The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb novel. A total of 559 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb.by Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb.PREFACE TO THE NEW EDIT
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb.by Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb.PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION This edition is the same as that in seven large volumes published between 1903 and 1905, except that it has been revised and amended and arranged in more companion
- 1 The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb.by Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb.PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION This edition is the same as that in seven large volumes published between 1903 and 1905, except that it has been revised and amended and arranged in more companion
- 2 In this first garden of their simpleness They spent their childhood."A circ.u.mstance had lately happened, which in some sort altered the nature of their attachment.Rosamund was one day reading the tale of "Julia de Roubigne"--a book which
- 3 "I beg pardon, lady--I cannot _see_ you--but you are heartily welcome--is your brother with you, Miss Clare? I don't hear him."-- "He could not come, madam, but he sends his love by me.""You have an excellent brother, Miss Cl
- 4 "An enemy hath done this," I have heard him say--and at such times my mother would speak to him so soothingly of forgiveness, and long-suffering, and the bearing of injuries with patience; would heal all his wounds with so gentle a touch;--I hav
- 5 CHAPTER VIII They had but four rooms in the cottage. Margaret slept in the biggest room up stairs, and her grandaughter in a kind of closet adjoining, where she could be within hearing, if her grandmother should call her in the night.The girl was often di
- 6 Since my father's death our family have resided in London. I am in practice as a surgeon there. My mother died two years after we left Widford.A month or two ago I had been busying myself in drawing up the above narrative, intending to make it public
- 7 He was present with me at a scene--a _death-bed scene_--I shudder when I do but think of it.CHAPTER XIII I was sent for the other morning to the a.s.sistance of a gentleman, who had been wounded in a duel,--and his wounds by unskilful treatment had been b
- 8 Then came the august _Fourth_ of _June_, crowned with such a crown as British Monarchs commonly wear, leading into the presence the venerable _Nineteenth_ of _May_--_Apollo_ welcomed the royal pair, and placed them nearest to himself, and welcomed their n
- 9 WILLIAM ROWLEY _A New Wonder; a Woman Never Vext._--The old play-writers are distinguished by an honest boldness of exhibition, they shew every thing without being ashamed. If a reverse in fortune is to be exhibited, they fairly bring us to the prison-gra
- 10 PHILIP Ma.s.sINGER.--THOMAS DECKER _The Virgin Martyr._--This play has some beauties of so very high an order, that with all my respect for Ma.s.singer, I do not think he had poetical enthusiasm capable of rising up to them. His a.s.sociate Decker, who wr
- 11 Suffer me, Mr. Editor, before I quit the subject, to say a word or two respecting the minister of justice in this country; in plain words, I mean the hangman. It has always appeared to me that, in the mode of inflicting capital punishments with us, there
- 12 The concluding scene in the _Rake's Progress_ is perhaps superior to the last scenes of _Timon_. If we seek for something of kindred excellence in poetry, it must be in the scenes of Lear's beginning madness, where the King and the Fool and the
- 13 But that larger half of Hogarth's works which were painted more for entertainment than instruction (though such was the suggestiveness of his mind, that there is always something to be learnt from them) his humourous scenes,--are they such as merely
- 14 "BURIAL SOCIETY "A favourable opportunity now offers to any person, of either s.e.x, who would wish to be buried in a genteel manner, by paying one s.h.i.+lling entrance, and two-pence per week for the benefit of the stock. Members to be free in
- 15 I am almost disposed to deny to Garrick the merit of being an admirer of Shakspeare. A true lover of his excellencies he certainly was not; for would any true lover of them have admitted into his matchless scenes such ribald trash as Tate and Cibber, and
- 16 _Good Parent._--"For his love, therein, like a well drawn picture, he eyes all his children alike."_Deformity in Children._--"This partiality is tyranny, when parents despise those that are deformed; _enough to break those whom G.o.d had bo
- 17 The cloth is usually spread some half-hour before the final rubber is decided, whence they adjourn to sup upon what may emphatically be called _nothing_. A sliver of ham, purposely contrived to be transparent to shew the china-dish through it, neighbourin
- 18 MeMOIR OF ROBERT LLOYD (1811) ----Also, in October, in his 33d year, Mr. Robert Lloyd, third son of Charles Lloyd. To dilate in many words upon his character, would be to violate the modest regard due to his memory, who in his lifetime shrunk so anxiously
- 19 ELIA.RECOLLECTIONS OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL (1813. TEXT OF 1818) To comfort the desponding parent with the thought that, without diminis.h.i.+ng the stock which is imperiously demanded to furnish the more pressing and homely wants of our nature, he has d
- 20 (1813) Time and place give every thing its propriety. Strolling one day in the Twickenham meadows, I was struck with the appearance of something dusky upon the gra.s.s, which my eye could not immediately reduce into a shape.Going nearer, I discovered the
- 21 The volume before us, as we learn from the Preface, is "a detached portion of an unfinished poem, containing views of man, nature, and society;" to be called the Recluse, as having for its princ.i.p.al subject the "sensations and opinions o
- 22 If from living among simple mountaineers, from a daily intercourse with them, not upon the footing of a patron, but in the character of an equal, he has detected, or imagines that he has detected, through the cloudy medium of their unlettered discourse, t
- 23 To make a man's home so desirable a place as to preclude his having a wish to pa.s.s his leisure hours at any fireside in preference to his own, I should humbly take to be the sum and substance of woman's domestic ambition. I would appeal to our
- 24 The _Leporello_ of the Olympic Theatre is not one of the most refined order, but we can bear with an English blackguard better than with the hard Italian. But _Giovanni_--free, fine, frank-spirited, single-hearted creature, turning all the mischief into f
- 25 "Oh! I am setting on a nest of the most unfledged cuckows that ever brooded under the wing of hawk. Thou must know, Hal, I had note of a good hale recruit or two in this neighbourhood. In other shape came I not; look to it, Master Shallow, that in ot
- 26 For howso'er anomalous, Thou yet art not incongruous, Repugnant or preposterous.Better-proportion'd animal, More graceful or ethereal, Was never follow'd by the hound, With fifty steps to thy one bound.Thou canst not be amended: no; Be as t
- 27 "How long is it ago? (quod he)."By my faith (quod I) about twenty-one years."Tus.h.!.+ (quod he), this is a worthy miracle!"In good faith (quod I), never wist I that any man could tell that he had any other beginning. And methinketh th
- 28 Dear Sir,--I send you a bantering Epistle to an Old Gentleman whose Education is supposed to have been Neglected. Of course, it was _suggested_ by some Letters of your admirable Opium-Eater; the discontinuance of which has caused so much regret to myself
- 29 DENHAM'S COOPER'S HILL The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear, That, had the self-enamour'd youth gaz'd here, So fatally deceived he had not been, While he the bottom, not his face had seen._Scott_ The last two lines have more m
- 30 _Scott_ Our author's language, in this place, is very defective in correctness.After mentioning the general privation of the "bloomy flush of life,"the exceptionary "all but" includes, as part of that "bloomy flush," an
- 31 This lover of truth never uttered a truer speech. Give me a lie wth a spirit in it.Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense.---- _Scott_ The bombastic "immense smile of air, &c.," better omitted._Ritson_ Qute Miltonic--"enormous bliss"--an
- 32 In more than one place, if I mistake not, you have been pleased to compliment me at the expence of my companions. I cannot accept your compliment at such a price. The upbraiding a man's poverty naturally makes him look about him, to see whether he be
- 33 While Fancy beholds these celestial appropriations, Reason, no less pleased, discerns the mighty benefit which so complete a renovation must produce below. Let the most determined foe to corruption, the most thorough-paced redresser of abuses, try to conc
- 34 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON (1825) The subject of our Memoir is lineally descended from Johan De L'Estonne (see Doomesday Book, where he is so written) who came in with the Conqueror, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, in Kent. His part
- 35 Some horns I observed beautifully taper, smooth, and (as it were) flowering. These I understand were the portions brought by handsome women to their spouses; and I pitied the rough, homely, unsightly deformities on the brows of others, who had been deceiv
- 36 It did not suit the public to laugh with their old servant any longer, Sir. [Here some moisture has blotted a sentence or two.] But I can play Polonius still, Sir; I can, I can.Your servant, Sir, JOSEPH MUNDEN.THE "LEPUS" PAPERS (1825) I.--MANY
- 37 Among his papers were found the following "Reflections," which we have obtained by favour of our friend Elia, who knew him well, and had heard him describe the train of his feelings upon that trying occasion almost in the words of the MS. Elia s
- 38 All that is descriptive here is excellent. It seems to us next in merit to some of Cibber's dramatic comic portraitures, Joe, the absolute Joe, lives again in every line. We have just set our mark X against two puns to exemplify our foregoing remarks
- 39 DEAR SIR, I read your account of this unfortunate Being, and his forlorn piece of self-history, with that smile of half-interest which the Annals of Insignificance excite, till I came to where he says "I was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an e
- 40 [56] Fletcher in the "Faithful Shepherdess."--The Satyr offers to Clorin, --grapes whose l.u.s.ty blood Is the learned Poet's good, Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the _squirrels' teeth_ that crack
- 41 VIII.--REMINISCENCE OF SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN (1826) _To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_ To your account of sir Jeffery Dunstan in columns 829-30 (where, by an unfortunate Erratum the effigies of _two Sir Jefferys_ appear, when the uppermost figure is clea
- 42 Witness his hand, CHARLES LAMB.10th Apr 1827.[59] To any Body--Please to fill up these blanks.SHAKSPEARE'S IMPROVERS (1828) _To the Editor of The Spectator_ Sir,--Partaking in your indignation at the sickly stuff interpolated by Tate in the genuine p
- 43 [61] It is Neptune who predicts this.Allusions to the same personage were at that time rife in innumerable ballads, under the notion of a _sweet William_; but the ballads are obliterated. The song of "Sweet William Taylor, walking with his lady gay&q
- 44 Canticulae interea narraverat argumentum Altera Sirenum, infidi perjuria nautae, Deceptamque dolo nympham; tum flebile carmen Flebilibus movit numeris, quos altera versu Alterno excepit: patulis stant rictibus omnes: Dextram ille acclinat, laevam ille att
- 45 'Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and, if you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket.Men marry for fortune, and sometimes to please their fancy; but, much oftener than is suspected, they consider what the world will
- 46 THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE IN THE ALb.u.m OF MR. KEYMER (1834) When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world,--that he had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I cou
- 47 Leucippus, having slain the villain, was at leisure to discover, in the features of his poor servant, the countenance of his devoted sister-in-law! Through solitary and dangerous ways she had sought him in that disguise; and, finding him, seems to have re
- 48 COMIC TALES, ETC., BY C. DIBDIN THE YOUNGER (1825) In this age of hyper-poetic plights, and talent in a frenzy aping genius, it is consolatory to see a little volume of verse in the good old sober manner of Queen Ann's days, when verse walked high, r
- 49 NOTES The prose of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, was dedicated to Martin Burney in the following sonnet:-- TO MARTIN CHARLES BURNEY, ESQ.Forgive me, BURNEY, if to thee these late And hasty products of a critic pen, Thyself no common judge of books and men, I
- 50 Shakespear has not made Richard so black a Monster as is supposed.Where-ever he is monstrous, it was to conform to vulgar opinion.But he is generally a Man. Read his most exquisite address to the Widowed Queen to court her daughter for him--the topics of
- 51 _Abhor._ Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too._Pom._ Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards._Abhor._ Go in to him, and fetch him out._Pom._ He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle._Abhor._ Is th
- 52 _Cade._ Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and ink-horn about his neck."II. Henry VI.," Act IV., Scene 2, lines 109-117.Page 101, line 7 from foot. "_The Vindictive Man_." This was the comedy by Thomas Holcroft, Lamb's fr
- 53 Page 153, line 12. _As Solomon says_. Defoe seems to be remembering Proverbs XXII. 7, and possibly Isaiah XXIV. 2.Sixteen years later, in 1827, William Hone reprinted "The Good Clerk" in his _Table Book_, I., columns 562-567. The first half was
- 54 Later, this intention was somewhat modified, with the purpose of benefiting rather the reduced or embarra.s.sed parents than the very poor.The London history of the school is now ended. The boys have gone to Suss.e.x, where, near Horsham, the new building
- 55 Pope's _Moral Essays_, Ep. I., 87-88.It has been held that Pope called Charron more sage because he somewhat mitigated the excessive fatalism (Pyrrhonism) of Montaigne.Page 179. IV.--[A SYLVAN SURPRISE.]_The Examiner_, September 12, 1813. Reprinted i
- 56 Lamb's phrase, "Mr. Shoemaker Gifford," had reason for its existence.William Gifford (1756-1826) was apprenticed to a shoemaker in 1772. Lamb later repaid some of his debt in the sonnet "St. Crispin to Mr.Gifford," which appeared
- 57 Page 204, line 2. _Envious Junos._ Lucina, at Juno's bidding, sat cross-legged before Alcmena to prolong her travail. Sir Thomas Browne in his _Pseudodoxia Epidemica; or, Enquiry into Vulgar Errors_, Book V., speaks of the posture as "veneficiou
- 58 Signed 'J. R. S.' and dated 'London, 1839'."Gutch himself prepared a life of Wither, but it was not printed in this edition and is still unpublished. The amusing feature of the edition is that Nott, sometimes with slight and deter
- 59 _Examiner_, July 4 and 5, 1819. Signed ****. Richard Brome's "Jovial Crew; or, The Merry Beggars," was first acted in 1641, and continually revived since then, although it is now no longer seen. Indeed our opportunities are few to-day of se
- 60 Page 222, foot. "_Belles without Beaux._" This was probably, says Genest, another version of the French piece from which "Ladies at Home; or, Gentlemen, we can do without You" (by J. G. Millingen, and produced also in 1819) was taken.
- 61 Page 239. SIR THOMAS MORE._The Indicator_, December 20, 1820. Signed ****. Leigh Hunt introduced the article in these words:-- The author of the _Table-Talk_ in our last [see note on p. 466] has obliged us with the following pungent morsels of Sir Thomas
- 62 Is there a sound religious feeling in your Essays, or is there not?And what is a sound religious feeling? You declare yourself a Unitarian; but, as a set-off to that heterodoxy, you vaunt your bosom-friends.h.i.+p with T. N. T., "a little tainted wit
- 63 I felt flattered by the being mingled with the other of Lamb's friends under the initials of my name. I mention it as an anecdote which shows that Lamb's reputation was spread even among lawyers, that a 4 guinea brief was brought to me by an Att
- 64 Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands.A few years afterwards Lamb told Carlyle he regretted that the
- 65 Page 310. UNITARIAN PROTESTS._London Magazine_, February, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.The marriages of Unitarian and other Dissenters had to be solemnised in English established churches until the end of 1836. Lord Hardwicke's Act of 1753, in force,
- 66 Page 329. REFLECTIONS IN THE PILLORY._London Magazine_, March, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.The editor's note is undoubtedly Lamb's, as is, of course, the whole imaginary story. It must have been about this time that Lamb was writing his "Od
- 67 Page 339, line 33. _Mr. Grimaldi_. See the note on page 521. Grimaldi's son Joseph S. Grimaldi made his debut as Man Friday in 1814 and died in 1832. The Jumpers were a Welsh sect of Calvinist Methodists.Page 340, line 7. _Mr. Elliston_. Robert Willi
- 68 In column 55 of the _Table Book_, Vol. II., is Lamb's sonnet to Miss Kelly, and in column 68 his explanation that Moxon probably sent it.To Hone's _Year Book_, 1831, Lamb contributed no original prose that is identifiable. On April 30, however,
- 69 The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play, He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird, Ascends the neighb'ring beech; there whisks his brush, And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud, With all the prettiness of feigned alarm, And anger insi
- 70 MY DEAR FRIEND, I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like many better wits, to barter dedications, for the hope or promise of patronage, with some nominally great man; but that where true affection points, and honest respect, I am free to gr
- 71 Page 380, line 9. _Burking._ After Burke and Hare, who suffocated their victims and sold them to the hospitals for dissection. Burke was executed in January, 1829.Page 381. ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS.This criticism was written for Wilson
- 72 Page 388, line 15 from foot. _Sampson ... Dalilah._ The letters contain an earlier account of the picture. Writing to Hazlitt in 1805 Lamb says: "I have seen no pictures of note since, except Mr. Dawe's gallery. It is curious to see how differen
- 73 Page 400, line 4 from foot. _Will Dockwray._ I have not been able to find anything about this Will Dockwray. Such Ware records as I have consulted are silent concerning him. There was a Joseph Dockwray, a rich Quaker maltster, at Ware in the eighteenth ce
- 74 John Wilkes (1727-1797) of _The North Briton_. Barry Cornwall writes in his Memoir of Lamb: "I remember that, at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replyin
- 75 The Open Road The Friendly Town Her Infinite Variety Good Company The Gentlest Art The Second Post A Swan and Her Friends A Wanderer in London A Wanderer in Holland A Wanderer in Paris Highways and Byways in Suss.e.x Annes Terrible Good Nature The Slowcoa
- 76 The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb.Volume 2.by Charles Lamb, et al.INTRODUCTION This volume contains the work by which Charles Lamb is best known and upon which his fame will rest--_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_.Although one essay is as early as 181
- 77 [Footnote 1: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.][Footnote 2: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits w
- 78 Hark, the c.o.c.k crows, and yon bright star Tells us, the day himself's not far; And see where, breaking from the night, He gilds the western hills with light.With him old Ja.n.u.s doth appear, Peeping into the future year, With such a look as seems
- 79 I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experienced something vastly lulling and agreeable:--afterwards followeth the languor, and the oppression. Like that disappointing book in Patmos; or, like the comings on of melancholy, described by Bur
- 80 How far the followers of these good men in our days have kept to the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they have subst.i.tuted formality for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone determine. I have seen faces in their a.s.semblies, upon which the dove s
- 81 We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in its const.i.tution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggest
- 82 Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a sophistry, he is incapable of attending _you_ in any chain of arguing. Indeed he makes wild work with logic; and seems to jump at most admirable conclusions by some process, not at all akin to it. Conson
- 83 confronting, with ma.s.sy contrast, the lighter, older, more fantastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown-office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the stately stream, which washes the garden-foot with her yet sca
- 84 A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C.V.L., wh
- 85 Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the _only Salopian house;_ yet be it known to thee, reader--if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact--he hath a race of industrious imitators,
- 86 Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small children," in whose name he implores thy a.
- 87 Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desirable a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent simplicity, continually to mistake what it was which first made their husband fond of you. If an esteem for something excellent in your mora
- 88 I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired the breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of o
- 89 The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought, as it is the feeder of love, and silence, and admiration, So strange a pa.s.sion for the place possessed me in those years, that, though there lay--I shame to say how few roods distant from t
- 90 Up thither like aerial vapours fly Both all Stage things, and all that in Stage things Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame?All the unaccomplish'd works of Authors' hands, Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, d.a.m.n'd u
- 91 In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from binding. Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and all that cla.s.s of perpetually self-reproductive volumes--Great Nature's Stereotypes--we see them individually perish with less regret, because w
- 92 A pretty severe fit of indisposition which, under the name of a nervous fever, has made a prisoner of me for some weeks past, and is but slowly leaving me, has reduced me to an incapacity of reflecting upon any topic foreign to itself. Expect no healthy c
- 93 I suppose it was the only occasion, upon which his own actual splendour at all corresponded with the world's notions on that subject. In homely cart, or travelling caravan, by whatever humble vehicle they chanced to be transported in less prosperous
- 94 Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen some of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed a little more carefully and fairly for the gr
- 95 Next follow--a mournful procession--_suicidal faces_, saved against their wills from drowning; dolefully trailing a length of reluctant gratefulness, with ropy weeds pendant from locks of watchet hue-constrained Lazari--Pluto's half-subjects--stolen
- 96 Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so 'fraid, Though strongly hedged of b.l.o.o.d.y Lions' paws That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid.Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause-- But only, for this worthy knight durst prove To lose his crown
- 97 Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth.It was not every week that a fas.h.i.+on of pink stockings came up; but mostly, instead of it, some rugged, untractable subject; some topic impossible to be contorted into the risible; some feature,
- 98 _Ash Wednesday_ got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt _Christmas_ and _Lord Mayor's Days_. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him--to the great greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and
- 99 Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants,--stricken in years, as it might seem,--so dexterous were those heavenly attendants to counterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with terrestrial child-rites the young _present_, which earth had made t
- 100 The severest exaction surely ever invented upon the self-denial of poor human nature! This is to expect a gentleman to give a treat without partaking of it; to sit esurient at his own table, and commend the flavour of his venison upon the absurd strength