The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
Chapter 350 : "Young Davy." Afterwards Sir Humphry Davy, and now one of Coleridge's c

"Young Davy." Afterwards Sir Humphry Davy, and now one of Coleridge's correspondents. He had been awarded the Napoleon prize of 3,000 francs "for his discoveries announced in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for the year 1807."

"Coleridge's lectures." Coleridge delivered the first on January 12, 1808, and the second on February 5. The third and fourth were eventually delivered some time before April 3. The subject was not Taste but Poetry. Coleridge's rooms over _The Courier_ office at No. 348 Strand are described by De Quincey in his _Works_, Vol. II. (1863 edition), page 98.

It was Coleridge's illness that was bringing Wordsworth to town, to be followed by Southey, largely by the instrumentality of Charles and Mary Lamb. It is conjectured that Coleridge was just then more than usually in the power of drugs.

Sir Joseph Banks, as President of the Royal Society, had written a letter to the East India Company supporting Manning's wish to practise as a doctor in Canton.

The similar inst.i.tutions that sprang up in imitation of the Royal Inst.i.tution have all vanished, except the London Inst.i.tution in Finsbury Circus.

"Writing like Shakspeare." This pa.s.sage was omitted by Talfourd. He seems to have shown it to Crabb Robinson, just after Lamb's death, as one of the things that could not be published. Robinson (or Robinson's editor, Dr. Sadler), in recording the event, subst.i.tutes a dash for Wordsworth's name.

Miss Betham was Miss Mary Matilda Betham (1776-1852), afterwards a correspondent of Lamb. We shall soon meet her again. She had written a _Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country_, 1804, and some poems. Among her sitters were Coleridge and Mrs. Coleridge. The Profilist opposite St. Dunstan's was, I take it, E.

Beetham, Patent Was.h.i.+ng-Mill Maker at 27 Fleet Street. I find this in the 1808 Directory. The shop was close to Inner Temple Lane.

[Two undated letters to Miss Betham follow, which may well belong to this time. Mr. Ernest Betham allows me to take them from his book, _A House of Letters_.]

LETTER 169

CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM

[No date. ?1808.]

Dear Miss B.--I send you three Tickets which will serve the first course of C.'s Lectures, six in number, the first begins tomorrow. Excuse the cover being not _or fa_, is not that french? I have no writing paper.

Yours truly, C. LAMB.

N.B. It is my present, not C.'s, id. est he gave 'em me, I you.

LETTER 170

CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM

Dear Miss Betham,--I am very sorry, but I was pre-engaged for this evening when Eliza communicated the contents of your letter. She herself also is gone to Walworth to pa.s.s some days with Miss Hays--

"G-d forbid I should pa.s.s my days with Miss H--ys"

but that is neither here nor there. We will both atone for this accident by calling upon you as early as possible.

I am setting out to engage Mr. Dyer to your Party, but what the issue of my adventure will be, cannot be known, till the wafer has closed up this note for ever.

Yours truly, C. LAMB.

Friday.

[We have already met Miss Hayes. Miss Betham was a friend of Dyer, as we shall see.]

LETTER 171

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM G.o.dWIN

March 11, 1808.

Dear G.o.dwin,--The giant's vomit was perfectly nauseous, and I am glad you pointed it out. I have removed the objection. To the other pa.s.sages I can find no other objection but what you may bring to numberless pa.s.sages besides, such as of Scylla s.n.a.t.c.hing up the six men, etc., that is to say, they are lively images of _shocking_ things. If you want a book, which is not occasionally to _shock_, you should not have thought of a tale which was so full of anthropophagi and wonders. I cannot alter these things without enervating the Book, and I will not alter them if the penalty should be that you and all the London booksellers should refuse it. But speaking as author to author, I must say that I think _the terrible_ in those two pa.s.sages seems to me so much to preponderate over the nauseous, as to make them rather fine than disgusting. Who is to read them, I don't know: who is it that reads Tales of Terror and Mysteries of Udolpho? Such things sell. I only say that I will not consent to alter such pa.s.sages, which I know to be some of the best in the book. As an author I say to you an author, Touch not my work. As to a bookseller I say, Take the work such as it is, or refuse it. You are as free to refuse it as when we first talked of it. As to a friend I say, Don't plague yourself and me with nonsensical objections. I a.s.sure you I will not alter one more word.

[This letter refers to the proofs of Lamb's _Adventures of Ulysses_, his prose paraphrase for children of Chapman's translation of the _Odyssey_, which Mrs. G.o.dwin was publis.h.i.+ng. G.o.dwin had written the following letter:--

"Skinner St., March 10, 1808.

"DEAR LAMB,--I address you with all humility, because I know you to be _tenax propositi_. Hear me, I entreat you, with patience.

"It is strange with what different feelings an author and a bookseller looks at the same ma.n.u.script. I know this by experience: I was an author, I am a bookseller. The author thinks what will conduce to his honour: the bookseller what will cause his commodities to sell.

"_You_, or some other wise man, I have heard to say, It is children that read children's books, when they are read, but it is parents that choose them. The critical thought of the tradesman put itself therefore into the place of the parent, and what the parent will condemn.

"We live in squeamish days. Amid the beauties of your ma.n.u.script, of which no man can think more highly than I do, what will the squeamish say to such expressions as these,--'devoured their limbs, yet warm and trembling, lapping the blood,' p. 10. Or to the giant's vomit, p. 14; or to the minute and shocking description of the extinguis.h.i.+ng the giant's eye in the page following. You, I daresay, have no formed plan of excluding the female s.e.x from among your readers, and I, as a bookseller, must consider that if you have you exclude one half of the human species.

"Nothing is more easy than to modify these things if you please, and nothing, I think, is more indispensable.

"Give me, as soon as possible, your thoughts on the matter.

"I should also like a preface. Half our customers know not Homer, or know him only as you and I know the lost authors of antiquity. What can be more proper than to mention one or two of those obvious recommendations of his works, which must lead every human creature to desire a nearer acquaintance.--

"Believe me, ever faithfully yours, W. G.o.dWIN."

As a glance at the _Adventures of Ulysses_ will show (see Vol. III.), Lamb did not make the alteration on pages 10 or 15 (pages 244 and 246 of Vol. III.), although the giant's vomit has disappeared. _The Tales of Terror_, 1801, were by Matthew Gregory Lewis, "Monk Lewis," as he was called, and the _Mysteries of Udolpho_, 1794, by Mrs. Radcliffe.]

LETTER 172

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[Dated at end: March 12, 1808.]

Dear Sir,--Wordsworth breakfasts with me on Tuesday morning next; he goes to Mrs. Clarkson the next day, and will be glad to meet you before he goes. Can you come to us before nine or at nine that morning? I am afraid, _W_. is so engaged with Coleridge, who is ill, we cannot have him in an evening. If I do not hear from you, I will expect you to breakfast on Tuesday.