masque;" yet they are in the poet's highest style. We are happy to bring them before such of our readers as are not possessed of Mr. Todd's expensive edition of Milton.

_The Spirit Enters._

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aërial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
_Amidst th' Hesperian gardens, on whose banks_
_Bedew'd with nectar and celestial songs,_
_Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth,
And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree_
_The scaly harness'd dragon ever keeps_
_His unenchanted eye: around the verge_
_And sacred limits of this blissful isle,_
_The jealous ocean, that old river, winds_
_His far-extended arms, till with steep fall_
_Half his waste flood the wild Atlantic fills,_
_And half the slow unfathom'd Stygian pool._
_But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder_
_With distant worlds, and strange removed climes._
_Yet thence I come, and oft from thence behold, &c._

Our readers will forgive us for having modernized the spelling. It is the only liberty that we have taken with our great author's magnificent passage.

* * * * *

A CHECK TO HUMAN PRIDE

It is rather an unpleasant fact, that the ugliest and awkwardest of brute animals have the greatest resemblance to man: the monkey and the bear. The monkey is ugly too, (so we think,) because he is like man--as the bear is awkward, because the cumbrous action of its huge paws seems to be a preposterous imitation of the motions of the human hands. Men and apes are the only animals that have hairs on the under eye-lid. Let kings know this.

COMIC TALES, ETC.,

BY C. DIBDIN THE YOUNGER

(1825)

In this age of hyper-poetic plights, and talent in a frenzy aping genius, it is consolatory to see a little volume of verse in the good old sober manner of Queen Ann's days, when verse walked high, rather than flew, and sought its nutriment upon this diurnal sphere, not rapt above the moon. To a lover of Chess, who at the same time can relish the Rape of the Lock, the poem which forms the distinguishing feature of this volume cannot fail to impart pleasure. It is a mock heroic of course, descriptive of the Game; and the Homeric parodies are adroit and numerous. The names of the mortal combatants, Blanc, Blanche, Croesieroi, Reinelawne, Sir Garderoi, Sir Gardereene, etc. on one side, with Niger, Nigra, Mitrex, Mitre regina, Sir Rexensor, Sir Reginalde, etc. on the other, are happily conceived, and the strife thickens to the conclusion. The Gods and Goddesses are the Games of Chance, or Mixed Chance, Faro, Whist, Loo, etc. in all their attributes, with old Hazard for their Jupiter, a fine gruff, grumbling Dice-compeller, whose dice-box is to him what the awful Homeric chain was to his Prototype. The soft blandishments of _Joan_, the gentle _Pope_--

Intriguing Hebe to the God of Game--

wrings from his austere Deity his slow permission for the interference of the Olympeans in the fight below, and accordingly they range on either side, as in the Iliad; and by their infusion of passions, coprices, impulses, peculiar to the nature of their own warfare, confound and embroil the pure contest of skill through five Cantos very entertainingly. We confess we are more at home in Hoyle than in Phillidor; but by the help of the notes, we played the game through ourselves very tolerably. We subjoin an exquisite simile, with which the third Canto commences--a description of the Morning, redolent of Swift and Gay:--

Now Morning, yawning, rais'd her from her bed,
Slipp'd on her wrapper blue and 'kerchief red,
And took from Night the key of Sleep's abode--
For Night within that mansion had bestow'd
The Hours of Day; now, turn and turn about,
Morn takes the key, and lets the Day Hours out;
Laughing they issue from the ebon gate,
And Night walks in. As when, in drowsy state,
Some _watchman_, wed to _one who chars all day_,
Takes to his lodgings door his creeping way;
His Rib, arising, lets him in to sleep,
While she emerges to scrub, dust, and sweep.

DOG DAYS

"Now Sirius rages"

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

(1825)

Sir,--I am one of those unfortunate creatures, who, at this season of the year, are exposed to the effects of an illiberal prejudice. Warrants are issued out in form, and whole scores of us are taken up and executed annually, under an obsolete statute, on what is called suspicion of lunacy. It is very hard that a sober sensible dog, cannot go quietly through a village about his business, without having his motions watched, or some impertinent fellow observing that there is an "odd look about his eyes." My pulse, for instance, at this present writing, is as temperate as yours, Mr. Editor, and my head as little rambling, but I hardly dare to show my face out of doors for fear of these scrutinizers. If I look up in a stranger's face, he thinks I am going to bite him. If I go with my eyes fixed upon the ground, they say I have got the mopes, which is but a short stage from the disorder. If I wag my tail, I am too lively; if I do not wag it, I am sulky--either of which appearances passes alike for a prognostic. If I pass a dirty puddle without drinking, sentence is infallibly pronounced upon me. I am perfectly swilled with the quantity of ditch-water I am forced to swallow in a day, to clear me from imputations--a worse cruelty than the water ordeal of your old Saxon ancestors. If I snap at a bone, I am furious; if I refuse it, I have got the sullens, and that is a bad symptom. I dare not bark outright, for fear of being adjudged to rave. It was but yesterday, that I indulged in a little innocent _yelp_ only, on occasion of a cart-wheel going over my leg, and the populace was up in arms, as if I had betrayed some marks of flightiness in my conversation.

Really our case is one which calls for the interference of the chancellor. He should see, as in cases of other lunatics, that commissions are only issued out against proper objects; and not [let] a whole race be proscribed, because some dreaming Chaldean, two thousand years ago, fancied a canine resemblance in some star or other, that was supposed to predominate over addle brains, with as little justice as Mercury was held to be influential over rogues and swindlers; no compliment I am sure to either star or planet. Pray attend to my complaint, Mr. Editor, and speak a good word for us this hot weather.

Your faithful, though sad dog,

POMPEY.

THE PROGRESS OF CANT

(A REVIEW OF HOOD'S ETCHING)

(1826)

A wicked wag has produced a caricature under this title, in which he marshalleth all the projected improvements of the age, and maketh them take their fantastic progress before the eyes of the scorner. It is a spirited etching, almost as abundant in meaning as in figures, and hath a reprobate eye to a corner--an Hogarthian vivification of post and placard. Priests, anti-priests, architects, politicians, reformers, flaming loyalty-men, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, all go on "progressing," as the Americans say. Life goes on, at any rate; and there is so much merriment on all sides, that for our parts, inclined to improvements as we are, we should be willing enough to join in the laugh throughout, if the world were as merry as the artist. The houses are as much to the purpose as the pedestrians. There is the office of the Peruvian Mining Company, in dismal, dilapidated condition; a barber's shop, with "Nobody to be shaved during divine service," the _h_ worn out; two boarding-schools for young ladies and gentlemen, very neighbourly; and the public-house, called the Angel and Punch-Bowl, by T. Moore. Among the crowd is a jolly, but vehement, reverend person holding a flag, inscribed, "The Church in Anger," the _D_ for danger being hidden by another flag, inscribed, "Converted Jews." Then there is the Caledonian Chap (_el_ being obstructed in the same way), who holds a pennon, crying out, "No Theatre!" Purity of Election, with a bludgeon, very drunk; and, above all, a petty fellow called the Great Unknown, with his hat over his eyes, and a constable's staff peeping out of his pocket. Some of the faces and figures are very clever, particularly the Barber; the Saving-banks man; the Jew Boy picking the pocket; the Charity Boy and the Beadle. The Beadle is rich from head to foot. Nathless, we like not to see Mrs. Fry so roasted: we are at a loss to know why the Blacks deserve to be made Black Devils; and are not aware that the proposal of an University in London has occasioned, or is likely to occasion, any sort of cant. However, there is no harm done where a cause can afford a joke; and where it cannot, the more it is joked at, the better.

MR. EPHRAIM WAGSTAFF, HIS WIFE, AND PIPE

About the middle of Shoemaker-row, near to Broadway, Blackfriars, there resided for many years a substantial hardware-man, named Ephraim Wagstaff. He was short in stature, tolerably well favoured in countenance, and singularly neat and clean in his attire. Everybody in the neighbourhood looked upon him as a "warm" old man; and when he died, the property he left behind him did not bely the preconceived opinion. It was all personal, amounted to about nineteen thousand pounds; and, as he was childless, it went to distant relations, with the exception of a few hundred pounds bequeathed to public charities.

The family of Ephraim Wagstaff, both on the male and female sides, was respectable, though not opulent. His maternal grandfather, he used to say, formed part of the executive government in the reign of George I., whom he served as petty constable in one of the manufacturing districts during a long period. The love of office seems not to have been hereditary in the family; or perhaps the opportunities of gratifying it did not continue; for, with that single exception, none of his ancestors could boast of official honours. The origin of the name is doubtful. On a first view, it seems evidently the conjunction of two names brought together by marriage or fortune. In the "Tatler" we read about the _staff_ in a variety of combinations, under one of which the popular author of that work chose to designate himself, and thereby conferred immortality on the name of Bickerstaff. Our friend Ephraim was no great wit, but he loved a joke, particularly if he made it himself; and he used to say, whenever he heard any one endeavouring to account for his name, that he believed it originated in the marriage of a Miss Staff to some Wag who lived near her; and who, willing to show his gallantry, and at the same time his knowledge of French customs, adopted the fashion of that sprightly people, by adding her family name to his own. The conjecture is at least probable, and so we must leave it.

At the age of fifty-two it pleased heaven to deprive Mr. Wagstaff of his beloved spouse Barbara. The bereavement formed an era in his history. Mrs. Wagstaff was an active, strong woman, about ten years older than himself, and one sure to be missed in any circle wherein she had once moved. She was indeed no cipher. Her person was tall and bony, her face, in hue, something between brown and red, had the appearance of having been scorched. Altogether her qualities were truly commanding. She loved her own way exceedingly; was continually on the alert to have it; and, in truth, generally succeeded. Yet such was her love of justice, that she has been heard to aver repeatedly, that she never (she spoke the word _never_ emphatically) opposed her husband, but when he was decidedly in the wrong. Of these occasions, it must also be mentioned, she generously took upon herself the trouble and responsibility of being the sole judge. There was one point, however, on which it would seem that Mr. Wagstaff had contrived to please himself exclusively; although, how he had managed to resist so effectually the remonstrances and opposition which, from the structure of his wife's mind he must necessarily have been doomed to encounter, must ever remain a secret. The fact was this: Ephraim had a peculiarly strong attachment to a pipe; his affection for his amiable partner scarcely exceeding that which he entertained for that lively emblem of so many sage contrivances and florid speeches, ending like it--in smoke. In the times of his former wives (for twice before had he been yoked in matrimony) he had indulged himself with it unmolested. Not so with Mrs. Wagstaff the third. Pipes and smoking she held in unmitigated abhorrence: but having, by whatever means, been obliged to submit to their introduction, she wisely avoided all direct attempts to abate what she called among her friends "the nuisance;" and, like a skilful general, who has failed of securing victory, she had recourse to such stratagems as might render it as little productive as possible to the enemy. Ephraim, aware how matters stood, neglected no precaution to guard against his wife's manœuvres--meeting, of course, with various success. Many a time did her ingenuity contrive an accident, by which his pipe and peace of mind were at once demolished; and, although there never could be any difficulty in replacing the former by simply sending out for that purpose, yet he has confessed, that when he contemplated the possibility of offering too strong an excitement to the shrill tones of his beloved's voice, (the only pipe she willingly tolerated,) he waved that proceeding, and submitted to the sacrifice as much the lesser evil. At length Mrs. Wagstaff was taken ill, an inflammation on her lungs was found to be her malady, and that crisis appeared to be fast approaching, when

The doctor leaves the house with sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow.

The foreboding soon proved correct; and, every thing considered, perhaps it ought not to excite much surprise, that when Ephraim heard from the physician that there was little or no chance of her recovery, he betrayed no symptoms of excessive emotion, but mumbling something unintelligibly, in which the doctor thought he caught the sound of the words "Christian duty of resignation," he quietly filled an additional pipe that evening. The next day Mrs. Wagstaff expired, and in due time her interment took place in the churchyard of St. Ann, Blackfriars, every thing connected therewith being conducted with the decorum becoming so melancholy an event, and which might be expected from a man of Mr. Wagstaff's gravity and experience. The funeral was a walking one from the near vicinity to the ground; and but for an untimely slanting shower of rain, no particular inconvenience would have been felt by those who were assembled on that occasion; that casualty, however, caused them to be thoroughly drenched; and, in reference to their appearance, it was feelingly observed by some of the by-standers, that they had seldom seen so many tears on the faces of mourners.--

_To be continued_--(perhaps).

NEMO.

REVIEW OF MOXON'S SONNETS

[SONNETS. BY EDWARD MOXON. (Printed for private circulation only.)]

(1833)

A copy of this unassuming work has fallen in our way. We are critics on _publications_ only. It is like criticising a domestic conversation, or a friendly letter, to notice a little book, professedly not meant for the public eye. But we are pleased, and pleasure will speak out when discretion whispers it to be still. The author has professional reasons to be private. With them we have nothing to do, but to say, that if unabating industry, integrity above his avocation, unparalleled success for the short time he has entered upon it, are any auguries of success, this notice of ours will not hinder his calling. We have no parallel for this mixed character--qualities united seemingly at farthest variance--except in fine old Humphrey Mosely, the _stationer_ (so were booksellers termed in the good old times), who, for love only, not for lucre, ushered into the world the first poems of Waller, the Juvenilia of Milton, besides a lesser galaxy of the poets of his day, with _Prefaces_, of his own honest composing, worthy of the strains they preluded to. Turn, reader, to his introduction to the Minor Poems of Milton, and say, if that soul, which inspirits it, worked for gain. H. M. (bibliomanists will gladlier recognise him by his initials) was, in his day, what we hope E. M. will prove in his, the fosterer of poetry, not merely the sordid trader in it. We must steal a sonnet or two from this sealed book, to justify our expectations. The first shall be 'To the Nightingale:' the originality of the concluding thought, and general sweetness of the versification, make us, reluctantly almost, give it the preference.

Lone midnight-soothing melancholy bird,
That send'st such music to my sleepless soul,
Chaining her faculties in fast controul,
Few listen to thy song; yet I have heard,
When Man and Nature slept, nor aspen stirr'd,
Thy mournful voice, sweet vigil of the sleeping--
And liken'd thee to some angelic mind,
That sits and mourns for erring mortals weeping.
The genius, not of groves, but of mankind,
Watch at this solemn hour o'er millions keeping.
In Eden's bowers, as mighty poets tell,
Did'st thou repeat, as now, that wailing call--
Those sorrowing notes might seem, sad Philomel,
Prophetic to have mourn'd of _man_ the _fall_.

One more, and we have done. We mistake, if a Petrarch-like delicacy is not to be found in the following:--

Methought my Love was dead. O, 'twas a night
Of dreary weeping, and of bitter woe!
Methought I saw her lovely spirit go
With lingering looks into yon star so bright,
Which then assumed such a beauteous light,
That all the fires in heaven compared with this
Were scarce perceptible to my weak sight.
There seem'd henceforth the haven of my bliss;
To that I turn'd with fervency of soul,
And pray'd that morn might never break again,
But o'er me that pure planet still remain.
Alas! o'er it my vows had no controul.
The lone star set: I woke full glad, I deem,
To find my sorrow but a lover's dream!

NOTES

The prose of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, was dedicated to Martin Burney in the following sonnet:--

TO MARTIN CHARLES BURNEY, ESQ.

Forgive me, BURNEY, if to thee these late
And hasty products of a critic pen,
Thyself no common judge of books and men,
In feeling of thy worth I dedicate.
My _verse_ was offered to an older friend;
The humbler _prose_ has fallen to thy share:
Nor could I miss the occasion to declare,
What spoken in thy presence must offend--
That, set aside some few caprices wild,
Those humorous clouds that flit o'er brightest days,
In all my threadings of this worldly maze,
(And I have watched thee almost from a child),
Free from self-seeking, envy, low design,
I have not found a whiter soul than thine.

Martin Burney was the son of Rear-Admiral Burney, who had sailed with Cook, and was the nephew of Madame D'Arblay. He was a barrister and very nearly Lamb's contemporary. Both Charles Lamb and his sister had for him a deep affection, although they made fun of his oddities, many of which are recorded in the correspondence. Burney lived to attend, and weep distressingly at, Mary Lamb's funeral in 1847.

Lamb seems to have meditated a collected edition of his works as early as 1816, for we find him telling Wordsworth (Sept. 23, 1816), that he had offered the book to Murray through Barron Field, but that Gifford had opposed the project successfully.

Page 1. ROSAMUND GRAY.

First printed, 1798. Reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

_Rosamund Gray_ was published in 1798 by Lee & Hurst under the title _A Tale of Rosamund Gray and old Blind Margaret_, by Charles Lamb. It then had this dedication:--

THIS TALE

IS

INSCRIBED IN FRIENDSHIP

TO

MARMADUKE THOMPSON,

OF

PEMBROKE HALL,

CAMBRIDGE.

Thompson was at Christ's Hospital with Lamb. In the essay on that school in _Elia_, written in 1820, he is called "mildest of Missionaries" and the writer's good friend still, but there is no evidence that the intimacy was actively continued after the early days.

At the time that _Rosamund Gray_ was written Lamb was twenty-two to twenty-three. It was his first prose of which we know anything.

Lamb reprinted the story without the dedication, under the title _Rosamund Gray, a Tale_, in his _Works_, 1818, the text of which is followed here. The differences of punctuation are numerous, but the text is mainly the same. In Chapter VI. (page 14, line 9) the phrase "take a cup of tea with her," ran, twenty years earlier, "drink a dish"; page 14, line 8 from foot, after "beauties of the season" old Margaret originally said, "I can still remember them with pleasure, and rejoice that younger eyes than mine can see and enjoy them. I shall be," etc.; and at the end of the same chapter (page 16), in the 1798 edition, came the quaintly particular passage which I have thrown into italics:--

"Besides, it was Margaret's bed-time, for she kept very good hours--indeed, in the distribution of her meals, and sundry other particulars, she resembled the livers in the antique world, more than might well beseem a creature of this--_none but Rosamund could get her mess of broth ready, or put her night caps on--(she wore seven, the undermost was of flannel)--_

"_'You know, love, I can do nothing to help myself--here I must stay till you return.'_

"So the new friends parted for that night--Elinor having made Margaret promise to give Rosamund leave to come and see her the next day."

Shelley's praise of _Rosamund Gray_ has often been quoted: writing to Leigh Hunt, in 1819, he said, "What a lovely thing is _Rosamund Gray_! How much knowledge of the sweetest and deepest parts of our nature is in it!" Lamb mentions _Julia de Roubigné_ in the text, and there is little doubt that he was influenced by Mackenzie's story. The epistolary form into which _Rosamund Gray_ lapses is maintained throughout in _Julia de Roubigné_ (1777), and there is a similar intensity of emotion and suggestion of fatality in both correspondences. There is, however, in _Julia de Roubigné_ nothing of the sweet simplicity and limpid clarity of Lamb's earlier chapters; which may be described as his (perhaps unconscious) contribution to the revolt against convention that Coleridge and Wordsworth were leading in the same year in the _Lyrical Ballads_.

How far Lamb was recording fact in this story we do not know; but the letters seem to reflect his own frame of mind at that time--following upon his mother's death and his abandonment of his daydreams with the fair-haired maid of his sonnets. In this case we have the unusual spectacle of a masculine writer conveying his feelings through a feminine medium. But on pages 17-18 Lamb seems to be writing both as himself and his sister. Compare the passage at the foot of page 17 with Lamb's letter to Coleridge of October 17, 1796, where he quotes his sister as saying, "The spirit of my mother seems to descend and smile upon me," and the last paragraph on page 17 is paraphrased in Lamb's lines (composed at the same time that he was working on _Rosamund Gray_) "Written soon after the Preceding Poem," October, 1797. Again, the second paragraph on page 21 must exactly represent Lamb's hopes and wishes in connection with his sister at that date.

Rosamund Gray and her grandmother (if they had any real existence) are said to have lived in one of the group of cottages called Blenheims, between Blakesware and Ware, in the days when Lamb visited his grandmother at Blakesware house. These cottages were pulled down in 1895. But then Lamb's Anna--of the love sonnets--is also said to have lived at Blenheims; and they cannot possibly be identical. Old Margaret and Mrs. Field, Lamb's grandmother, may have had some traits in common, and the description of Blakesware, where Mrs. Field was housekeeper, is recognisable; but these researches cannot be pursued to any real purpose. According to a letter to Southey in October, 1798, "nothing but the first words" of the ballad--

An old woman clothed in gray,
Whose daughter was charming and young,
And she was deluded away
By Roger's false flattering tongue--

put Lamb "upon scribbling ... _Rosamund_." This is quite conceivably the case. Whether we are to suppose that Lamb took not only the motive of his story, but also the word Gray, from this stanza, cannot be said; but it is generally thought that he found the name Rosamund Gray in a song thus entitled in his friend Charles Lloyd's _Poems on Various Occasions_, 1795. There is a suggestion that Lloyd may have had particular interest in the book in the circumstance that copies exist bearing the imprint of Pearson, a bookseller at Birmingham, where Lloyd lived. The Birmingham edition indeed is considered to be the first. Writing to Southey in May, 1799, Lamb says that _Rosamund_ sells well in London.

Old Thomas Billet (page 28) was not the true name of the Widford innkeeper. It was Clemitson (see the poem "Going or Gone"). Lamb again used the name Billet, for his father's old Lincoln friend, in "Poor Relations." Nor was Ben Moxam the name of the Blakesware gardener, but Ben Carter. The Wilderness was actually the name given to the wood at the back of Blakesware house.

On the passage concerning the epitaphs, on pages 29-30, Talfourd wrote: "The reflections he [Lamb] makes on the eulogistic character of all the inscriptions are drawn from his own childhood; for when a very little boy, walking with his sister in a churchyard, he suddenly asked her, 'Mary, where do the naughty people lie?'"

Southey has a poem, "The Ruined Cottage," among his _English Eclogues_, which is practically a poetical paraphase of _Rosamund Gray_. I do not know whether Southey's version was taken from an independent source or whether it was a compliment to Lamb. Lamb's tale had, however, come first.

Finally, it may be remarked that in Barry Cornwall's _Poems_, Galignani, 1829, is a poem entitled "Rosamund Gray," which from the evidence of its few opening lines was to have been a blank verse adaptation of Lamb's theme.

* * * * *

Page 35. CURIOUS FRAGMENTS.

_John Woodvil_, 1802, and _Works_, 1818.

Lamb engaged upon these experiments in the manner of Burton, always a favourite author with him, at the suggestion of Coleridge. We find him writing to Manning (March 17, 1800): "He [Coleridge] has lugged me to the brink of engaging to a newspaper, and has suggested to me, for a first plan, the forgery of a supposed manuscript of Burton, the anatomist of melancholy." Writing again to Manning a little later, probably in April, 1800, Lamb mentions having submitted two imitations of Burton to Stuart, the editor of the _Morning Post_, and states also that he has written the lines entitled "Conceipt of Diabolic Possession"--originally, in the _John Woodvil_ volume, a part of these "Fragments," but afterwards, in the _Works_, separated from them. In August, 1800, Lamb tells Coleridge he has written the ballad in the manner of the "Old and Young Courtier," also originally part of these "Fragments," and mentions further that Stuart had rejected the proposed contribution.

Of Lamb's imitations the first two are most akin to the original in spirit, but the whole performance is curiously happy and a perfect illustration of his fellowship with the Elizabethans. Our language probably contains no more successful impersonation of any author: for the time being Lamb's mind approximated to that of Burton, while reserving enough individuality to make a new thing as well as a very subtle and exact echo. The Burton extracts and the _Letters of Sir John Falstaff_, written four or five years earlier (in which Lamb certainly had a hand: see pp. 225 and 491), represent in prose the same devotion to the Elizabethans that _John Woodvil_ represents in verse. With 1800, when Lamb was twenty-five, this immediately derivative impulse ceased; but it is certain that without such interesting exercises in the manner of his favourite period his ripest work would have been far less rich.

The differences in text between the 1802 and 1818 editions are very slight. They are merely changes of punctuation and spelling--some twenty-four in all--with the exception that on page 39, line 18 "common sort" was originally "mobbe." Concerning this change Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, in _The Athenæum_, December 28, 1901, has an interesting note. Lamb, he says, made it "for the best of good reasons, because in the meantime he had recollected that to attribute the word _mob_ to the pen of Robert Burton was to commit a linguistic anachronism. The earliest known examples of _mob_ occur in Shadwell (1688) and Dryden (1690), whereas Burton died in January, 1640." I might add that "jokers" was another anachronism; since, according to the _New English Dictionary_, its first use is in the works of T. Cooke, 1729. "Inerudite" and "incomposite" seem to have been Lamb's coinage, but they are very Burtonian. The _New English Dictionary_ gives Lamb's reference alone to the word "hebetant," meaning making dull.

Lamb's affection for Burton was profound. His own copy was a quarto of 1621, which is now, I believe, in America. The following passage from John Payne Collier's _An Old Man's Diary_ (for 1832) is interesting in this connection:--

This led him [Lamb] to ask me, whether I remembered two or three
passages in his book of books, Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
illustrating Shakespeare's notions regarding Witches and Fairies. I
replied that if I had seen them, I did not then recollect them. I
took down the book, the contents of which he knew so well that he
opened upon the place almost immediately: the first passage was
this, respecting Macbeth and Banquo and their meeting with the
three Witches: "And Hector Boethius [relates] of Macbeth and Banco,
two Scottish Lords, that, as they were wandering in woods, had
their fortunes told them by three strange women." I said that I
remembered to have seen that passage quoted, or referred to by more
than one editor of Shakespeare. "Have you seen this quoted," he
inquired, "which relates to fairies? 'Some put our fairies into
this rank, which have been in former times adored with much
superstition, with sweeping their houses and setting of a pail of
clean water, good victuals and the like; and then they should not
be pinched, but find money in their shoes and be fortunate in their
enterprises ... and, Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle
which we commonly find in plain fields.' Farther on Burton gives
them the very name assigned to one of them by Shakespeare, for he
adds, 'These have several names in several places: we commonly call
them _Pucks_' (part i., sect. 2), which Ben Jonson degrades to
_Pug_."

* * * * *

Page 41. EARLY JOURNALISM. I.--G. F. COOKE'S "RICHARD THE THIRD."

_Morning Post_, January 4, 1802. Not reprinted by Lamb.

This paper was printed by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell in _The Athenæum_, August 4, 1888, and was identified by him by means of a then unpublished letter of Lamb to John Rickman, January 9, 1802. Early in January, 1802, says Mr. Campbell, "Lamb ceased to contribute dramatic criticism to the _Morning Post_; the editor wanted the paragraphs to be written on the night of the performance for next day's paper; and this Lamb could not manage. He had tried it on one occasion [see below], but found he could not 'write against time.'"

Writing to Robert Lloyd at about the same time as this criticism, Lamb took up the subject again:--

"Cooke in 'Richard the Third' is a perfect caricature. He gives you
the _monster_ Richard, but not the _man_ Richard. Shakespear's
bloody character impresses you with awe and deep admiration of his
witty parts, his consummate hypocrisy, and indefatigable
prosecution of purpose. You despise, detest, and loathe the
cunning, vulgar, low and fierce Richard, which Cooke substitutes in
his place. He gives you no other idea than of a vulgar villain,
rejoycing in his being able to over reach, and not possessing that
joy in _silent_ consciousness, but betraying it, like a _poor_
villain, in sneers and distortions of the face, like a droll at a
country fair: not to add that cunning so self-betraying and manner
so vulgar could never have deceived the politic Buckingham nor the
soft Lady Anne: _both_ bred in courts, would have turned with
disgust from such a fellow. Not but Cooke has _powers_; but not of
discrimination. His manner is strong, coarse, and vigorous, and
well adapted to some characters. But the lofty imagery and high
sentiments and high passions of _Poetry_ come black and
prose-smoked from his prose Lips.... I am possessed with an
admiration of the genuine Richard, his genius, and his mounting
spirit, which no consideration of his cruelties can depress.
Shakespear has not made Richard so black a Monster as is supposed.
Where-ever he is monstrous, it was to conform to vulgar opinion.
But he is generally a Man. Read his most exquisite address to the
Widowed Queen to court her daughter for him--the topics of maternal
feeling, of a deep knowledge of the heart, are such as no monster
could have supplied [see Act IV., Scene 4]. Richard must have
_felt_ before he could feign so well; tho' ambition choked the good
seed. I think it the most finished piece of Eloquence in the
world; of _persuasive_ oratory far above Demosthenes, Burke, or any
man, far exceeding the courtship of Lady Anne."

George Frederick Cooke who produced "Richard III." at Covent Garden on October 31, 1801, with great success, lived from 1756-1811.

I imagine that the following article on another performance of Cooke's, printed in the _Morning Post_ for January 9, 1802, is also Lamb's, probably written on the "one occasion" referred to above and the last that he wrote. No other bears so many signs of his authorship:--

"THEATRE

"COVENT GARDEN

"Mr. Cooke performed _Lear_ in the celebrated Tragedy of that name
at this Theatre last night. It is a character little suited to his
talents. In the expression of strong and turbulent passions, he
will always find his forte; but he wants gentleness and softness
for melting and melancholy scenes. Whatever, therefore, may be his
excellence in the ambitious and heroic _Richard_, those who have
duly weighed his peculiar powers could not expect much from his
representation of the broken-hearted _Lear_. No principle can be
more clear, than that cruelty and ingratitude are black in
proportion to the weakness and helplessness of the object on which
they are exercised. The great master of the human heart accordingly
makes this good old King represent himself as a man standing upon
the last verge of life--a man 'eighty years old and upwards.' It is
from turning such a man as this out of doors, and by his ungrateful
children, too, to 'bide the pelting of the pityless storm,' that
the interest principally arises. In this line, so clearly marked by
the poet, Mr. Cooke showed a total want of discrimination. His step
was almost uniformly firm, and his whole deportment too vigorous
for his years. The heart, therefore, could not feel that pity which
the sight of a deserving object, physically unable to contend with
unmerited hardships, never fails to produce. His enunciation also,
which was clear and strong, had none of the tremulousness of feeble
old age, and his voice seldom succeeded in the modulation of tones
sufficiently plaintive and delicate to express the agonies of a
broken heart. The scene where he imprecates a curse upon the
undutiful _Goneril_ was given with energy, but without that anguish
which must wring a parent's bosom in such a situation. The mad
scene with _Edgar_ was also a very imperfect piece of acting, and
few of the beautiful passages with which the piece abounds,
received that excellent colouring and embellishment with which Mr.
Kemble in the same character calls down such plaudits in the other
House. Mr. Cooke having so evidently placed himself in the way of
comparison, this allusion cannot be deemed invidious.--This new
essay should, however, make him slow to venture beyond his depth,
and justifies our apprehension that he does not possess an
elasticity of mind, a pliancy of powers, to enable him to pursue
his rival through all the variety of his characters with the same
success that he encounters him on Bosworth field.

"Mr. H. Siddons was an excellent _Edgar_; his mad scenes displayed
much chaste and natural acting, and several passages were marked
with beauties peculiarly his own. His representation of the
character would be still more interesting, were he to infuse into
his manner more fondness for his mistress, _Cordelia_, and his
unfortunate father, the _Earl of Gloucester_. Miss Murray, whose
excellence in characters of simple pathos is so well known, was a
most interesting portrait of _Cordelia_. She played the part with
great delicacy and feeling, sweetness and simplicity.

"Mr. Hull, in _Glo'ster_, was natural and impressive; and Mr.
Waddy, though a little coarse as _Earl of Kent_, was a good picture
of blunt honesty in his humble disguise as _Caius_. The other
characters did not possess much merit, or deserve much notice."

Page 44. II.--GRAND STATE BED.

Writing to Rickman about his _Morning Post_ work, in January, 1802, Lamb says that in addition to certain other things it was he who made the Lord Mayor's bed. The reference is undoubtedly to this little article on January 4, 1802.

Page 44. III.--FABLE FOR TWELFTH DAY.

On January 6 (Twelfth Night), 1802, this fable was printed in the _Morning Post_. That Lamb was the author no one need have any doubt after reading the _Elia_ essay, "Rejoicings on the New Year's Coming of Age."

Page 46. IV.--THE LONDONER.

_Morning Post_. February 1, 1802. _Works_, 1818.

This paper, although it is included in the _Works_ among "Letters under assumed signatures, published in _The Reflector_," and although it is nominally addressed to the editor of that paper, did not, however, appear in it. It was first printed in the _Morning Post_ for February 1, 1802, during Lamb's brief connection with that paper, the story of which is told in the note to the essay on "Newspapers" in _Elia_.

"The Londoner" in the _Morning Post_ differed from the version subsequently reprinted. See notes to vol. I. of my large edition.

John Forster, in his memoir of Lamb in the _New Monthly Magazine_ in 1835, has the following passage, which, applying to Lamb's later life (Forster was only twenty-two when Lamb died), rounds off, with certain ecstatic passages in the letters, the present London eulogium. The lines quoted by Forster are from "The Old Familiar Faces":--

"We recollect being once sent by her [Mary Lamb] to seek 'Charles,'
who had rambled away from her. We found him in the Temple, looking
up, near Crown-office-row, at the house where he was born. Such was
his ever-touching habit of seeking alliance with the scenes of old
times. They were the dearer to him that distance had withdrawn
them. He wished to pass his life among things gone by yet not
forgotten; we shall never forget the affectionate 'Yes, boy,' with
which he returned our repeating his own striking lines:--

"'Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse.'"

Page 46, line 11. _Great annual feast_. In stating that he was born on Lord Mayor's Day, Lamb stretched a point. His birthday was February 10.

* * * * *

Page 48. CHARACTERS OF DRAMATIC WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKSPEARE.

_Specimens_, 1808, and _Works_, 1818.

These notes are abridgments of the notes to Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_, 1808. The whole work is reproduced in my large edition, where such annotation as seems desirable may be found. The abridgment is printed here in order that the text of Lamb's own edition of his _Works_, 1818, may be preserved.

* * * * *

Page 65. ON THE INCONVENIENCES RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED.

To the circumstance that Leigh Hunt edited _The Reflector_, which was founded by his brother in 1810 as a literary and political quarterly, may be attributed in a large measure the beginning of Lamb's career as an essayist. Leigh Hunt, himself a Christ's Hospitaller, sought his contributors among old scholars of that school; from whom, as he remarked in the little note prefixed to the two-volume edition of the periodical, came "the largest and most entertaining part." Among these contributors were Lamb, George Dyer, Thomas Barnes, afterwards editor of _The Times_, Thomes Mitchell, classical scholar, James Scholefield, afterwards Greek Professor at Cambridge, Hunt himself, and Barron Field, who, though not actually a Christ's Hospitaller, was through his father, Henry Field, apothecary to the school, connected with it.

Until Lamb received Hunt's invitation to let his fancy play to what extent he would in _The Reflector's_ pages, he had received little or no encouragement as a writer; and he was naturally so diffident that without some external impulse he rarely brought himself to do his own work at all. Between _John Woodvil_ (1802) and the first _Reflector_ papers (1810) he had written "Mr. H.," performed his share in the children's books, and compiled the _Dramatic Specimens_: a tale of work which, considering that it was also a social period, and a busy period at the India House, is not trifling. But between the last _Reflector_ paper (1811 or 1812) and the first _Elia_ essay (1820) Lamb seems to have written nothing save the essays on Christ's Hospital, the "Confessions of a Drunkard," a few brief notes, reviews and dramatic criticisms, mainly at the instigation of Leigh Hunt, and some scraps of verse chiefly for _The Champion_. The world owes a great debt to Leigh Hunt for discerning Lamb's gifts and allowing him free rein. The comic letters to _The Reflector_ may not be Lamb at his best, though they are excellent stepping-stones to that state; but upon the essays on Shakespeare's tragedies and Hogarth's genius it is doubtful if Lamb could have improved at any period.

The _Reflector_ ran only to four numbers, which were very irregularly issued, and it then ceased. It ran nominally from October 1810 to December 1811. Crabb Robinson mentions reading No. I. on May 15, 1811.

Lamb, it may be remarked here, was destined to contribute to yet another _Reflector_. In 1832 Moxon started a weekly paper of that name in which part of Lamb's _Elia_ essay on the "Defect of Imagination in Modern Paintings" was printed. The venture, however, quickly failed, and all trace of it seems to have vanished.

Lamb's first _Reflector_ paper was entitled "ON THE INCONVENIENCES RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED."

It appeared in No. II., 1811, and was reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

He made yet another use of the central idea of this essay. The farce, "The Pawnbroker's Daughter," written in 1825, turns upon the resuscitation of a hanged man, Jack Pendulous.

Page 68, line 6. _Smoke his cravat_. To smoke was old slang for to see, to notice. East-enders to-day would say "Pipe his necktie!"

Page 72, line 1. _The solution ... in "Hamlet."_

_First Clown._ What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

_Second Clown._ The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.