Chapter XXVII: Act II: SCENE.--At Flint's (4)

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, December 21, 1833. In a letter to Rogers in December, 1833, Lamb alludes to his sonnet to the poet (see page 100), adding that for fear it might not altogether please Stothard he has "ventured at an antagonist copy of verses, in _The Athenaeum_, to _him_, in which he is as every thing, and you [Rogers] as nothing." Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) was at that time seventy-eight. He had long been the friend of Rogers, having helped in the decoration of his house in 1803 and illustrated the _Pleasures of Memory_ as far back as 1793. Lamb's sonnet refers particularly to the edition of Rogers' _Poems_ that is dated 1834, which Stothard and Turner embellished. Stothard illustrated very many of the standard novels for Harrison's _Novelists' Magazine_ towards the end of the eighteenth century, among these being Richardson's, Fielding's, Smollett's and Sterne's. In Robert Paltock's _Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins_, 1751, a flying people are described, among whom the males were "Glums" and the females "Gawries."--Titian lived to be ninety-nine.

Page 80. _To a Friend on His Marriage_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, December 7, 1833. The friend was Edward Moxon, whose marriage to Emma Isola, Lamb's adopted daughter, was solemnised on July 30, 1833. Lamb mentions more than once the absence of any dowry with Miss Isola. His own wedding present to them was the portrait of Milton which his brother, John Lamb, had left to him.

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Page 81. _The Self-Enchanted_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, January 7, 1832.

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Page 82. _To Louisa M---, whom I used to call "Monkey."_

First printed in Hone's _Year Book_ for December 30, 1831, under the title "The Change." (See the verses "The Ape," on page 89, and note, the forerunner of the present poem, addressed also to Louisa Martin.)

Page 82. _Cheap Gifts: a Sonnet_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, February 15, 1834.

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Page 83. _Free Thoughts on Several Eminent Composers_. Lamb was very fond of these lines, which he sent to more than one of his friends. The text varies in some of the copies, but I have not thought it necessary to indicate the differences. Its inspiration was attributed by him both to William Ayrton (1777-1858), the musical critic, and to Vincent Novello (1781-1861), the organist, composer and close friend of Lamb. In a letter to Sarah Hazlitt in 1830 Lamb copies the poem, remarking--"Having read Hawkins and Burney recently, I was enabled to talk [to Ayrton] of Names, and show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he begg'd me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he was gone, and sent him."

So Lamb wrote to Mrs. Hazlitt. But to Ayrton, when he sent the verses, he said:--"[Novello] desiring me to give him my real opinion respecting the distinct grades of excellence in all the eminent Composers of the Italian, German and English schools, I have done it, rather to oblige him than from any overweening opinion I have of my own judgment in that science."

Both these statements are manifestations of what Lamb called his "matter-of-lie" disposition. To Mrs. Hazlitt he thought that Ayrton's name would be more important; to Ayrton, Novello's.

The verses, whatever their origin, were written by Lamb in Novello's Album, with this postscript, signed by Mary Lamb, added:--

The reason why my brother's so severe,
Vincentio, is--my brother has no _ear_;
And Caradori, his mellifluous throat
Might stretch in vain to make him learn a note.
Of common tunes he knows not anything,
Nor "Rule Britannia" from "God save the King."
He rail at Handel! He the gamut quiz!
I'd lay my life he knows not what it is.
His spite at music is a pretty whim--
He loves not it, because it loves not him.

M. LAMB.

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UNCOLLECTED PIECES

Page 85. _Dramatic Fragment_.

_London Magazine_, January, 1822. An excerpt from Lamb's play, "Pride's Cure" (_John Woodvil_). See note below.

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Page 86. _Dick Strype_.

Writing to John Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says, "My editor [Dan Stuart of the _Morning Post_] uniformly rejects all that I do, considerable in length. I shall only do paragraphs with now and then a slight poem, such as Dick Strype, if you read it, which was but a long epigram." The verses, which appeared on January 6, 1802, may be compared with the story of Ephraim Wagstaff, on page 432 of Vol. I., written twenty-five years later. It has been pointed out that _Points of Misery_, 1823, by Charles Molloy Westmacott (Bernard Blackmantle of the _English Spy_), contains the poem with slight alterations. But Westmacott reaped where he could, and his book is confessedly not wholly original. Lamb seems to me to admit authorship by implication fairly completely. Westmacott was only thirteen when it was first printed.

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Page 88. _Two Epitaphs on a young Lady, etc_.

_Morning Post_, February 7, 1804. Signed C.L. Lamb sends the poem both to Wordsworth and Manning in 1803. He says to Manning:--"Did I send you an epitaph I scribbled upon a poor girl who died at nineteen?--a good girl, and a pretty girl, and a clever girl, but strangely neglected by all her friends and kin.... Brief, and pretty, and tender, is it not? I send you this, being the only piece of poetry I have _done_ since the Muses all went with T.M. [Thomas Manning] to Paris."

The young lady was Mary Druitt of Wimborne who died of consumption in 1801. The verses are not on her tombstone. A letter from Lamb to his friend Rickman (see Canon Ainger's edition), shows that it was for Rickman that the lines were written. Lamb did not know Mary Druitt. Writing to Rickman in February, 1802, Lamb sends the second epitaph:--"Your own prose, or nakedly the letter which you sent me, which was in some sort an epitaph, would do better on her gravestone than the cold lines of a stranger."

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Page 89. _The Ape_.

Printed in the _London Magazine_, October, 1820, where it was preceded by these words:--

"To THE EDITOR

"Mr. Editor,--The riddling lines which I send you, were written upon a young lady, who, from her diverting sportiveness in childhood, was named by her friends The Ape. When the verses were written, L.M. had outgrown the title--but not the memory of it--being in her teens, and consequently past child-tricks. They are an endeavour to express that perplexity, which one feels at any alteration, even supposed for the better, in a beloved object; with a little oblique grudging at Time, who cannot bestow new graces without taking away some portion of the older ones, which we can ill miss.

"*****."

L.M. was Louisa Martin, who is now and then referred to in Lamb's letter as Monkey, and to whom he addressed the lines on page 82, which come as a sequel to the present ones. In a letter to Wordsworth, many years later, dated February 22, 1834, Lamb asks a favour for this lady:--"The oldest and best friends I have left are in trouble. A branch of them (and they of the best stock of God's creatures, I believe) is establishing a school at Carlisle; Her name is Louisa Martin ... her qualities ... are the most amiable, most upright. For thirty years she has been tried by me, and on her behaviour I would stake my soul."

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Page 90. _In Tabulam Eximii...._

These Latin verses were printed in _The Champion_, May 6 and 7, 1820, signed Carlagnulus, accompanied by this notice: "We insert, with great pleasure, the following beautiful Latin Verses on HAYDON'S fine Picture, and shall be obliged to any of our correspondents for a spirited translation for our next." The following week brought one translation--Lamb's own--signed C.L. Both were reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion"_ in 1822, and again in Tom Taylor's _Life of Haydon_, 1853.

Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) was for six years at work upon this picture--"Christ's Entry into Jerusalem"--which was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in 1820. The story goes that Mrs. Siddons established the picture's reputation in society. While the private-view company were assembled in doubt the great actress entered and walked across the room. "It is completely successful," she was heard to say to Sir George Beaumont; and then, to Haydon, "The paleness of your Christ gives it a supernatural look." A stream of 30,000 persons followed this verdict. The picture is now in Philadelphia.

Line 4. _Palma_. There were two Palmas, both painters of the Venetian school. Giacomo Palma the Elder, who is referred to here, was born about 1480. Both painted many scenes in the life of Christ.

Lines 7 and 8. _Flaccus' sentence_.

Valeat res ludicra si me
Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.
Horace, _Epist., II_., I, 180-181.

(Farewell to performances, if the palm, denied, sends one home lean, but, granted, flourishing.)

Lamb has not quite represented the poet's meaning, which is a profession of independence in regard to popular applause.

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Page 91. _Sonnet to Miss Burney...._

First printed in the _Morning Chronicle_, July 13, 1820. The Burney family began to be famous with Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814), the musician, the author of the _History of Music_, and the friend of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Among his children were the Rev. Charles Burney (1757-1817), the classical scholar and owner of the Burney Library, now in the British Museum; Rear-Admiral James Burney (1750-1821), who sailed with Cook, wrote the _Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean_, and became a friend of Lamb; Frances Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay (1752-1840), the novelist, author of _Evelina, Camilla_ and _Cecilia_; and Sarah Harriet Burney (1770?-1844), a daughter of Dr. Burney's second wife, also a novelist, and the author, among other stories, of _Geraldine Fauconberg_. "Country Neighbours; or, The Secret," the tale that inspired Lamb's sonnet, formed Vols. II. and III. of Sarah Burney's _Tales of Fancy_. Blanch is the heroine.

The good old man in Madame d'Arblay's _Camilla_ is Sir Hugh Tyrold, who adopted the heroine.

Page 91. _To my Friend The Indicator_.

Printed in _The Indicator_, September 27, 1820, signed ****, preceded by these words by Leigh Hunt, the editor:--

Every pleasure we could experience in a friend's approbation, we have felt in receiving the following verses. They are from a writer, who of all other men, knows how to extricate a common thing from commonness, and to give it an underlook of pleasant consciousness and wisdom. ...The receipt of these verses has set us upon thinking of the good-natured countenance, which men of genius, in all ages, have for the most part shewn to contemporary writers.

* * * * *

Page 92. _On seeing Mrs. K---- B----_.

The late Mr. Dykes Campbell thought it very likely that these charming verses were Lamb's. I think they may be, although it is odd that he should not have reprinted anything so pretty. Mr. Thomas Hutchinson's belief that they are Lamb's, added to that of their discoverer, leads me to include them confidently here. Here and there it seems impossible that the poem could come from any other hand: line 11 for example, and the idea in lines 13 to 16, and the statement in lines 27 and 28. None the less it must be borne in mind that one does but conjecture. The lines are in _The Tickler Magazine_ for 1821.

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Page 93. _To Emma, Learning Latin, and Desponding_.

First printed in _Blackwood's Magazine_, June, 1829.

Mary Lamb had other pupils in her time, among them Miss Kelly, the actress, Mary Victoria Novello (afterwards Mrs. Cowden Clarke), and William Hazlitt, the essayist's son. Emma was, of course, Emma Isola. Sara Coleridge's translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer's _Historia de Abiponibus_ under the title _Account of the Abipones_ was published in 1822, when she was only twenty.

"To think [Lamb wrote to Barton, on February 17, 1823, of Sara Coleridge] that she should have had to toil thro' five octavos of that cursed (I forget I write to a Quaker) Abbey pony History, and then to abridge them to 3, and all for £113. At her years, to be doing stupid Jesuits' Latin into English, when she should be reading or writing Romances." Sara Coleridge's romance-writing came later, in 1837, when her fairy tale, _Phantasmion_, appeared.

In its original form this sonnet in its fifth line ran thus:--

(In new tasks hardest still the first appears).

Derwent Coleridge read the sonnet in 1853 in Mrs. Moxon's album, and copying it out, sent it to his wife, saying that he wished Sissy (his daughter Christabel) to get it by heart. He added this note: "Charles Lamb having discovered that this Sonnet consisted but of thirteen lines, Miss Lamb inserted the 5th, which interrupts the flow and repeats a rhime." Derwent Coleridge goes on to suggest two alternative lines:--

And hope may surely chase desponding fears

or

Let hope encouraged chase desponding fears.

Lamb, however, had already amended the fifth line (as in _Blackwood's Magazine_) to--

To young beginnings natural are these fears.

Page 93. _Lines addressed to Lieut. R.W.H. Hardy, R.N._

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, January 10, 1846, contributed by an anonymous correspondent (probably Thomas Westwood the Younger) who sent also "The First Leaf of Spring" (page 105). _Travels in the Interior of Mexico in_ 1825 ... 1828, by Robert William Hale Hardy, was published in 1829. Lamb made an exception in favour of Hardy's book. Writing to Dilke for something to read from _The Athenaum_ office, in 1833, he particularly desired that "no natural history or useful learning, such as Pyramids, Catacombs, Giraffes, or Adventures in Southern Africa" might be sent.

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Page 94. _Lines for a Monument_....

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, November 5, 1831, and again in _The Tatler_, Hunt's paper, December 31, 1831. In August, 1830, four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg, of York, were drowned in the Ouse. Several literary persons were asked for inscriptions for the monument, erected at York in 1831, and that by James Montgomery, of Sheffield, was chosen. Lamb sent his verses to Vincent Novello, through whom he seems to have been approached in the matter, on November 8, 1830, adding: "Will these lines do? I despair of better. Poor Mary is in a deplorable state here at Enfield."

Page 94. _To C. Aders, Esq_.

First printed in Hone's _Year Book_ (March 19), 1831 (see note to "Angel Help," above).

* * * * *

Page 95. _Hercules Pacificatus_.

First printed in the _Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831. Suidas is supposed to have lived in the tenth or eleventh century, and to have compiled a _Lexicon_--a blend of biographical dictionary.

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Page 98. _The Parting Speech of the Celestial Messenger to the Poet_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, February 25, 1832.

Palingenius was an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, whose real name was Pietro Angelo Mazolli, but who wrote in Latin under the name of Marcellus Palingenius Stollatus. His _Zodiacus Vitae_, a philosophical poem, was published in 1536.

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Page 99. _Existence, considered in itself, no Blessing_. First printed in _The Athenaeum_, July 7, 1832.

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Page 100. _To Samuel Rogers, Esq., on the New Edition of his "Pleasures of Memory."_

First printed in _The Times_, December 13, 1833. Signed C. Lamb. This is the sonnet mentioned in the letter which is quoted on page 344, in the note to the sonnet to Stothard. The new edition of _Pleasures of Memory_ was published by Moxon in 1833, dated 1834.

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Page 101. _To Clara N---- _.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, July 26, 1834. Clara N---- was, of course, Clara Anastasia Novello, daughter of Lamb's friend, Vincent Novello (1781-1861), the organist, and herself a fine soprano singer (see also the poem "The Sisters," on the same page). Miss Novello, who was born on June 10, 1818, became the Countess Gigliucci, and survived until March 12, 1908. _Clara Novella's Reminiscences_, compiled by her daughter, the Contessa Valeria Gigliucci, with a memoir by Arthur Duke Coleridge, were published in 1910. In them is this charming passage:--

How I loved dear Charles Lamb! I once hid--to avoid the ignominy
of going to bed--in the upright (cabinet) pianoforte, which in its
lowest part had a sort of tiny cupboard. In this I fell asleep, awakening
only when the party was supping. My appearance from beneath the
pianoforte was hailed with surprise by all, and with anger from my
mother; but Charles Lamb not only took me under his protection, but
obtained that henceforth I should never again be sent to bed _when he
came_, but--glory and delight!--always sit up to supper. Later, in
Frith Street days, my Father made me sing to him one day; but [Lamb]
stopped me, saying, "Clara, don't make that d--d noise!" for which,
I think, I loved him as much as for all the rest. Some verses he sent
me were addressed to "St. Clara."

In spite of Lamb's declaration about himself and want of musical sense, both Crabb Robinson and Barron Field tell us that he was capable of humming tunes.

Page 101. _The Sisters_.

These verses, printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900, were addressed:--

"_For_ SAINT CECILIA,
At Sign'r Vincenzo Novello's
Music Repository,
No. 67 Frith Street.
Soho."

They were signed C. Lamb. One might imagine Emma, the nut-brown maid, to be Emma Isola, as that was a phrase Lamb was fond of applying to her--assuming the title "The Sisters" to be a pleasantry; but the late Miss Mary Sabilia Novello assured me that the sisters were herself, Emma Aloysia Novello and Clara Anastasia Novello (see above).

* * * * *

Page 102. _Love will Come_.

"Love will Come" was included by Lamb in a letter to Miss Fryer, a school-fellow of Emma Isola. Lamb writes:--"By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but _with_ the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and _we_ have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As _you_ may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence--Drums of Tartars, who use _none_, and Tulip trees ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams, &c.,--than _we_ are, so you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little sense, tho' I like LITTLE SENSE less than his vagarying younger sister NO SENSE--so I send them.--The 4th line of 1st stanza is from an old Ballad."

The old ballad is, I imagine, "Waly, Waly," of which Lamb was very fond.

Page 102. _To Margaret W----_.

This poem, believed to be the last that Lamb wrote, was printed in _The Athenaeum_ for March 14, 1835. I have not been able to ascertain who Margaret W---- was.

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ALBUM VERSES AND ACROSTICS

Page 104. _What is an Album?_

These lines were probably written for Emma Isola's Album, which must not be confounded with her Extract Book. The Album was the volume for which Lamb, in his letters, occasionally solicited contributions. It was sold some years ago to Mr. Quaritch, and is now, I believe, in a private collection, although in a mutilated state, several of the poems having been cut out. These particular lines of Lamb's were probably written by him also in other albums, for John Mathew Gutch, his old school-fellow, discovered them on the fly-leaf of a copy of _John Woodvil_, and sent them to _Notes and Queries_, Oct. 11, 1856. In that version the twenty-first line ran:--

There you have, Madelina, an album complete.

Lamb quoted from the lines in his review of his _Album Verses_, under the title "The Latin Poems of Vincent Bourne," in the _Englishman's Magazine_ (see Vol. I.). Two versions of the lines are copied by Lamb into one of his Commonplace Books.

Line 6. _Sweet L.E.L.'s_. L.E.L. was, of course, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, afterwards Mrs. Maclean (1802-1838), famous as an Album-and Annual-poetess. Lamb, if an entry in P.G. Patmore's diary is correct, did not admire her, or indeed any female author. He said, "If she belonged to me I would lock her up and feed her on bread and water till she left off writing poetry."

* * * * *

Page 105. _The First Leaf of Spring_.

Printed in _The Athenaeum_, January 10, 1846, contributed probably by Thomas Westwood. In a note prefacing the three poems which he was sending, this correspondent stated that "The First Leaf of Spring" had been printed before, but very obscurely. I have not discovered where.

Page 105. _To Mrs. F---- on Her Return from Gibraltar_.

This would probably be Mrs. Jane Field, _née_ Carncroft, the wife of Lamb's friend, Barron Field, who inspired the _Elia_ essay on "Distant Correspondents." Field held the Chief Justiceship of Gibraltar for some years.

* * * * *

Page 106. _To M. L---- F----_.

M.L. Field, the second daughter of Henry Field, and Barron Field's sister. This lady, who lived to a great age, gave Canon Ainger the copy of the prologue to "Richard II." written by Lamb for an amateur performance at her home.

Page 106. _To Esther Field_.

Another of Barron Field's sisters.

The text of these three poems has been corrected by the Thomas Hutchinson's Oxford edition.

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Page 107. _To Mrs. Williams_.

See note above. In writing to Mrs. Williams on April 2, 1830, to tell of Emma Isola's safe journey after her illness, Lamb says:--"How I employed myself between Epping and Enfield the poor verses in the front of my paper may inform you, which you may please to christen an Acrostic in a Cross Road."

Mrs. Williams replied with the following acrostic upon Lamb's name, which Mr. Cecil Turner, a descendant, has sent me and which I give according to his copy:--

TO CHARLES LAMB

_Answer to Acrostics on the Names of Two Friends._

Charmed with the lines thy hand has sent,
Honour I feel thy compliment,
Amongst thy products that have won the ear
Ranged in thy verse two friends most dear.
Lay not thy winning pen away,
Each line thou writest we bid thee stay.
Still ask to charm us with another lay.

Long-linked, long-lived by public fame,
A friend to misery whate'er its claim,
Marvel I must if e'er we find
Bestowed by Heaven a kindlier mind.

The two friends were Cecilia Catherine Lawton (see page 64) and Edward Hogg (see page 109). In reply Lamb says (Good Friday, 1830):--"I do assure you that your verses gratified me very much, and my sister is quite _proud_ of them. For the first time in my life I congratulated myself upon the shortness and meanness of my name. Had it been Schwartzenberg or Esterhazy it would have put you to some puzzle."

Later in the same letter, referring to the present acrostic, he said speaking of Harriet Isola, Emma's sister, she "blames my last verses as being more written on _Mr._ Williams than on yourself; but how should I have parted whom a Superior Power has brought together?"

Page 107. _To the Book_.

Written for the Album of Sophia Elizabeth Frend, afterwards the wife of Augustus De Morgan, the mathematician (1806-1871), and mother of the novelist Mr. William De Morgan. Her father was William Frend (1757-1841), the reformer and a friend of Crabb Robinson and George Dyer. The lines were printed in Mrs. De Morgan's _Three Score Years and Ten_, as are also those that follow--"To S.F."

* * * * *

Page 108. _To R Q._

From the Album of Rotha Quillinan.

* * * * *

Page 109. _To S.L.... To M.L._

I have not been able to identify the Lockes. The J.F. of the last line might be Jane Field. Copies of these poems are preserved at South Kensington.

Page 109. _An Acrostic against Acrostics_.

Edward Hogg was a friend of Mr. Williams (see above). These verses were first printed in _The Lambs_ by Mr. W.C. Hazlitt.

* * * * *

Page 110. _On being Asked to Write in Miss Westwood's Album._

Frances Westwood was the daughter of the Westwoods, with whom the Lambs were domiciled at Enfield Chase in 1829-1832. See letters to Gillman and Wordsworth (November 30, 1829, and January 22, 1830) for description of the Westwoods. The only son, Thomas Westwood, who died in 1888, and was an authority on the literature of angling, contributed to _Notes and Queries_ some very interesting reminiscences of the Lambs in those days. This poem and that which follows it were sent to _Notes and Queries_ by Thomas Westwood (June 4, 1870).

It is concerning these lines that Lamb writes to Barton, in 1827:-- "Adieu to Albums--for a great while--I said when I came here, and had not been fixed two days, but my Landlord's daughter (not at the Pot-house) requested me to write in her female friend's, and in her own. If I go to ---- thou art there also, O all pervading Album! All over the Leeward Islands, in Newfoundland, and the Back Settlements, I understand there is no other reading. They haunt me. I die of Albo-phobia!"

Page 111. _Un Solitaire._

E.I., who made the drawing in question, would be Emma Isola. The verses were copied by Lamb into his Album, which is now in the possession of Mrs. Alfred Morrison.

Page 111. _To S[arah] T[homas]_.

From Lamb's Album. I have not been able to trace this lady.

Page 111. _To Mrs. Sarah Robinson._

From the copy preserved among Henry Crabb Robinson's papers at Dr. Williams' Library. Sarah Robinson was the niece of H.C.R., who was the pilgrim in Rome. The stranger to thy land was Emma Isola, Fornham, in Suffolk, where she was living, being near to Bury St. Edmunds, the home of the Robinsons.

* * * * *

Page 112. _To Sarah._

From the Album of Sarah Apsey. Lamb seems to have known very many Sarahs.

Page 112. _To Joseph Vale Asbury._

From Lamb's Album. Jacob (not Joseph, as Lamb supposed) Vale Asbury was the Lambs' doctor at Enfield. There are extant two amusing letters from Lamb to Asbury.

* * * * *

Page 113. _To D.A._

From Lamb's Album. Dorothy Asbury, the wife of the doctor.

Page 113. _To Louisa Morgan._

From Lamb's Album. Louisa Morgan was probably the daughter of Coleridge's friend, John Morgan, of Calne, in Wiltshire, with whom the Lambs stayed in 1817--the same Morgan--"Morgan demigorgon"--who ate walnuts better than any man Lamb knew, and munched cos-lettuce like a rabbit (see letters to Coleridge in August, 1814). Southey and Lamb each allowed John Morgan £10 a year in his old age and adversity, beginning with 1819.

Page 113. _To Sarah James of Beguildy._

Sarah James was Mary Lamb's nurse, and the sister of the Mrs. Parsons with whom she lived during the last years of her life. Miss James was the daughter of the rector of Beguildy, in Shropshire. The verses are reprinted from _My Lifetime_ by the late John Hollingshead, who was the great-nephew of Miss James and Mrs. Parsons.

* * * * *

Page 114. _To Emma Button._

Included in a letter from Lamb to John Aitken, editor of _The Cabinet_, July 5, 1825.

Page 114. _Written upon the cover of a blotting book. The Mirror,_ May 7, 1836.

Identified by Mr. Walter Jerrold. First collected by Mr. Thomas Hutchinson.

* * * * *

Page 115. POLITICAL AND OTHER EPIGRAMS.

Lamb was not a politician, but he had strong--almost passionate--prejudices against certain statesmen and higher persons, which impelled him now and then to sarcastic verse. The earliest examples in this vein that can be identified are two quatrains from the _Morning Post_ in January, 1802, printed on page 115, and the epigram on Sir James Mackintosh in _The Albion_, printed on the same page, to which Lamb refers in the _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago" (see Vol. II.). Until a file of _The Albion_ turns up we shall never know how active Lamb's pen was at that time. The next belong to the year 1812--in _The Examiner_ (see page 116)--and we then leap another seven years or so until 1819-1820, Lamb's busiest period as a caustic critic of affairs--in _The Examiner_, possibly the _Morning Chronicle_, and principally in _The Champion_. After 1820, however, he returned to this vein very seldom, and then with less bitterness and depth of feeling. "The Royal Wonders," in _The Times_ for August 10, 1830 (see page 122), and "Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross," in the _Englishman's Magazine_, September, 1831 (written, however, some years earlier), on page 121, being his latest efforts that we know of. Of course there must be many other similar productions to which we have no clue--the old _Morning Post_ days doubtless saw many an epigram that cannot now be definitely claimed for Lamb--but those that are preserved here sufficiently show how feelingly Lamb could hate and how trenchantly he could chastise. Others that seem to me likely to be Lamb's I could have included; but it is well to dispense as much as possible with the problematic. For example, I suspect Lamb of the authorship of several of the epigrams quoted in _The Examiner_ in 1819 and 1820 from the _Morning Chronicle_. He used to send verses to the _Morning Chronicle_ at that time, and Leigh Hunt, the editor of _The Examiner_, would naturally be pleased to give anything of his friend's an additional publicity.

The majority of the epigrams printed in this section might have remained unidentified were it not that in 1822 John Thelwall, who owned and edited _The Champion_ in 1818-1820, issued a little volume entitled _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ wherein Lamb's contributions were signed R. et R. This signature being appended to certain poems of which we know Lamb to have been the author--as "The Three Graves," which he sent also to the _London Magazine_ (in 1825), and which he was in the habit of reading or reciting to his friends--enables us to ascertain the authorship of the others. A note placed by Thelwall above the index of the book states, "it is much to be regretted that, by mere oversight, or rather mistake, several of the printed epigrams of R. et R. have been omitted;" but a search through the files of _The Champion_ has failed to bring to light any others with Lamb's adopted signature.

The origin of the signature R. et R. is unknown. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald suggests that it might stand for Romulus and Remus, but offers no supporting theory. He might have added that so unfamiliar a countenance is in these epigrams shown by their author, that the suggestion of a wolf rather than a Lamb might have been intended. Lamb's principal political epigrams were drawn from him by his intense contempt for the character of George IV., then Prince of Wales. His treatment of Caroline of Brunswick, as we see, moved Lamb to utterances of almost sulphurous indignation not only for the prince himself, but for all who were on his side, particularly Canning. Lamb, we must suppose, was wholly on the side of the queen, thus differing from Coleridge, who when asked how his sympathies were placed would admit only to being anti-Prince.

John Thelwall (1764-1834)--Citizen Thelwall--was one of the most popular and uncompromising of the Radicals of the seventeen-nineties. He belonged to the Society of the Friends of the People and other Jacobin confederacies. In May, 1794, he was even sent to the Tower (with Home Tooke and Thomas Hardy) for sedition; moved to Newgate in October; and tried and acquitted in December. Lamb first met him, I fancy, in 1797, when Thelwall was intimate with Coleridge. After 1798 Thelwall's political activities were changed for those of a lecturer on more pacific subjects, and later he opened an institution in London where he taught elocution and corrected the effects of malformation of the organs of speech. He bought _The Champion_ in 1818, and held it for two or three years, but it did not succeed. Thelwall died in 1834. Among his friends were Coleridge, Haydon, Hazlitt, Southey, Crabb Robinson and Lamb, all of whom, although they laughed at his excesses and excitements as a reformer, saw in him an invincible honesty and sincerity.

Before leaving this subject I should like to quote the following lines from _The Champion_ of November 4 and 5, 1820:--

A LADY'S SAPPHIC

Now the calm evening hastily approaches,
Not a sound stirring thro' the gentle woodlands,
Save that soft Zephyr with his downy pinions
Scatters fresh fragrance.

Now the pale sun-beams in the west declining
Gild the dew rising as the twilight deepens,
Beauty and splendour decorate the landscape;
Night is approaching.

By the cool stream's side pensively and sadly
Sit I, while birds sing on the branches sweetly,
And my sad thoughts all with their carols soothing,
Lull to oblivion.
M.L.

A correspondence on English sapphics was carried on in _The Champion_ for some weeks at this time, various efforts being printed. On November 4 appeared the "Lady's Sapphic," just quoted, signed M.S. On the following day--for _The Champion_, like _The Examiner_, had a Saturday and Sunday edition--this signature was changed to M.L., and was thus given when the verses were reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations_ of _"The Champion"_ in 1822. There is no evidence that Mary Lamb wrote it; but she played with verse, and presumably read _The Champion_, since her brother was writing for it, and the poem might easily be hers. Personally I like to think it is, and that Lamb, on seeing the mistake in the initials in the Saturday edition, hurried down to the office to have it put right in that of Sunday. The same number of _The Champion_ (November 4 and 5, 1820) contains another poem in the same measure signed C., which not improbably was Lamb's contribution to the pastime. It runs as follows:--

DANAE EXPOSED WITH HER INFANT

_An English Sapphic_

Dim were the stars, and clouded was the azure, Silence in darkness
brooded on the ocean, Save when the wave upon the pebbled sea-beach
Faintly resounded.

Then, O forsaken daughter of Acrisius! Seiz'd in the hour of woe and
tribulation, Thou, with the guiltless victim of thy love, didst Rock on
the surges.

Sad o'er the silent bosom of the billow, Borne on the breeze and
modulated sweetly, Plaintive as music, rose the mother's tones of
Comfortless anguish.

"Sad is thy birth, and stormy is thy cradle, Offspring of sorrow!
nursling of the ocean! Waves rise around to pillow thee, and night winds
Lull thee to slumber!"

Page 115. _To Sir James Mackintosh._

In a letter to Manning in August, 1801, Lamb quotes this epigram as having been printed in _The Albion_ and caused that paper's death the previous week. In his _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers," written thirty years later, he stated that the epigram was written at the time of Mackintosh's departure for India to reap the fruits of his apostasy; but here Lamb's memory deceived him, for Mackintosh was not appointed Recorder of Bombay until 1803 and did not sail until 1804, whereas there is reason to believe the date of Lamb's letter to Manning of August, 1801, to be accurate. The epigram must then have referred to a rumour of some earlier appointment, for Mackintosh had been hoping for something for several years.

Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), the lawyer and philosopher, had in 1791 issued his _Vindicia Galliae_, a reply to Burke's _Reflections on the French Revolution_. Later, however, he became one of Burke's friends and an opponent of the Revolution, and in 1798 he issued his Introductory Discourse to his lectures on "The Law of Nature and Nations," in which the doctrines of his _Vindiciae Gallicae_ were repudiated. Hence his "apostasy." Mackintosh applied unsuccessfully for a judgeship in Trinidad, and for the post of Advocate-General in Bengal, and Lord Wellesley had invited him to become the head of a college in Calcutta. Rumour may have credited him with any of these posts and thus have suggested Lamb's epigram. In 1803 he was appointed Recorder of Bombay. Lamb's dislike of Mackintosh may have been due in some measure to Coleridge, between whom and Mackintosh a mild feud subsisted. It had been Mackintosh, however, brother-in-law of Daniel Stuart of the _Morning Post_, who introduced Coleridge to that paper. (See notes to Vol. II., where further particulars of _The Albion_, edited by Lamb's friend, John Fenwick, will be found.)

Lamb may or may not have invented the sarcasm in this epigram; but it was not new. In Mrs. Montagu's letters, some years before, we find something of the kind concerning Charles James Fox: "His rapid journeys to England, on the news of the king's illness, have brought on him a violent complaint in the bowels, which will, it is imagined, prove mortal. However, if it should, it will vindicate his character from the general report that he has no bowels, as has been most strenuously asserted by his creditors."

Page 115. _Twelfth Night Characters_....

_Morning Post_, January 8, 1802.

These epigrams were identified by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell from a letter of Lamb's to John Rickman, dated Jan. 14, 1802, printed in Ainger's edition.

A---- is, of course, Henry Addington (1757-1844), afterwards Viscount Sidmouth. After being Speaker for eleven years, he became suddenly Prime Minister in 1801, at the wish of George III., who was rendered uneasy by Pitt's project for Catholic relief.

C---- and F---- were George Canning (1770-1827) and John Hookham Frere (1769-1846) of _The Anti-Jacobin_, against whom Lamb had a grudge on account of the _Anti-Jacobin's_ treatment of himself and Lloyd (see note to _Blank Verse_, page 320). Lamb returned to the attack on Canning again and again, as the epigrams that follow will show.

The epigram on Count Rumford was not included. We know that it was sent, from the Rickman letter. The same missive tells us that that on Dr. Solomon was also written in 1802, but it was not printed till _The Champion_ took it on July 15 and 16, 1820. Solomon was alive in 1802 and was therefore a present Empiric. He was a notorious quack doctor, author of the _Guide to Health_ and the purveyor of a nostrum called Balm of Gilead. One of Southey's letters (October 14, 1801) contains a diverting account of this Empiric. I copy one of Solomon's advertisements from a provincial paper:--

DR. SOLOMON'S
CORDIAL BALM OF GILEAD

To the young it will afford lasting health, strength and spirits, in
place of lassitude and debility; and to the aged and infirm it will
assuredly furnish great relief and comfort by gently and safely
invigorating the system; it will not give immortality; but if it be
in the power of medicine to gild the autumn of declining years, and
calmly and serenely protract the close of life beyond its narrow
span, this restorative is capable of effecting that grand
desideratum.

The price was 10s. 6d. a bottle.

Lamb's epigrams were only a few among many printed in the _Morning Post_ for January 7 and 8, 1802. Whether he wrote also the following I do not know, but these are not inconceivably from his hand:--

LORD NELSON

Off with BRIAREUS, and his HUNDRED HANDS,
OUR NELSON, with _one arm_, unconquer'd stands!

MR. P[IT]T

By crooked arts, and actions sinister,
I came at first to be a Minister;
And now I am no longer Minister,
I still retain my actions sinister.

* * * * *

Page 116. _Two Epigrams_. _The Examiner_, March 22, 1812.

These epigrams have no signature, but the second of them was reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion"_ (1822) with Lamb's signature, R. et R., appended, and a note saying that it was written in the last reign, together with an announcement that it had not appeared in _The Champion_, but was inserted in that collection at the author's request. By Princeps and the heir-apparent is meant, of course, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., who had just entered upon office as Regent. The epigrams refer to his transfer of confidence, if so it may be called, from the Whig party to the Marquis Wellesley, Perceval and the Tory party. The circumstance that the Prince of Wales was also Duke of Cornwall is referred to in the first epigram. The second of the epigrams is copied into one of Lamb's Commonplace Books with the title "On the Prince breaking with his Party."

Page 116. _The Triumph of the Whale_.

_The Examiner_, March 15, 1812. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ signed R. et R., with a note stating that it had not appeared in _The Champion_, but was collected with the other pieces by the author's request.

The subject of the verses was, of course, the first gentleman in Europe. _The Examiner_ was never over-nice in its treatment of the prince, and it was in the same year, 1812, that Leigh Hunt, the editor, and his brother, the printer, of the paper were prosecuted for the article styling him a "libertine" and the "companion of gamblers and demireps" (which appeared the week following Lamb's poem), and were condemned to imprisonment for it. Lamb's lines came very little short of expressing equally objectionable criticisms; but verse is often privileged. Thelwall--and Lamb--showed some courage in reprinting the lines in 1822, when the prince had become king. Talfourd relates that Lamb was in the habit of checking harsh comments on the prince by others with the smiling remark, "_I_ love my Regent."

In Galignani's 1828 edition of Byron this piece was attributed to his lordship.

* * * * *

Page 118. _St. Crispin to Mr. Gifford._

_The Examiner_, October 3 and 4, 1819. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

William Gifford (1756-1826), editor of the _Quarterly Review_, had been apprenticed to a cobbler. Lamb had an old score against him on account of his editorial treatment of Lamb's review of Wordsworth's _Excursion_, in 1814, and other matters (see note to "Letter to Southey," Vol. I.). Writing to the Olliers, on the publication of his _Works_, June 18, 1818, Lamb says, in reference to this sonnet: "I meditate an attack upon that Cobler Gifford, which shall appear immediately after any favourable mention which S. [Southey] may make in the Quarterly. It can't in decent _gratitude_ appear _before_." When the sonnet was printed in the _Examiner_ it purported to have reference to the _Quarterly's_ treatment of Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_, which treatment Leigh Hunt was then exposing in a series of articles.

Page 118. _The Godlike._

_The Champion_, March 18 and 19, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

Another contribution to the character of George IV., who had just succeeded to the throne, and was at that moment engaged upon the task of divorcing his wife, Caroline of Brunswick. The eighth line must be read probably with a medical eye. The concluding three lines refer to George III.'s insanity. As a political satirist Lamb disdained half measures.

Page 119. _The Three Graves._

_The Champion_, May 13 and 14, 1820. Signed Dante. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822, signed Dante and R. et R. Reprinted in the _London Magazine_, May, 1825, unsigned, with the names in the last line printed only with initials and dashes, and the sub-title, "Written during the time, now happily almost forgotten, of the spy system."

Lamb probably found a certain mischievous pleasure in giving these lines the title of one of Coleridge's early poems.

The spy system was a protective movement undertaken by Lord Sidmouth (1757-1844) as Home Secretary in 1817--after the Luddite riots, the general disaffection in the country, Thistlewood's Spa Fields uprising and the break-down of the prosecution. Curious reading on the subject is to be found in the memoirs of Richmond the Spy, and Peter Mackenzie's remarks on that book and its author, in _Tait's Magazine_. The spy system culminated with the failure of the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820, which cost Thistlewood his life. That plot to murder ministers was revealed by George Edwards, one of the spies named by Lamb in the last line of this poem. Castles and Oliver were other government spies mentioned by Richmond.

Line 2. _Bedloe, Oates_ ... William Bedloe (1650-1680) and Titus Oates (1649-1705) were associated as lying informers of the proceedings of the imaginary Popish Plot against Charles II.

Page 119. _Sonnet to Mathew Wood, Esq_.

_The Champion_, May 13 and 14, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

Matthew Wood, afterwards Sir Matthew (1768-1843), was twice Lord Mayor of London, 1815-1817, and M.P. for the city. He was one of the principal friends and advisers of Caroline of Brunswick, George IV.'s repudiated wife. Hence his particular merit in Lamb's eyes. Later he administered the affairs of the Duke of Kent, whose trustee he was, and his baronetcy was the first bestowed by Queen Victoria. The sonnet contains another of Lamb's attacks on Canning. This statesman's mother, after the death of George Canning, her first husband, in 1771, took to the stage, where she remained for thirty years. Canning was at school at Eton. The course on which Wood was adjured to hold was the defence of Queen Caroline; but Canning's opposition to her cause was not so absolute as Lamb seemed to think. The ministry, of which Canning was a member, had prepared a bill by which the queen was to receive £50,000 annually so long as she remained abroad. The king insisted on divorce or nothing, and it was his own repugnance to this measure that caused Canning to tender his resignation. The king refused it, and Canning went abroad and did not return until it was abandoned.

Line 11. _Pickpocket Peer_. This would be Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville (1742-1811), Pitt's lieutenant, who was impeached for embezzling money as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was acquitted, but that was a circumstance that would hardly concern Lamb when in this mood.

* * * * *

Page 120. _On a Projected Journey_.

_The Champion_, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822. George IV.'s visit to Hanover did not, however, occur till October, 1821. This is entitled in Ayrton's MS. book (see below) "Upon the King's embarcation at Ramsgate for Hanover, 1821."

Page 120. _Song for the C----n_.

_The Champion_, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

A song for the Coronation, which was fixed for 1821. Queen Caroline returned to England in June, 1820, staying with Alderman Wood (see page 361) in order to be on the spot against that event. Meanwhile the divorce proceedings began, but were eventually withdrawn. Caroline made a forcible effort to be present at the Coronation, on July 29, 1821, but was repulsed at the Abbey door. She was taken ill the next day and died on August 7. "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch" is the Scotch song by Anne Grant.

Page 120. _The Unbeloved_.

_The Champion_, September 23 and 24, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822. In _The Champion_ the last line was preceded by

Place-and-heiress-hunting elf,

the reference to heiress-hunting touching upon Canning's marriage to Miss Joan Scott, a sister of the Duchess of Portland, who brought him £100,000.

Line 4. _C----gh_. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and second Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), Foreign Secretary from 1812 until his death. He committed suicide in a state of unsound mind.

Line 6. _The Doctor_. This was the nickname commonly given to Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth.

Line 8. _Their chatty, childish Chancellor_. John Scott, afterwards Earl of Eldon (1751-1838), the Lord Chancellor.

Line 9. _In Liverpool some virtues strike_. Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828), Prime Minister at the time, and therefore principal scapegoat for the Divorce Bill.

Line 10. _And little Van's beneath dislike_. Nicholas Vansittart, afterwards Baron Bexley (1766-1851), Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Line 12. _H----t_. Thomas Taylour, first Marquis of Headfort (1757-1829), the principal figure in a crim. con. case in 1804 when he was sued by a clergyman named Massey and had to pay £10,000 damages.

* * * * *

Page 121. _On the Arrival in England of Lord Byron's Remains_.

From a MS. book of William Ayrton's. In _The New Times_, October 24, 1825, the verses followed the "Ode to the Treadmill." The epigram, which was unsigned, then ran thus:--

THE POETICAL CASK

With change of climate manners alter not:
Transport a drunkard--he'll return a sot.
So lordly Juan, d----d to endless fame,
Went out a _pickle_--and comes back the same.

Lord Byron's body had been brought home from Greece, for burial at Hucknall Torkard, in 1824, and the cause of the epigram was a paragraph in _The New Times_ of October 19, 1825, stating that the tub in which Byron's remains came home was exhibited by the captain of the _Rodney_ for 2s. 6d. a head; afterwards sold to a cooper in Whitechapel; resold to a museum; and finally sold again to a cooper in Middle New Street, who was at that time using it as an advertisement.

The third line recalls Pope's line--

See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame.

_Essay on Man_, IV., 284.

Page 121. _Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross._

First printed in the _Englishman's Magazine_, September, 1831. Lamb sent the epigram to Barton in a letter in November, 1827. The body of Caroline of Brunswick, the rejected wife of George IV., was conveyed through London only by force--involving a fatal affray between the people and the Life Guards at Hyde Park corner--on its way to burial at Brunswick.

Page 122. _For the "Table Book."_

This epigram accompanies a note to William Hone. It was marked "For the _Table Book_," but does not seem to have been printed there.

Page 122. _The Royal Wonders._

_The Times_, August 10, 1830. Signed Charles Lamb. The epigram refers to the Paris insurrection of July 26, 1830, which cost Charles X. his throne; and, at home, to William IV.'s extreme fraternal friendliness to his subjects.

Page 122. _Brevis Esse Laboro._ "One Dip."

* * * * *

Page 123. _Suum Cuique._

These epigrams were written for the sons of James Augustus Hessey, the publisher, two Merchant Taylor boys. In _The Taylorian_ for March, 1884, the magazine of the Merchant Taylors' School, the late Archdeacon Hessey, one of the boys in question, told the story of their authorship. It was a custom many years ago for Election Day at Merchant Taylors' School to be marked by the recitation of original epigrams in Greek, Latin and English, which, although the boys themselves were usually the authors, might also be the work of other hands. Archdeacon Hessey and his brother, as the following passage explains, resorted to Charles Lamb for assistance:--

The subjects for 1830 were _Suum Cuique_ and _Brevis esse latoro_. After some three or four exercise nights I confess that I was literally "at my wits' end." But a brilliant idea struck me. I had frequently, boy as I was, seen Charles Lamb (Elia) at my father's house, and once, in 1825 or 1826, I had been taken to have tea with him and his sister, Mary Lamb, at their little house, Colebrook Cottage, a whitish-brown tenement, standing by itself, close to the New River, at Islington. He was very kind, as he always was to young people, and very quaint. I told him that I had devoured his "Roast Pig;" he congratulated me on possessing a thorough schoolboy's appetite. And he was pleased when I mentioned my having seen the boys at Christ's Hospital at their public suppers, which then took place on the Sunday evenings in Lent. "Could this good-natured and humorous old gentleman be prevailed upon to give me an Epigram?" "I don't know," said my father, to whom I put the question, "but I will ask him at any rate, and send him the mottoes." In a day or two there arrived from Enfield, to which Lamb had removed some time in 1827, not one, but two epigrams, one on each subject. That on _Suum Cuique_ was in Latin, and was suggested by the grim satisfaction which had recently been expressed by the public at the capture and execution of some notorious highwayman. That on _Brevis esse laboro_ was in English, and might have represented an adventure which had befallen Lamb himself, for he stammered frequently, though he was not so grievous a _Balbulus_ as his friend George Darley, whom I had also often seen. I need scarcely say that the two Epigrams were highly appreciated, and that my brother and myself, for I gave my brother one of them, were objects of envy to our schoolfellows.

The death of George IV., however, prevented their being recited on the occasion for which they were written.

"_Suum Cuique_," which was signed F. Hessey, was thus translated by its presumptive author:--

A thief, on dreary Bagshot's heath well known,
Was fond of making others' goods his own;
_Meum_ was never thought of, nor was _Tuum_,
But everything with him was counted _Suum_.
At length each gets his own, and no one grieves;
The rope his neck, Jack Ketch his clothes receives:
His body to dissecting knife has gone;
Himself to Orcus: well--each gets his own.