The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
Chapter 70 : MY DEAR FRIEND, I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like many better wit

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 gratify my head and heart by a sincere inscription. An intimacy and dearness, worthy of a much earlier date than our acquaintance can refer to, direct me at once to your name: and with this acknowledgment of your ever kind feeling towards me, I desire to record a respect and admiration for you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our literature, save Elia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. If I had not these better reasons to govern me, I should be guided to the same selection by your intense yet critical relish for the works of our great Dramatist, and for that favourite play in particular which has furnished the subject of my verses.

It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate an allegory, that immortality which Shakespeare has conferred on the Fairy mythology by his Midsummer Night's Dream. But for him, those pretty children of our childhood would leave barely their names to our maturer years; they belong, as the mites upon the plum, to the bloom of fancy, a thing generally too frail and beautiful to withstand the rude handling of Time: but the Poet has made this most perishable part of the mind's creation equal to the most enduring; he has so intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies, and linked them by so many delightful a.s.sociations with the productions of nature, that they are as real to the mind's eye, as their green magical circles to the outer sense.

It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, even though they were but as the b.u.t.terflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world.

I am, My dear Friend, Yours most truly, T. HOOD.

Lamb's "Defeat of Time" is a paraphrase of the first part of Hood's poem.

Page 371, line 10. _"In the flowery spring," etc._ From Chapman's Translation of Homer's "Hymn to Pan," 31-33.

Page 373, line 15 from foot. _Sir Thomas Gresham._ It is told of Sir Thomas Gresham (1519?-1579), the founder of the Royal Exchange, that as a baby his life was saved by the chirping of a gra.s.shopper, as related here. But cold veracity says not. The legend seems to have had its origin in the gra.s.shopper crest of the Greshams, but it has been found that this crest was worn by an ancestor of Sir Thomas's who lived a hundred years earlier.

Page 375. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Lamb wrote this little sketch for William Upcott (1779-1845), the autograph collector and a.s.sistant librarian of the London Inst.i.tution.

Upcott permitted John Forster to quote it in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for April, 1835, shortly after Lamb's death. It is here printed from the original MS. in the possession of Mr. B. B. MacGeorge, of Glasgow, contained in a MS. volume ent.i.tled "Reliques of my Contemporaries.

William Upcott." Whether or no Lamb ever caught a swallow flying is not known; but everything else in the autobiography is true. The reference to Mr. Upcott's book may be to the alb.u.m in which this sketch was written, or to a new edition of the _Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors_, published in 1816, in which Upcott is supposed to have had a hand. I cannot discover whether a second edition of this work was published. There is none at the British Museum, nor at the London Inst.i.tution, of which Upcott was librarian. In the first edition, _A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland ..._ 1816, Lamb figures thus:--

"LAMB, CHARLES, was born in London, in 1775, and educated at Christ's Hospital. He is at present a clerk in the India House, and has published [a list of six books follows] ..."

"LAMB, MISS, sister of the preceding, has published _Mrs. Leicester's School_, 12mo, 1808; _Poetry for Children_, 2 vs., 12mo, 1809."

Upcott is not considered to have done more than to collect some of the materials for the _Dictionary_, which was the work of John Watkins and Frederick Shoberl.

Lamb's sense of time was never good: the _Elia_ essays were published in 1823 and the _Specimens_ in 1808, fully four years and nineteen years before the date of this autobiography. The joke about the _Works_ will be found also in the original version of the "Character of the Late Elia."

Page 376. SHAKESPEARE'S IMPROVERS.

_The Spectator_, November 22, 1828. Not reprinted by Lamb.

This letter was drawn forth by some remarks on the spurious version of "King Lear," which was then being played; or, as _The Spectator_ phrased it, "Shakespeare murdered by Nahum Tate--Covent Garden aiding and abetting." See page 383 for another letter to the same paper. See also the essay on "Shakespeare's Tragedies," 1810, for a first idea of the indictment now more fully drawn up.

Page 376, line 2 of letter. _Tate's "King Lear."_ Nahum Tate (1652-1715), Poet Laureate, was the author, with Nicholas Brady (1659-1726), of the rhymed version of the Psalms which bears their names, 1696, a rival of the version of 1549 by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins. He also wrote verses and plays, original and doctored. His version of "King Lear"--"The History of King Lear"--was produced in 1681. Therein Cordelia and Edgar are at the outset shown to be in love.

After the usual frustrations they are united at the close, and Lear, who does not die, p.r.o.nounces his blessing over them. Cordelia thus addresses Edgar in the first act:--

When, Edgar, I permitted your addresses, I was the darling daughter of a king, Nor can I now forget my royal birth, And live dependent on my lover's fortune.

I cannot to so low a fate submit, And therefore study to forget your pa.s.sions, And trouble me upon this theme no more.

Tate also rewrote "Richard II." and Webster's "White Devil."

Page 376, foot. "_Coriola.n.u.s._" Lamb refers to Tate's play, "The Ingrat.i.tude of a Commonwealth," produced in 1682. Aufidius threatens to violate only Virgilia:--

For soon as I've secur'd my rival's life, All stain'd i' th' husband's blood, I'll force the wife.--

She stabs herself rather than be dishonoured; and it is Nigridius who mangles, gashes, racks and distorts the little son of Coriola.n.u.s.

Page 377, line 3. _Shadwell._ The version of "Timon of Athens," by Thomas Shadwell (1642?-1692), Poet Laureate, is "The History of Timon of Athens, the Man Hater," produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1678.

Timon's last words are:--

_Timon._ I charge thee live, Evandra.

Thou lov'st me not if thou wilt not obey me; Thou only! Dearest! Kind! Constant thing on earth, Farewell.

_Dies._

_Evandra._ He's gone! he's gone! would all the world were so.

I must make haste, or I shall not o'ertake Him in his flight. Timon, I come, stay for me, Farewell, base world.

_Stabs herself. Dies._

Evandra was played not only by Mrs. Betterton, but also by Mrs.

Bracegirdle.

Page 377, foot. "_Macbeth._" The new version of "Macbeth" was probably by Sir William Davenant (1606-1668). There is an edition as early as 1673.

Macduff's chariot is greatly insisted upon. His servant remarks in the same scene:--

This is the entrance o' th' Heath; and here He order'd me to attend him with the chariot,

and a little later, to Macduff's question, "Where are our children?"

Lady Macduff replies:--

They are securely sleeping in the chariot.

Lady Macbeth's final repentance leads her to address her husband thus:--

You may in peace resign the ill-gain'd crown.

Why should you labour still to be unjust?

There has been too much blood already spilt.

Make not the subjects victims to your guilt.

resign your kingdom now, And with your crown put off your guilt.

Page 379. SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT.

_The Gem_, 1830. Signed "Nepos." Not reprinted by Lamb.

This little essay was written to accompany an engraving of Wilkie's picture with the same t.i.tle. Whether Lamb's grandmother was as he has recorded we cannot know; his reminiscences of her in "Dream Children"

and "The Grandam" are very different. That was Mrs. Field; Lamb, I think, never knew a paternal grandmother. The recollection of the fly in the eye seems to have an authentic air.