Chapter VIII (5)

Amongst other notable men who came to Colebrooke Cottage, I had twice the good fortune of meeting with S. T. Coleridge. The first time he came from Highgate with Mrs. Gilman, to dine with “Charles and Mary.” What a contrast to Lamb was the full-bodied Poet, with his waving white hair, and his face round, ruddy, and unfurrowed as a holy Friar’s! Apropos to which face he gave us a humorous description of an unfinished portrait, that served him for a sort of barometer, to indicate the state of his popularity. So sure as his name made any temporary stir, out came the canvas on the easel, and a request from the artist for another sitting: down sank the Original in the public notice, and back went the copy into a corner, till some fresh publication or accident again brought forward the Poet; and then forth came the picture for a few more touches. I sincerely hope it has been finished! What a benign, smiling face it was! What a comfortable, respectable figure! What a model, methought, as I watched and admired the “Old Man eloquent,” for a Christian bishop! But he was, perhaps, scarcely orthodox enough to be trusted with a mitre. At least, some of his voluntaries would have frightened a common everyday congregation from their propriety. Amongst other matters of discourse, he came to speak of the strange notions some literal-minded persons form of the joys of Heaven; joys they associated with mere temporal things, in which, for his own part, finding no delight in this world, he could find no bliss hereafter, without a change in his nature, tantamount to the loss of his personal identity. For instance, he said, there are persons who place the whole angelical beatitude in the possession of a pair of wings to flap about with, like “_a sort of celestial poultry_.” After dinner he got up, and began pacing to and fro, with his hands behind his back, talking and walking, as Lamb laughingly hinted, as if qualifying for an itinerant preacher; now fetching a simile from Loddiges’ garden, at Hackney; and then flying off for an illustration to the sugar-making in Jamaica. With his fine, flowing voice, it was glorious music, of the “never-ending, still-beginning” kind; and you did not wish it to end. It was rare flying, as in the Nassau Balloon; you knew not whither, nor did you care. Like his own bright-eyed Marinere, he had a spell in his voice that would not let you go. To attempt to describe my own feeling afterward, I had been carried, spiralling, up to heaven by a whirlwind intertwisted with sunbeams, giddy and dazzled, but not displeased, and had then been rained down again with a shower of mundane stocks and stones that battered out of me all recollection of what I had heard, and what I had seen!

On the second occasion, the author of Christabel was accompanied by one of his sons. The Poet, talking and walking as usual, chanced to pursue some argument, which drew from the son, who had not been introduced to me, the remark, “Ah, that’s just like your crying up those foolish Odes and Addresses!” Coleridge was highly amused with this mal-àpropos, and, without explaining, looked slily round at me, with the sort of suppressed laugh one may suppose to belong to the Bey of _Tittery_. The truth was, he felt naturally partial to a book he had attributed in the first instance to the dearest of his friends.

“MY DEAR CHARLES,--This afternoon, a little, thin,
mean-looking sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on
very dingy outsides, lay on the table, which the cover informed me
was circulating in our book-club, so very Grub Streetish in all its
appearance, internal as well as external, that I cannot explain
by what accident of impulse (assuredly there was no _motive_ in
play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the title, Odes and
Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my head with
Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore Hook squad. But,
my dear Charles, it was certainly written by you, or under you,
or _una cum_ you. I know none of your frequent visitors capacious
and assimilative enough of your converse to have reproduced you
so honestly, supposing you had left yourself in pledge in his
lock-up house. Gillman, to whom I read the spirited parody on the
introduction to Peter Bell, the Ode to the Great Unknown, and to
Mrs. Fry; he speaks doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. But here come
Irving and Basil Montagu.

“_Thursday night, 10 o’clock._--No! Charles, it is _you_. I have
read them over again, and I understand why you have _anon’d_
the book. The puns are nine in ten good--many excellent--the
_Newgatory_ transcendent. And then the _exemplum sine exemplo_ of
a volume of personalities and contemporaneities, without a single
line that could inflict the infinitesimal of an unpleasance on any
man in his senses; saving and except perhaps in the envy-addled
brain of the despiser of your _Lays_. If not a triumph over him,
it is at least an _ovation_. Then, moreover, and besides, to speak
with becoming modesty, excepting my own self, who is there but you
who could write the musical lines and stanzas that are intermixed?

“Here Gillman, come up to my garret, and driven back by the
guardian spirits of four huge flower-holders of omnigenous roses
and honeysuckles--(Lord have mercy on his hysterical olfactories!
what will he do in Paradise? I must have a pair or two of
nostril-plugs, or nose-goggles laid in his coffin)--stands at the
door, reading that to M’Adam, and the washerwoman’s letter, and he
admits _the facts_. You are found _in the manner_, as the lawyers
say! so, Mr. Charles! hang yourself up, and send me a line, by way
of token and acknowledgment. My dear love to Mary. God bless you
and your Unshamabramizer,

“S. T. COLERIDGE.”

It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling “the infinitesimal of an unpleasance” at being Addressed in the Odes, the once celebrated Mr. Hunt presented to the Authors a bottle of his best “Permanent Ink,” and the eccentric Doctor Kitchiner sent an invitation to dinner.

From Colebrooke, Lamb removed to Enfield Chase,--a painful operation at all times, for as he feelingly misapplied Wordsworth, “the _moving_ accident was not his trade.” As soon as he was settled, I called upon him, and found him in a bald-looking yellowish house, with a bit of a garden, and a wasp’s nest convanient, as the Irish say, for one stung my pony as he stood at the door. Lamb laughed at the fun; but, as the clown says, the whirligig of time brought round its revenges. He was one day bantering my wife on her dread of wasps, when all at once he uttered a horrible shout,--a wounded specimen of the species had slily crawled up the leg of the table, and stung him in the thumb. I told him it was a refutation well put in, like Smollett’s timely snowball. “Yes,” said he, “and a stinging commentary on Macbeth--

“_By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes._”

There were no pastoral yearnings concerned in this Enfield removal. There is no doubt which of Captain Morris’s Town and Country Songs would have been most to Lamb’s taste. “The sweet shady side of Pall-Mall,” would have carried it hollow. In courtesy to a friend, he would select a green lane for a ramble, but left to himself, he took the turnpike road as often as otherwise. “Scott,” says Cunningham, “was a stout walker.” Lamb was a _porter_ one. He calculated Distances, not by Long Measure, but by Ale and Beer Measure. “Now I have walked a pint.” Many a time I have accompanied him in these matches against Meux, not without sharing in the stake, and then, what cheerful and profitable talk! For instance, he once delivered to me orally the substance of the Essay on the Defect of Imagination in Modern Artists, subsequently printed in the Athenæum. But besides the criticism, there were snatches of old poems, golden lines and sentences culled from rare books, and anecdotes of men of note. Marry, it was like going a ramble with gentle Izaak Walton, minus the fishing.

To make these excursions more delightful to one of my temperament, Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neither did he ever act the Grand _Senior_. He did not exact that common copy-book respect, which some asinine persons would fair command on account of the mere length of their years. As if, forsooth, what is bad in itself, could be the better for keeping; as if intellects already _mothery_, got anything but _grandmothery_ by lapse of time! In this particular, he was opposed to Southey, or rather (for Southey has been opposed to himself) to his Poem on the Holly Tree.

“So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem among the young and gay
_More grave than they_.”

There was nothing of Sir Oracle about Lamb. On the contrary, at sight of a solemn visage that “creamed and mantled like the standing pool,” he was the first to pitch a mischievous stone to disturb the duck-weed. “He was a boy-man,” as he truly said of Elia; “and his manners lagged behind his years.” He liked to herd with people younger than himself. Perhaps, in his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation to Eternity, we are all contemporaries. However, without reckoning birthdays, it was always “Hail fellow, well met;” and although he was my elder by a quarter of a century, he never made me feel, in our excursions, that I was “taking a walk with the schoolmaster.” I remember, in one of our strolls, being called to account, very pompously, by the proprietor of an Enfield Villa, who asserted that my dog Dash, who never hunted anything in his dog-days, had chased the sheep; whereupon, Elia taking the dog’s part, said very emphatically, “Hunt _Lambs_, Sir? Why he has never hunted _me_!” But he was always ready for fun, intellectual or practical--now helping to pelt D*****, a modern Dennis, with puns; and then to persuade his sister, God bless her! by a vox et preterea nihil, that she was as deaf as an adder. In the same spirit, being requested by a young Schoolmaster to take charge of his flock for a day, “during the unavoidable absence of the Principal,” he willingly undertook the charge, but made no other use of his brief authority than to give the boys a whole holiday.

As Elia supplied the place of the Pedagogue, so once I was substitute for Lamb himself. A prose article in the Gem, was not from his hand, though it bore his name. He had promised a contribution, but being unwell, his sister suggested that I should write something for him, and the result was the “Widow” in imitation of his manner. It will be seen that the forgery was taken in good part.

“DEAR LAMB,--You are an impudent varlet, but I will keep
your secret. We dine at Ayrton’s on Thursday, and shall try to
find Sarah and her two spare beds for that night only. Miss M. and
her tragedy may be d---- d, so may _not_ you and your rib. Health
attend you.

Yours,
T. HOOD, Esq.

“_Enfield._

“Miss Bridget Hood sends love.”

How many of such pleasant reminiscences revive in my memory, whilst thinking of him, like secret writing brought out by the kindly warmth of the fire! But they must be deferred to leave me time and space for other attributes--for example, his charity, in its widest sense, the moderation in judgment which, as Miller says, is “the Silken String running through the Pearl Chain of all Virtues.” If he was intolerant of anything, it was of Intolerance. He would have been (if the foundation had existed, save in the fiction of Rabelais,) of the Utopian order of Thelemites, where each man under scriptural warrant did what seemed good in his own eyes. He hated evil speaking, carping, and petty scandal. On one occasion having slipped out an anecdote, to the discredit of a literary man, during a very confidential conversation, the next moment, with an expression of remorse, for having impaired even my opinion of the party, he bound me solemnly to bury the story in my own bosom. In another case he characteristically rebuked the backbiting spirit of a censorious neighbour. Some Mrs. Candour telling him, in expectation of an ill-natured comment, that Miss ***, the teacher at the Ladies’ School, had married a publican, “Has she so?” said Lamb, “then I’ll have my beer there!”

As to his liberality in a pecuniary sense, he passed (says Lamb of Elia) with some people, through having a settled but moderate income, for a great miser. And in truth he knew the value of money, its power, its usefulness. One January night he told me with great glee that at the end of the late year he had been able to lay by--and thence proceeded to read me a serio-comic lecture on the text, of “Keep your hand out of your Pocket.” The truth is, Lamb, like Shakspeare in the universality of his sympathies, could feel, pro tempore, what belonged to the character of a Gripe-all. The reader will remember his capital Note in the “Dramatic Specimens,” on “the decline of Misers, in consequence of the _Platonic_ nature of an affection for Money,” since Money was represented by “_flimsies_,” instead of substantial coin, the good old solid sonorous dollars and doubloons, and pieces of eight, that might be handled, and hugged, and rattled, and perhaps kissed. But to this passion for hoarding he one day attributed a new origin. “A Miser,” he said, “is sometimes a grand personification of Fear. He has a fine horror of Poverty. And he is not content to keep Want from the door, or at arm’s length,--but he places it, by heaping wealth upon wealth, _at a sublime distance_!” Such was his theory: now for his practice. Amongst his other guests, you occasionally saw an elderly lady, formal, fair, and flaxen-wigged, looking remarkably like an animated wax doll,--and she did visit some friends or relations, at a toyshop near St. Dunstan’s. When she spoke, it was as if by an artificial apparatus, through some defect in her palate, and she had a slight limp and a twist in her figure, occasioned--what would Hannah More have said!--by running down Greenwich Hill! This antiquated personage had been Lamb’s Schoolmistress--and on this retrospective consideration, though she could hardly have taught him more than to read his native tongue--he allowed her in her decline, a yearly sum, equal to--what shall I say?--to the stipend which some persons of fortune deem sufficient for the active services of an all-accomplished gentlewoman in the education of their children. Say, thirty pounds per annum.

Such was Charles Lamb. To sum up his character, on his own principle of antagonism, he was, in his views of human nature, the opposite of Crabbe; in Criticism, of Gifford; in Poetry, of Lord Byron; in Prose, of the last new Novelist; in Philosophy, of Kant; and in Religion, of Sir Andrew Agnew. Of his wit I have endeavoured to give such samples as occurred to me; but the spirit of his sayings was too subtle and too much married to the circumstances of the time to survive the occasion. They had the brevity without the levity of wit--some of his puns contained the germs of whole essays. Moreover, like Falstaff, he seemed not only witty himself but the occasion of it by example in others. “There is M******” said he, “who goes about dropping his good things as an Ostrich lays her eggs, without caring what becomes of them.” It was once my good fortune to pick up one of Mr. M.’s foundlings, and it struck me as particularly in Lamb’s own style, containing at once a pun and a criticism. “What do you think,” asked somebody, “of the book called ‘A Day in Stowe Gardens?’” Answer: “A Day ill-bestowed.”

It is now some years ago, since I stood with other mourners in Edmonton Church Yard, beside a grave in which all that was mortal of Elia was deposited. It may be a dangerous confession to make, but I shed no tear; and scarcely did a sigh escape from my bosom. There were many sources of comfort. He had not died young. He had happily gone before that noble sister, who not in selfishness, but the devotion of a unique affection, would have prayed to survive him but for a day, lest he should miss that tender care which had watched over him upwards from a little child. Finally he had left behind him his works, a rare legacy! and above all, however much of him had departed, there was still more of him that could not die--for as long as Humanity endures and man owns fellowship with man, the spirit of Charles Lamb will still be extant!

* * * * *

On the publication of the Odes and Addresses, presentation copies were sent at the suggestion of a friend, to Mr. Canning and Sir Walter Scott. The minister took no notice of the little volume; but the novelist did, in his usual kind manner. An eccentric friend in writing to me, once made a number of colons, semicolons, &c., at the bottom of the paper, adding

“And these are my points that I place at the foot,
That you may put stops that I can’t stop to put.”

It will surprise no one, to observe that the author of Waverley had as little leisure for punctuation.

“SIR WALTER SCOTT has to make thankful acknowledgments for
the copy of the Odes to Great People with which he was favoured
and more particularly for the amusement he has received from the
perusal. He wishes the unknown author good health good fortune
and whatever other good things can best support and encourage his
lively vein of inoffensive and humorous satire.

_Abbotsford Melrose 4th May_”

The first time I ever saw the Great Unknown, was at the private view of Martin’s Picture of “Nineveh,” when by a striking coincidence, one of our most celebrated women, and one of our greatest men, Mrs. Siddons and Sir Walter Scott, walked simultaneously up opposite sides of the room, and met and shook hands in front of the painting. As Editor of the Gem, I had afterwards occasion to write to Sir Walter, from whom I received the following letter, which contains an allusion to some of his characteristic partialities:--

“MY DEAR MR. HOOD,--It was very ungracious in me to leave
you in a day’s doubt whether I was gratified or otherwise with
the honour you did me to inscribe your Whims and Oddities to me I
received with great pleasure this new mark of your kindness and it
was only my leaving your volume and letter in the country which
delayed my answer as I forgot the address.

I was favoured with Mr. Cooper’s beautiful sketch of the
heart-piercing incident of the dead greyhound which is executed
with a force and fancy which I flatter myself that I who was in my
younger days and in part still am a great lover of dogs and horses
and an accurate observer of their habits can appreciate, I intend
the instant our term ends to send a few verses if I can make any
at my years in acknowledgment. I will get a day’s leisure for this
purpose next week when I expect to be in the country. Pray inform
Mr. Cooper of my intention though I fear I will be unable to do
anything deserving of the subject.

I am very truly your obliged humble servant,

WALTER SCOTT.”

_Edinburgh 4 March._

At last, during one of his visits to London, I had the honour of a personal interview with Sir Walter Scott at Mr. Lockhart’s in Sussex Place. The number of the house had escaped my memory; but seeing a fine dog down an area, I knocked without hesitation at the door. It happened however to be the wrong one. I afterwards mentioned the circumstance to Sir Walter. It was not a bad point, he said, for he was very fond of dogs; but he did not care to have his own animals with him, about London, “for fear he should be taken for Bill Gibbons.” I then told him I had lately been reading the Fair Maid of Perth, which had reminded me of a very pleasant day spent many years before, beside the Linn of Campsie, the scene of Conachar’s catastrophe. Perhaps he divined what had really occurred to me,--that the Linn, as a cataract, had greatly disappointed me; for he smiled, and shook his head archly, and said he had since seen it himself, and was rather ashamed of it. “But I fear, Mr. Hood, I have done worse than that before now, in finding a Monastery where there was none to be found; though there was plenty (here he smiled again) of Carduus Benedictus, or Holy Thistle.”

In the meantime he was finishing his toilet, in order to dine at the Duchess of Kent’s; and before he put on his cravat I had an opportunity of noticing the fine massive proportions of his bust. It served to confirm me in my theory that such mighty men are, and must be, physically, as well as intellectually, gifted beyond ordinary mortals; that their strong minds must be backed by strong bodies. Remembering all that Sir Walter Scott had done, and all that he had suffered, methought he had been in more than one sense “a Giant in the Land.” After some more conversation, in the course of which he asked me if I ever came to Scotland, and kindly said he should be glad to see me at Abbotsford, I took my leave, with flattering dreams in my head that never were, and now, alas! never can be, realised!

* * * * *

And now, not to conclude in too melancholy a tone, allow me, gentle reader, to present to you the following genuine letter, the names, merely, for obvious reasons, being disguised.

_To T. Hood, Esq._

“Thou’rt a comical chap--so am I; but thou possessest brains
competent to write what I mean;--I don’t--therefore, Brother Comic,
wilt thou oblige me (if ’twas in my power I would you)--I’ll tell
you just what I want, and no more. Of late, Lord *** has been
endeavouring to raise a body of yeomanry in this county. Now
there’s a man at Bedfont--a compounder of nauseous drugs--and
against whom I owe a grudge, who wishes to enter, but who’s no
more fit for a fighter than I for a punster. Now if you will just
give him a palpable hit or two in verse, and transmit them to me
by post, directed to A. B., Post Office, Bedfont, your kindness
shall ever be remembered with feelings of the deepest sincerity and
gratitude. His name is ‘JAMES BOOKER, CHEMIST,’ Bedfont
_of course_. If you disapprove of the above, I trust you will
not abuse the confidence placed in you, by ‘SPLITTING.’
You’ll say, how can I?--by showing this letter to him. He knows the
handwriting full well--but you’ll not do so, I hope. Perhaps, if
you feel a disposition to oblige me, you will do so at your first
convenience, ere the matter will be getting stale.

“Yours truly,
“A. B.

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to let me have an answer from you,
even if you will NOT condescend to accede to my wish.

“Perhaps you’ve not sufficient particulars. He’s a little fellow,
flushed face, long nose, precious ugly, housekeeper as ugly, lives
between the two Peacock Inns, is a single man, very anxious to get
possession of Miss Boltbee, a ward in Chancery with something like
£9000 (WISH he may get it), is famous for his Gout
Medicine, sells jalap (should like to make him swallow an ounce),
always knows other people’s business better than his own, used
to go to church, now goes to chapel, and in the whole, is a great
rascal.

“Bedfont is thirteen miles from London.”

[4] To borrow an example from fiction, there is that slave of
circumstances, Oliver Twist. There are few authors whom one
would care to see running two heats with the same horse. It
is intended therefore as a compliment, that I wish Boz would
re-write the history in question from page 122, supposing his
hero NOT to have met with the Artful Dodger on his road to seek
his fortune.

[5] In justice to the Society, it ought to be recorded, that two
of its members have since distinguished themselves in print: the
authoress of “London in the Olden Time,” and the author of a
“History of Moral Science.”

[6] There was a dash of ink in my blood. My father wrote two novels,
and my brother was decidedly of a literary turn, to the great
disquietude for a time of an anxious parent. She suspected him,
on the strength of several amatory poems of a very desponding
cast, of being the victim of a hopeless attachment; so he was
caught, closeted, and catechised, and after a deal of delicate
and tender sounding, he confessed, not with the anticipated
sighs and tears, but a very unexpected burst of laughter, that
he had been guilty of translating some fragments of Petrarch.

[7] A cottage of Ungentility, for it had neither double coach-house
nor wings. Like its tenant, it stood alone. He said, glancing at
the Paternoster one, that he did not like “the Row.” There was
a bit of a garden, in which, being, as he professed, “more fond
of Men Sects than of Insects,” he made probably his first and
last observation in Entomology. He had been watching a spider
on a gooseberry bush, entrapping a fly. “Good God,” he said, “I
never saw such a thing! Directly he was caught, in her fatal
spinning, she darted down upon him, and in a minute turned him
out, completely lapped in a shroud! It reminded me of the Fatal
Sisters in Gray.”

[8] A sort of rheumatic celerity, of which Sir W. Scott’s favourite
dramatiser seemed to have a very accurate notion. Those who
remember “poor Terry’s” deliberate delivery, will be able to
account, for the shout of laughter which once rang throughout
the Adelphi green-room, at his emphatic manner of giving,
from a manuscript-play, the stage direction of “Enter----,
with--a--lack--ri--ty!”

[9] As regards his Unitarianism, it strikes me as more probable
that he was what the unco guid people call “Nothing at all.”
which means that he was every thing but a Bigot. As he was in
spirit an Old Author, so was he in faith an Ancient Christian,
too ancient to belong to any of the modern sub-hubbub-divisions
of--Ists,--Arians, and--Inians.

[10] Talking of Poetry, Lamb told me one day that he had just met
with the most vigorous line he had ever read. “Where?” “Out of
the Camden’s Head, all in one line--

“To _One Hundred Pots of Porter_ £2 1 8”

[11] Somebody happened to say that the Peasant ought to figure in
the Percy Anecdotes, as an example of uncultivated genius. “And
where will they stick me?” asked Clare, “will they stick me in
the instinct?”

[12] I once cut out from a country newspaper what seemed to me a very
good old English poem. It proved to be a _naturalization_, by
Cary, of a French Song to April, by Remy Belleau.

[13] The father expressing an uncertainty to what profession he
should devote a younger Cary, Lamb said, “Make him an
Apothe-Cary.”

[14] Unable to make any thing “like a likeness” of a sitter for the
purpose, I have a sort of Irish faculty for taking faces behind
their backs. But my pencil has not been guilty of half the
personalities attributed to it; amongst others “a formidable
likeness of a Lombard Street Banker.” Besides that one would
rather draw on a Banker than at him, I have never seen the
Gentleman alluded to, or even a portrait of him in my life.

[15] On a visit to Norfolk, I was much surprised to find that Opium,
or Opie, as it was vulgarly called, was quite in common use in
the form of pills amongst the lower classes, _in the vicinity
of the Fens_. It is not probable that persons in such a rank
of life had read the Confessions,--or, might not one suspect
that as Dennis Brulgruddery was driven to drink by the stale,
flat and unprofitable prospects of Muckslush Heath, so the
Fen-People in the dreary foggy cloggy boggy wastes of Cambridge
and Lincolnshire, had flown to the Drug for the sake of the
magnificent _scenery_ that filled the splendid visions of its
Historian?

THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE.

THERE is no estimate more ludicrous than that which is formed by unthinking persons of the powers of Authors. Thus when a gentleman has once written a Book, say, on Domestic Medicine, it is popularly supposed that he is competent to compose a work on any subject whatever, from Transcendental Philosophy down to Five Minutes’ Advice on the Teeth. Something of the kind is observable in the Autobiography of Brasbridge, the Silversmith, of Fleet Street, who tells us that after the publication of his Memoirs, he was hailed by a fellow-citizen with “So you have written a book!--why, for the future I shall call you Shakspeare!” as if the recorder of a set of “fiddle-headed” anecdotes became, ipso facto, on a par with the creator of Othello. For another instance I can refer to my own humble experience. The anti-antiquarian nature of my literary researches is sufficiently well known; yet it did not prevent a grave retrospective-looking gentleman from one day concluding an account of some inedited architectural remains near Whitehall, with--“I wonder now that _you_, as a writer, have never taken up the subject!” The worthy F.A.S. might as well have suggested a plot for a Farce to Sylvanus Urban;--but such is the general opinion of the universality of a genius that prints. Bearing this tendency in mind, it will not seem so extraordinary that the following correspondence should be placed in the hands of the Editor of the Comic Annual by a respectable tradesman, who affirmed with tears in his eyes, that “it was a grave subject, worthy of the serious consideration of the Public.”

No. I.--_To Mister_ BENJAMIN CARNABY, _7, Brigantine Row, Deptford, London. (With Spead.)_

DEER BRUTHER,

I am trully sory to arrow up yure relativ felings But it do seam to Me as my deer Bob is beeing shamfully Iltretid at his Skull. Inclosd is the pore fellars too letters the last jist cum to hand, And were sich a blo to fathurly felings I have nevver bean my hone Man evver sins. Id appeer he hav wel ni bin Starvd. Prays God his pore Muther is coald under the Hearth, it wud spile the rest of hir hashes if so be she cood read his tail of pewtered meet. If she ad a delite hear abuv it were childrins legs strate And there Bellis well fild partickly groin up Yuths--and She wood av run creazy to think of the Constitushun bein rewind for evver and ever with turnd tabil Bear. And you too I no you will blead at art for the mizriz of yure pore Nevy But I hop you will old up under it tho it be as it war a thunderboult on us boath. In respex of Larning it seam his mind hav bin reglectid to be nurrisht up as well as is bodely Fram even to cumpare the too Leters my Bob rite a site better gud Inglish nor his Master witch to my mind He mite hav dun grates at Home in loo of paing sich mints of Munny for Skulling But wat disapints me Most next to his fammishin is the Greek and Lattin as I did sit my Art upon to hav won clasicle Skollard branch in the famely. Them too hushers desarves a wiping at a carts tale, and so do that mawks with hir luv gammux in juvenal presents Much gud it wur my sendin him abuv a duzzin mile off from Lunnun to uncorrup his morrils. Has for the Dockter I cud find in my hart to strip his dipplomer over his years with my hone ands wen I think that in loo of techin the yung idear how to shut he has mayhap stunted the Pore boys groth for his lif to cum. But overpourin felings forebids my drawin moor picters of Bobs suffrin. I have had no stummuck ever sins the Post nockt me down with the Nus. But it wood not be becummin a parrent and a Farthe to be revealing in lucksriz wile the Sun of his hone lines ware revealing in fliblod beaf and vargis. To be sure these is felings that you as an unmarred man cant enter into at full lenth, but as hone Unkil by fleash and blud you will enter into the hard boord partickly as yure hone coarse of lif as had its scrimps and cum shorts and tort you what it is to be pincht in youre Fud. Wi i mite as well hav sent him to a short communing Yorksheer Skull at twenty pound per anum a yeer and had his close chuckt in to his Bed and bord. In the interium I hav forwardid him a cumfitting letter with a Won Pun Not to treet himself to sumat moor stayin and suportin nor stal pastery. But I do hop and beg Deer Bruther to hav your sentimints on the cas as you be moor caperble to advize me than I am, and not to delay riting if so be yure officious dutis purvent pearsonally quitin the yard. I wud have tuck a place on the Rumfud Stag and sit off at wons but Gowt forebid my cotching and so do Missis Rumsey for as yusial wen my felings is Frustratid all my Nervs is flone to my Fut. Pore Missis Rumsey simperthizes at evvery thing and is quit as upsit in her sperrits for as she say altho but Houskeper her Bowls yarns to Bob all as one with an hone hoffspring. She do say as Bobs a littel piggin brested and shoes simtoms of pullmary afection she trembil for fear pourness of blud sows seeds of sumthink fatle in his lunges. Indeed her mutherly hangsity offen remind a lass of her as lies volting in All allows barking. With witch I conclud with all brutherly luv, hopping to here by return of Poast. I no you seldim or nevver anser peples favers partickly mine but I do hop as this hear is a matter of vittle importins you will devot a few minuets to

Yure luving but aflicted Bruther
JOHN CARNABY.

P. S. If so be you thort best to poshay off xpressivly to Bob, watever is disburstid out of pockit my Puss shall kiver the hole. Praps you may lick him to be tuck away at wons for it wud be a thowsend pitis to brake his sperrit and he is rayther tender artid as you may gudge by wat he rite of his pore late muther. Well, hevin nose I war never in faver of turning Cots but if so be they wood reform the Skulls I wood jine the Wigs.

ENCLOSURE, No. I.--_To_ JOHN CARNABY, _Esquire. Number 49, Polyanthus Place, Mile End Road, London._

HONOURED PARENT,

As the sight of his native Terra Firma to the hardy Mariner on the pathless waste of the vast expanse of Ocean, so are the filial affections of a Son and School boy to inform we break up on Friday the 21st Instant; when I hope to find Yourself, comprising all my Relations and Friends, enjoying that greatest of Blessings, a state of salubrity.

When we add to this the pleasing Sensation of scholastic Duties fulfilled with Attention, Industry, and Diligence, accompanied by a preponderating Progress in all juvenile Studies, Objects, and Pursuits, a sanguine expectation is indulged that the parental Sentiments of Satisfaction will be spontaneously conferred on the present half Year, participating however with a due regard to health, comfort, and morals. Indeed it would be precocious to anticipate otherwise by the unrelenting Vigilance and Inculcation evinced by our Guide, Philosopher, and Friend, Doctor Darby and Assistants, as likewise the more than maternal Solicitude betrayed by Mrs. Doctor D. who begs Leave to cordially unite with the Same in Respectful Compliments.

I am happy to say the improvement I have made in the Latin and Greek Tongues, including French and Italian, has been very great and such as I trust to deserve and obtain his Parent’s, Master’s, Friend’s and Wellwisher’s warmest approbation and Esteem. And this Reflection will be enhanced to reflect, that by being impressed upon by pious, virtuous, and loyal Principles, every juvenile Member of the Establishment is a firm and uncompromising Supporter and Defender of King, Church and State.

I will now conclude by giving my best Love to all Relations and Friends, and accept the Same from

Honoured Parent,
Your Dutiful and Affectionate Son,
ROBERT CARNABY.

ENCLOSURE No. II.--_From the Same to the Same._

DEAR FATHER,

I hope you wont be angry at writing of my own Acord and if you like you may stop the postage out of what you mean to give me next time, but the other letter was all a flam and didnt speak my real mind. The Doctor frumpt it all up out of his own head, and we all copied it out for all our fathers. What I want to tell you is as the holidays is so nigh, I do wish you would make up your mind for me to be took away for good and all. I dont like the victuals for one thing and besides I am allmost sure we are not well teached. The table beer always gives me the stomach ake if I don’t tie a string tight round it and I only wish you see some of Mr. Murphy’s ruling when he smells so of rum Another thing is the batter puddings which the fellows call it putty, because it sticks pains in our insides, and sometimes we have stinking beef. Tom Spooner has saved a bit on the sly to show parents, but it’s so strong we are afeard it wont keep over the three weeks to the holidays, and we are treated like gally slaves, and hare and hounds is forbid because last time the hare got up behind the Chelmsford Coach and went home to his friends in Leadenhall Market. As for sums we know the ciphering Master has got a Tutors Key because theres a board at the bottom of his desk comes out with a little coaxing, and more than that hes a cruel savage and makes love to Masters daughter, and shes often courted in the school room because its where her father don’t come so much as anywheres else. The new Footman is another complaint. The Doctor dont allow him nothing a year for his wages except his profits out of the boys with fruit and pastery, and besides being rotten and stale, hes riz burnt almonds twice since Micklemas. Then we are almost quite sure Monseur Le Smith dont know Italian at least we have always observed he never talks to the image boys, and the old Cook never favours no one now except Carter with sop in pans ever since his Mother come to see him. And thats why I do hope at my next school you will raise my pocket money, its unpossible to tip handsome out of sixpence a week. Jackson saved enough to buy a Donkey and then divided him into shares and I had a shilling share but the Doctor were so unjust as seize on him altho there was no law agin bringing asses to the school. It was the same on Guy Fox day with our squibs and rockets which we was more mortified to hear them going off after we were in bed. I am certain sure we should have had a barring out in our school room long and long ago only the Doctor hardly ever wants to come in. Thats the way the ushers do just as they like in school hours and Mr. Huckings does a leathersellers bookkeeping and Mr. Snitch makes poetry for the newspapers. Its not my fault then if I am backwards in my Greek and Latin though I have got a Prize for Spelling and Grammer but we all have prizes for something to please our parents when we go home. The only treat we have is reddishes out of the garden when they are got old and burning hot and popgunny and them wont last long as masters going to keep pigs. I suppose then we shall have measely pork to match the stinking beef. The fellows say its because the Doctor swops Stokes’s schooling agin butchers meat and as the edication is so very bad old Stokes on his part wont send in any better quality. Thats whats called mutual accommodation in the newspapers. Give my love to Mrs. Rumsey with thanks for the plum cake only next time more sweetmeat, and say I am almost sure I sometimes sleep in a damp bed. I am certain sure Mrs. Rumsey would advise you the same as I do, namely for me to be took away, without running more risks, if it was only for fear of Mac Kenzie, for hes a regular tyrant and hectors over us all. Hes three parts a nigger and you cant punch his head so as to do any good, and only last Monday he was horsed for wanting to googe little Jones’s eyes out and for nothing at all but just looking at his towel to see if the black come off. I am ready to take my drop down dead if it is not all faithfully true, Mac Kenzie and the beef and the Footman and all, and I do hope you will trust to my word and be agreeable to my offer to be took away and I do hope it will be before next Saturday for that’s Mr. Paynes visiting day, the Drawing Master as I call him, but some of the fellows have nick named him Sinbad because he hunted the elephants so for their teeth. Philip Frank says theres a capital school at Richmond where the Master permits fishing and boating and cigars and gunpowder and poney chaises for only sixty guineas a year. I often think if my poor dear late Mother was alive it is just the genteel sort of School she would like me to be finished off at. But thats as you prefer and if you will only promise upon your honour to remove me I wont run away. I forgot to say I have very bad head akes sometimes besides the stomach akes and last week I was up in the nussery for being feverish and spotty, and I had to take antimonious wine but nothing made me sick except the gruel. Precious stuff it is and tastes like slate pencil dust and salt. I was in great hopes it was scarlet fever or something catching that I might be sent home to you, but the fisician said my rash was only chickings or stinging nettles. Altogether I am so unhappy at not getting on in my learning that I do beg and pray to be took away, and I will be very dutiful and grateful all the rest of my days. Do, pray, do, and consider me down on my bended knees. And I will wish you every comfort in life if you will only provide for mine, and I will pray for your gout to go away for ever and ever, and then I will nurse your last days and be such a good son to you as never was except me. And in that case I owe three shillings to the footman and shouldn’t like to leave the school in debt. I shall expect to see you come in all the coaches that go the road or at least that you will fetch me in a letter, and if I am disappointed I really do believe I shall go off my head or something. With which I remain

Dear Father,
Your dutiful and affectionate Son,
ROBERT CARNABY.

No. II.--_To Mister_ JOHN CARNABY, _Number 49, Polyanthus Place, Mile End, London._

DEAR BROTHER,