duxit die nuperâ Dominicâ. Reduxit domum WESTALL, at H. Rogers's; to each of them it posterâ. Succedenti baculum emit. Postridie will be well to send a magazine in my name. ferit illam. Ægrescit illa subsequenti. It will fly like wildfire among the Royal Proximâ (nempe Veneris) est mortua. Plu- Academicians and artists. Could you get hold rimum gestiit Thomas, quòd appropinquanti of Procter ?-his chambers are in Lincoln's Sabbato efferenda sit. Inn, at Montague's; or of Janus Weathercock? "Horner quidam Johannulus in angulo-both of their prose is capital. Don't ensedebat, artocreas quasdam deglutiens. Inseruit pollices, pruna nana evellens, et magnâ voce exclamavit 'Dii boni, quàm bonus puer fio!' courage poetry. The 'Peter's Net' does not intend funny things only. All is fish. And leave out the sickening 'Elia' at the end. Then it may comprise letters and characters, addressed to Peter; but a signature forces it to be all characteristic of the one man, Elia, or the one man, Peter, which cramped me formerly. I have agreed not for my sister to know the subjects I choose, till the magazine comes out; so beware of speaking of 'em, or writing about 'em, save generally. Be particular about this warning. Can't you drop in some afternoon, and take a bed? The 'Athenæum ' has been hoaxed with some exquisite poetry, that was, two or three months ago, in 'Hone's Book.' I like your first number capitally. But is not it small? Come and see us, week-day if possible. "Send, or bring me, Hone's number for August. The anecdotes of E. and of G. D. are substantially true; what does Elia (or Peter) care for dates ? "The poem I mean, is in 'Hone's Book,' as far back as April. I do not know who wrote it; but 'tis a poem I envy-that and Montgomery's 'Last Man:' I envy the writers, because I feel I could have done something like them. C. L." The following contains Lamb's characteristic acknowledgment of a payment on account of these contributions. TO MR. MOXON. 66 Sept. 5th, 1831. "Dear M.,-Your letter's contents pleased me. I am only afraid of taxing you. Yet I want a stimulus, or I think I should drag sadly. I shall keep the moneys in trust, till I see you fairly over the next 1st January. Then I shall look upon 'em as earned. No part of your letter gave me more pleasure (no, not the 107., tho' you may grin) than that you will revisit old Enfield, which I hope will be always a pleasant idea to you. C. L." "Yours, very faithfully, The magazine, although enriched with I insist upon it, and, by him I will not Lamb's articles, and some others of great name,' I won't touch a penny of it. That merit, did not meet with a success so rapid will split your loss, one half, and leave me as to requite the proprietor for the labour conscientious possessor of what I hold. Less and anxiety of its production. The following than your assent to this, no proposal will I is Lamb's letter, in reply to one announcing accept of. a determination to discontinue its publication: TO MR. MOXON. "Oct. 24th, 1831. "To address an abdicated monarch is a nice point of breeding. To give him his lost titles is to mock him; to withhold 'em is to wound him. But his minister, who falls with him, may be gracefully sympathetic. I do honestly feel for your diminution of honours, and regret even the pleasing cares which are part and parcel of greatness. Your magnanimous submission, and the cheerful tone of your renunciation, in a letter, which, without flattery, would have made an 'ARTICLE,' and which, rarely as I keep letters, shall be preserved, comfort me a little. Will it please, or plague you, to say that when your parcel came I cursed it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending you to-morrow, the last day you gave me? Now any one calling in, or a letter coming, puts an end to my writing for the day. Little did I think that the mandate had gone out, so destructive to my occupapation, so relieving to the apprehensions of the whole body of R.A.'s; so you see I had not quitted the ship while a plank was remaining. as "To drop metaphors, I am sure you have done wisely. The very spirit of your epistle speaks that you have a weight off your mind. I have one on mine; the cash in hand, which, less truly says, burns in my pocket. I feel queer at returning it, (who does not ?) you feel awkward at retaking it, (who ought not?)—is there no middle way of adjusting this fine embarrassment? I think I have hit upon a medium to skin the sore place over, if not quite to heal it. You hinted that there might be something under 10., by and by, accruing to me-Devil's Money; (you are sanguine, say 77. 10s.); that I entirely renounce, and abjure all future interest in: * Alluding to a little extravagance of Lamb's-scarcely worth recollecting-in emulation of the "Devil's Walk" of Southey and Co. "The Rev. Mr. - whose name you have left illegible (is it Seagull ?) never sent me any book on Christ's Hospital, by which I could dream that I was indebted to him for a dedication. Did G. D. send his penny tract to me, to convert me to Unitarianism? Dear, blundering soul! why I am as old a one Goddite as himself. Or did he think his cheap publication would bring over the Methodists over the way here?* However, I'll give it to the pew opener, in whom I have a little interest, to hand over to the clerk, whose wife she sometimes drinks tea with, for him to lay before the deacon, who exchanges the civility of the hat with him, for to transmit to the minister, who shakes hands with him out of chapel, and he, in all odds, will light his pipe with it. "I wish very much to see you. I leave it to you to come how you will; we shall be very glad (we need not repeat) to see your sister, or sisters, with you; but for you, individually, I will just hint that a dropping in to tea, unlooked for, about five, stopping bread-and-cheese and gin-and-water, is worth a thousand Sundays. I am naturally miserable on a Sunday; but a week-day evening and supper is like old times. Set out now, and give no time to deliberation. "P.S.-The second volume of 'Elia' is delightful (ly bound, I mean), and quite cheap. Why, man, 'tis a unique! "If I write much more I shall expand into an article, which I cannot afford to let you have so cheap. By the by, to show the perverseness of human will, while I thought I must furnish one of those accursed things monthly, it seemed a labour above Hercules' 'Twelve' in a year, which were evidently monthly contributions. Now I am emancipated, I feel as if I had a thousand Essays swelling within me. False feelings both! "Your ex-Lampoonist, or Lamb-punnist, from Enfield, October 24, or 'last day but one for receiving articles that can be inserted."" Referring to a chapel opposite his lodging at Enfield, The following was addressed soon after, TO MR. MOXON. "Feb. 1832. "Come when the weather will possibly let you; I want to see the Wordsworths, but I do not much like to be all night away. It is dull enough to be here together, but it is duller to leave Mary; in short, it is painful, and in a flying visit I should hardly catch them. I have no beds for them if they came down, and but a sort of a house to receive them in; yet I shall regret their departure unseen; I feel cramped and straitened every way. Where are they? "We have heard from Emma but once, and that a month ago, and are very anxious for another letter. "You say we have forgot your powers of being serviceable to us. That we never shall; I do not know what I should do without you when I want a little commission. Now then there are left at Miss Buffon's, the 'Tales of the Castle,' and certain volumes of the' Retrospective Review.' The first should be conveyed to Novello's, and the Reviews should be taken to Talfourd's office, groundfloor, east side, Elm Court, Middle Temple, to whom I should have written, but my spirits are wretched; it is quite an effort to write this. So, with the 'Life,' I have cut you out three pieces of service. What can I do for you here, but hope to see you very soon, and think of you with most kindness? I fear to-morrow, between rains and snows it would be impossible to expect you, but do not let a practicable Sunday pass. We are always at home. "Dear Moxon,-The snows are ancledeep, slush, and mire, that 'tis hard to get to the post-office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'Tis a slough of despair, or I should sooner have thanked you for your offer of the Life,' which we shall very much like to have, and will return duly. I do not know when I shall be in town, but in a week or two, at farthest, when I will come as far as you, if I can. We are moped to death with confinement within doors. I send you a curiosity of G. Dyer's tender conscience. Between thirty and forty years since, G. published the 'Poet's Fate,' in which were two very harmless lines about Mr. Rogers, but Mr. R., not quite approving of them, they were left out in a subsequent edition, 1801. But G. has been worrying about them ever since; if I have heard him once, I have heard him a hundred times, express a remorse proportioned to a consciousness of having been guilty of an atrocious libel. As the devil would have it, a man they call Barker, in his 'Parriana' has quoted the identical two lines, as they stood in some obscure edition anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor G. are again wrung. His letter is a gem; with his poor blind eyes it has been laboured out at six sittings. The history of the couplet is in page 3 of this irregular production, in which every variety of shape and size that letters can be twisted into is to be found. Do show his part of it to Mr. R. some day. If he has bowels, they must melt at the contrition so queerly charactered of a contrite sinner. G. was born, I verily think, without original sin, but chooses to have a conscience, as every Christian gentleman should have; his dear old face is In February, 1833, the following letter insusceptible of the twist they call a sneer, was addressed by Lamb to the editor, on his yet he is apprehensive of being suspected of being made Serjeant:— that ugly appearance. When he makes a compliment, he thinks he has given an affront―a name is personality. But show (no hurry) this unique recantation to Mr. R.: 'tis like a dirty pocket-handkerchief, mucked with tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is the impress of sincerity in every pot-hook and hanger; and then the gilt Mr. Lamb always insisted that the costume referred frame to such a pauper picture! It should to was worn when he first gladdened his young friend by a call at Mr. Chitty's Chambers. I am afraid it is all apocryphal. go into the Museum. "Mary joins in remembrances to your sister, whom we hope to see in any fine-ish weather, when she'll venture. "Remember us to Allsop, and all the dead people; to whom, and to London, we seem dead." TO MR. SERJEANT TALFOURD. "My dear T.,-Now cannot I call him Serjeant; what is there in a coif? Those canvas-sleeves protective from ink,* when he was a law-chit—a Chittyling, (let the leathern apron be apocryphal) do more 'specially plead I do not know whether to admire most, the to the Jury Court, of old memory. The wit or justness of the sentiment. It has my costume (will he agnize it?) was as of a desk-cordial approbation. My sense of meum fellow, or Socius Plutei. Methought I spied a brother! "That familiarity is extinct for ever. Curse me if I can call him Mr. Serjeant except, mark me, in company. Honour where honour is due; but should he ever visit us, (do you think he ever will, Mary ?) what a distinction should I keep up between him and our less fortunate friend, H. C. R.! Decent respect shall always be the Crabb's -but, somehow, short of reverence. "Well, of my old friends, I have lived to see two knighted, one made a judge, another in a fair way to it. Why am I restive? why stands my sun upon Gibeah? “Variously, my dear Mrs. Talfourd, [I can be more familiar with her!] Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd, my sister prompts me-(these ladies stand upon ceremonies)-has the congratulable news affected the members of our small community. Mary comprehended it at once, and entered into it heartily. Mrs. Wwas, as usual, perverse; wouldn't, or couldn't, understand it. A Serjeant? She thought Mr. T. was in the law. Didn't know that he ever 'listed. "Emma alone truly sympathised. She had a silk gown come home that very day, and has precedence before her learned sisters accordingly. "We are going to drink the health of Mr. and Mrs. Serjeant, with all the young serjeantry—and that is all that I can see that I shall get by the promotion. "Valete, et mementote amici quondam vestri humillimi, C. L." The following note to Mr. Moxon, on some long forgotten occasion of momentary displeasure, the nature and object of which is uncertain, contains a fantastical exaggeration of anger, which, judged by those who knew the writer, will only illustrate the entire absence of all the bad passions of hatred and contempt it feigns. TO MR. MOXON. "1833. "Dear M.,-Many thanks for the books; but most thanks for one immortal sentence: 'If I do not cheat him, never trust me again.' and tuum applauds it. I maintain it, the eighth commandment hath a secret special reservation, by which the reptile is exempt from any protection from it. As a dog, or a nigger, he is not a holder of property. Not a ninth of what he detains from the world is his own. Keep your hands from picking and stealing, is no ways referable to his acquists. I doubt whether bearing false witness against thy neighbour at all contemplated this possible scrub. Could Moses have seen the speck in vision? An ex post facto law alone could relieve him; and we are taught to expect no eleventh commandment. The outlaw to the Mosaic dispensation!-unworthy to have seen Moses behind! to lay his desecrating hands upon Elia! Has the irreverent ark-toucher been struck blind, I wonder? The more I think of him, the less I think of him. His meanness is invisible with aid of solar microscope. My moral eye smarts at him. The less flea that bites little fleas! The great BEAST! The beggarly NIT! "More when we meet; mind, you'll come, two of you; and couldn't you go off in the morning, that we may have a day-long curse at him, if curses are not dishallowed by descending so low? Amen. Maledicatur in C. L." extremis ! last removal from Enfield to Edmonton. He In the spring of 1833, Lamb made his was about to lose the society of Miss Isola, on the eve of marriage, and determined to live altogether with his sister, whether in her sanity or her madness. This change was announced in the following letter TO MR. WORDSWORTH. "End of May nearly. "Dear Wordsworth,-Your letter, save in what respects your dear sister's health, cheered me in my new solitude. Mary is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration,-shocking as they were to me then. In short, half her life she is T dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lookings forward to the next shock. With such prospects, it seemed to me necessary that she should no longer live with me, and be fluttered with continual removals; so I am come to live with her, at a Mr. Walden's, and his wife, who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge and board us only. They have had the care of her before. I see little of her, alas! I too often hear her. Sunt lachrymæ rerum! and you and I must bear it. "To lay a little more load on it, a circumstance has happened, cujus pars magna fui, and which, at another crisis, I should have more rejoiced in. I am about to lose my old and only walk-companion, whose mirthful spirits were the 'youth of our house,' Emma Isola. I have her here now for a little while, but she is too nervous, properly to be under such a roof, so she will make short visits,-be no more an inmate. With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence, she is to be wedded to Moxon, at the end of August so 'perish the so 'perish the roses and the flowers'-how is it? "Now to the brighter side. I am emancipated from Enfield. I am with attentive people, and younger. I am three or four miles nearer the great city; coaches halfprice less, and going always, of which I avail myself. I have few friends left there, one or two though, most beloved. But London streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, though of the latter, there should be not one known one remaining. "Thank you for your cordial reception of 'Elia.' Inter nos, the 'Ariadne' is not a darling with me; several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition it served me as illustrative. "I want you in the 'Popular Fallacies ** to like the 'Home that is no home,' and 'Rising with the lark.' "I am feeble, but cheerful in this my genial hot weather. Walked sixteen miles yesterday. I can't read much in summer time. "At Mr. Walden's, Church-street, Edmonton, Middlesex. "Moxon has introduced Emma to Rogers, and he smiles upon the project. I have given E. my MILTON, (will you pardon me?*) in part of a portion. It hangs famously in his Murray-like shop." On the approach of the wedding-day, fixed for 30th July, Lamb turned to the account of a half-tearful merriment, the gift of a watch to the young lady whom he was about to lose. TO MR. MOXON. "July 24th, 1833. "For God's sake give Emma no more watches; one has turned her head. She is arrogant and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time, and yet he had made her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the momenthand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the bird-boys ask you, 'Pray, sir, can you tell us what's o'clock?' and she answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking to see what the time is.' I overheard her whispering, 'Just so many hours, minutes, &c., to Tuesday; I think St. George's goes too slow.' This little present of Time !-why,-'tis Eternity to her! "What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch? "She has spoiled some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed away half-past twelve,' which I suppose to be the canonical hour in Hanover Square. "Well, if 'love me, love my watch,' answers, she will keep time to you. It goes right by the Horse Guards. "Dearest M.,-Never mind opposite + nonsense. She does not love you for the watch, but the watch for you. I will be at the wedding, and keep the 30th July, as long as my poor months last me, as a festival, Yours ever, ELIA. "With my kindest love to all, and prayers gloriously. for dear Dorothy, "I remain most affectionately yours, A series of articles contributed, under this title, by Lamb, to the "New Monthly Magazine." It had been proposed by Lamb that Mr. W. should be the possessor of the portrait if he outlived his friend, and that afterwards it was to be bequeathed to Christ's College, Cambridge. + Written on the opposite page to that in which the previous affectionate banter appears. |