The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
Chapter 355 : "The spiteful elder sister." This story is in Grimm, I think."The _Life

"The spiteful elder sister." This story is in Grimm, I think.

"The _Life of Holcroft_." The _Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft_, begun by Holcroft and finished by Hazlitt, although completed in 1810, was not published until 1816.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated January 1, 1810, thanking him for a turkey. Lamb mentions that his 1809 holiday had been spent in Wilts.h.i.+re, where he saw Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. He adds that Coleridge's _Friend_ is occasionally sublime.

This was the last letter of the correspondence. Robert Lloyd died on October 26, 1811. Lamb wrote in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ a memoir of him, which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition.]

LETTER 185

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

Jan. 2nd, 1810.

Mary sends her love.

Dear Manning,--When I last wrote to you, I was in lodgings. I am now in chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I should be happy to see you any evening. Bring any of your friends, the Mandarins, with you. I have two sitting-rooms: I call them so _par excellence_, for you may stand, or loll, or lean, or try any posture in them; but they are best for sitting; not squatting down j.a.panese fas.h.i.+on, but the more decorous use of the post----s which European usage has consecrated. I have two of these rooms on the third floor, and five sleeping, cooking, &c., rooms, on the fourth floor. In my best room is a choice collection of the works of Hogarth, an English painter of some humour. In my next best are shelves containing a small but well-chosen library. My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent--cold with brandy, and not very insipid without. Here I hope to set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, the undertaker, gives me notice that I may have possession of my last lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of books by my last, to give you some idea of the state of European literature. There comes with this two volumes, done up as letters, of minor poetry, a sequel to "Mrs. Leicester;" the best you may suppose mine; the next best are my coadjutor's; you may amuse yourself in guessing them out; but I must tell you mine are but one-third in quant.i.ty of the whole. So much for a very delicate subject. It is hard to speak of one's self, &c. Holcroft had finished his life when I wrote to you, and Hazlitt has since finished his life--I do not mean his own life, but he has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little book for children on t.i.tles of honour: and to give them some idea of the difference of rank and gradual rising, I have made a little scale, supposing myself to receive the following various accessions of dignity from the king, who is the fountain of honour--As at first, 1, Mr. C. Lamb; 2, C. Lamb, Esq.; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart.; 4, Baron Lamb of Stamford;[1] 5, Viscount Lamb; 6, Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Duke Lamb. It would look like quibbling to carry it on further, and especially as it is not necessary for children to go beyond the ordinary t.i.tles of sub-regal dignity in our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent, higher than which is nothing but the Lamb of G.o.d. Puns I have not made many (nor punch much), since the date of my last; one I cannot help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which I remarked, that they must be very sharp-set. But in general I cultivate the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. Do you know Kate *********. I am stuffed out so with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It is New-Year here. That is, it was New-Year half a-year back, when I was writing this. Nothing puzzles me more than time and s.p.a.ce, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. Miss Knap is turned midwife. Never having had a child herself, she can't draw any wrong a.n.a.logies from her own case. Dr.

Stoddart has had Twins. There was five s.h.i.+llings to pay the Nurse. Mrs.

G.o.dwin was impannelled on a jury of Matrons last Sessions. She saved a criminal's life by giving it as her opinion that ----. The Judge listened to her with the greatest deference. The Persian amba.s.sador is the princ.i.p.al thing talked of now. I sent some people to see him wors.h.i.+p the sun on Primrose Hill at half past six in the morning, 28th November; but he did not come, which makes me think the old fire-wors.h.i.+ppers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. Have you trampled on the Cross yet? The Persian amba.s.sador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him Shaw Nonsense. While I think of it, I have put three letters besides my own three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and some gentleman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they, come safe? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you said you did not know Kate *********, I express her by nine stars, though she is but one, but if ever one star differed from another in glory--. You must have seen her at her father's. Try and remember her.

Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called the "Friend," which I would send, if I could; but the difficulty I had in getting the packets of books out to you before deters me; and you'll want something new to read when you come home. It is chiefly intended to puff off Wordsworth's poetry; but there are some n.o.ble things in it by the by. Except Kate, I have had no vision of excellence this year, and she pa.s.sed by like the queen on her coronation day; you don't know whether you saw her or not. Kate is fifteen: I go about moping, and sing the old pathetic ballad I used to like in my youth--

"She's sweet Fifteen, I'm _one year more_."

Mrs. Bland sung it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Eland's. That glorious singer Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season.

He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you could not tell which predominated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead.

Kate is vanished, but Miss B ****** is always to be met with!

"Queens drop away, while blue-legg'd Maukin thrives; And courtly Mildred dies while country Madge survives."

That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you observed that the rarest things are the least obvious? Don't show anybody the names in this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be considered as _private_. Hazlitt has written a _grammar_ for G.o.dwin; G.o.dwin sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language, but the _grey mare is the better horse_. I don't allude to Mrs. G.o.dwin, but to the word _grammar_, which comes near to _grey mare_, if you observe, in sound. That figure is called paranomasia in Greek. I am sometimes happy in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. "Ah! sir," said she, "I have seen better days;" "So have I, good woman," I replied; but I meant literally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which she begged: she meant more prosperous days. Mr. Dawe is made a.s.sociate of the Royal Academy. By what law of a.s.sociation I can't guess. Mrs. Holcroft, Miss Holcroft, Mr. and Mrs. G.o.dwin, Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt, Mrs. Martin and Louisa, Mrs. Lum, Capt. Burney, Mrs. Burney, Martin Burney, Mr. Rickman, Mrs. Rickman, Dr. Stoddart, William Dollin, Mr. Thompson, Mr. and Mrs.

Norris, Mr. Fenwick, Mrs. Fenwick, Miss Fenwick, a man that saw you at our house one day, and a lady that heard me speak of you; Mrs. Buffam that heard Hazlitt mention you, Dr. Tuthill, Mrs. Tuthill, Colonel Harwood, Mrs. Harwood, Mr. Collier, Mrs. Collier, Mr. Sutton, Nurse, Mr.

Fell, Mrs. Fell, Mr. Marshall, are very well, and occasionally inquire after you. [_Rest cut away_.]

[Footnote 1: Where my family come from. I have chosen that if ever I should have my choice.]

["I have published a little book." This was, of course, an invention. In the _Elia_ essay on "Poor Relations" Lamb says that his father's boyhood was spent at Lincoln, and in Susan Yates' story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ we see the Lincolns.h.i.+re fens, but of the history of the family we know nothing, I fancy Stamford is a true touch.

"The Persian amba.s.sador." A portrait of this splendid person is preserved at the India Office. Leigh Hunt says that Dyer was among the pilgrims to Primrose Hill.

"Kate *********." I have not identified this young lady.

"The old pathetic ballad." I have not found this.

"Mrs. Bland." Maria Theresa Bland (1769-1838), a Jewess, and a mezzo-soprano famous in simple ballads, who was connected with Drury Lane for many years.

"Braham is fled." Braham did not sing in London in 1810, but joined Mrs.

Billington in a long provincial tour. Phillips was Thomas Philipps (1774-1841), singer and composer.

"Miss B ******." Miss Burrell. See note to letter of Feb. 18, 1818.

"Not my poetry, but Quarles's." In "An Elegie," Stanza 16. Lamb does not quote quite correctly.

"Hazlitt's grammar." _A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue ... By William Hazlitt, to which is added A New Guide to the English Tongue by E[dward] Baldwin_ (William G.o.dwin). Published by M. J. G.o.dwin.

1810.

"A woman begged of me." Lamb told this story at the end of his _Elia_ essay "A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars," in the _London Magazine_, June, 1822, but the pa.s.sage was not reprinted in book form. See Vol. II.

of this edition.

George Dawe was made A.R.A. in 1809, not R.A. until 1814.

Of the friends on Lamb's list we have already met several. Mr. and Mrs.

Norris were the Randal Norrises. Dr. Stoddart having left Malta was now practising in Doctors Commons. Mr. and Mrs. Collier were the John Dyer Colliers, the parents of John Payne Collier, who introduced Lamb to Henry Crabb Robinson. Both Colliers were journalists. Thompson may be Marmaduke Thompson of Christ's Hospital. We meet some Buffams later, in the Moxon correspondence. Mr. Marshall was G.o.dwin's friend. Of Mrs. Lum, Mr. Dollin, Colonel and Mrs. Harwood, and Mr. Sutton, I know nothing.]

LETTER 186

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[Dated by H. C. R. Feb. 7, 1810.]

Dr R.--My Brother whom you have met at my rooms (a plump good looking man of seven and forty!) has written a book about humanity, which I transmit to you herewith. Wilson the Publisher has put it in his head that you can get it Reviewed for him. I dare say it is not in the scope of your Review--but if you could put it in any likely train, he would rejoyce. For alas! our boasted Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he teazes me to death with chusing to suppose that I could get it into all the Reviews at a moment's notice--I!! who have been set up as a mark for them to throw at, and would willingly consign them all to h.e.l.l flames and Megaera's snaky locks.

But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember she makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are directed against that very process.

Yours truly C. LAMB.

At Home to-night--Wednesday [February 7].

[Addressed to "Henry Robinson, Esq., 56 Hatton Garden, 'with a Treatise on Cruelty to Animals.'"

Lamb's brother, John Lamb, who was born in 1763, was now Accountant of the South-Sea House. His character is described by Lamb in the _Elia_ essay "My Relations," where he figures as James Elia. Robinson's _Diary_ later frequently expresses Robinson's dislike of his dogmatic ways.

The pamphlet has been identified by Mr. L.S. Livingston as _A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham, on his opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals_. It was published by Maxwell & Wilson at 17 Skinner Street in 1810. No author's name is given. One copy only is known, and that is in America, and the owner declines to permit it to be reprinted. The particular pa.s.sage referring to eel pie runs thus:--

"If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in the ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that it was necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that he must be skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's usual practice, he would conclude that the cook would so far use her reason as to cut off his head first, which is not fit for food, as then he might be skinned and broiled without harm; for however the other parts of his body might be convulsed during the culinary operations, there could be no feeling of consciousness therein, the communication with the brain being cut off; but if the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, skin him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to death: then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not the only sufferers; that lobsters and other sh.e.l.l fish were put into cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees in many parts of the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton atrocities, were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride of mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion that there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals designed for our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow so much thought on him as to cut his head off first, and that she would have laughed at any considerate person who should have desired such a thing; with what fearful indignation might he inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician that, like a cruel spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of mercy upon animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind, highly magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar and unthinking of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that man's obligations of morality towards the creatures subjected to his use are imperfect obligations!"

Robinson's review was, I imagine, _The London Review_, founded by Richard c.u.mberland in February, 1809, which, however, no longer existed, having run its brief course by November, 1809.

"Megaera's snaky locks." From _Paradise Lost_, X., 559:--

and up the trees Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks That curl'd Megaera.

Here should come another letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior, dated March 10, 1810. It refers to Mr. Lloyd's translation of the first seven books of the _Odyssey_ and is accompanied by a number of criticisms. Lamb advises Mr. Lloyd to complete the _Odyssey_, adding that he would prize it for its Homeric plainness and truths above the confederate jumble of Pope, Broom and Fenton which goes under Pope's name and is far inferior to his _Iliad_. Among the criticisms is one on Mr. Lloyd's use of the word "patriotic," in which Lamb says that it strikes his ears as being too modern; adding that in English few words of more than three syllables chime well into a verse. The word "sentiment" calls from him the remark that he would root it out of a translation of Homer. "It came in with Sterne, and was a child he had by Affectation."]