1819 A Schoolboy at Russell Street 563 sequently Lamb and Southey united in helping him to the extent of £10 a year each.] LETTER 256 CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH [P.M. 25 Nov., 1819.] EAR Miss Wordsworth, You will think me negligent, but express a prediction. Till yesterday I had barely seen him— Virgilium Tantum Vidi-but yesterday he gave us his small company to a bullock's heart-and I can pronounce him a lad of promise. He is no pedant nor bookworm, so far I can answer. Perhaps he has hitherto paid too little attention to other men's inventions, preferring, like Lord Foppington, the “natural sprouts of his own." But he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I am ill at remembering other people's bon mots, but the following are a few. Being taken over Waterloo Bridge, he remarked that if we had no mountains, we had a fine river at least, which was a Touch of the Comparative, but then he added, in a strain which augured less for his future abilities as a Political Economist, that he supposed they must take at least a pound a week Toll. Like a curious naturalist he inquired if the tide did not come up a little salty. This being satisfactorily answered, he put another question as to the flux and reflux, which being rather cunningly evaded than artfully solved by that she-Aristotle Mary, who muttered something about its getting up an hour sooner and sooner every day, he sagely replied, "Then it must come to the same thing at last" which was a speech worthy of an infant Halley! The Lion in the 'Change by no means came up to his ideal standard. So impossible it is for Nature in any of her works to come up to the standard of a child's imagination. The whelps (Lionets) he was sorry to find were dead, and on particular enquiry his old friend the Ouran Outang had gone the way of all flesh also. The grand Tiger was also sick, and expected in no short time to exchange this transitory world for another-or none. But again, there was a Golden Eagle (I do not mean that of Charing) which did much arride and console him. William's genius, I take it, leans a little to the figurative, for being at play at Tricktrack (a kind of minor Billiard-table which we keep for smaller wights, and sometimes refresh our own mature fatigues with taking a hand at), not being able to hit a ball he had iterate aimed at, he cried out, "I cannot hit that beast." Now the balls are usually called men, but he felicitously hit upon a middle term, a term of approximation and imaginative reconciliation, a something where the two ends, of the brute matter (ivory) and their human and rather violent personification into men, might meet, as I take it, illustrative of that Excellent remark in a certain. Preface about Imagination, explaining "like a sea-beast that had crawled forth to sun himself." Not that I accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image to have come ex traduce. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty poets have done in this kind before him. For being asked if his father had ever been on Westminster Bridge, he answer'd that he did not know. It is hard to discern the Oak in the Acorn, or a Temple like St. Paul's in the first stone which is laid, nor can I quite prefigure what destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, after the first boggle, rapidly. As in the Tricktrack board, where the hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22, but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25—and 33 again with 16, which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering him by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am sometimes inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occasion, as when he was asked if London were as big as Ambleside, and indeed no other answer was given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a question. In the contour of scull certainly I discern something paternal. But whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his father's fame, Time the trier of geniuses must decide. Be it pronounced peremptorily at present, that Willy is a well-mannerd child, and though no great student, hath yet a lively eye for things that lie before him. Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Your's and yours' most sincerely C. LAMB. [This letter, which refers to a visit paid to the Lambs in Great Russell Street by Wordsworth's son, William, then nine years old, 1819 Re-enter Lloyd 565 is remarkable, apart from its charm and humour, for containing more of the absolute method of certain of Lamb's Elia passages than anything he had yet written. "Lord Foppington "-in Vanbrugh's "Relapse." Lamb used this speech as the motto of his Elia essay "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading." "Like a sea-beast." Lamb alludes to the preface to the edition of 1815 of Wordsworth's poems, where he quotes illustratively from his "Resolution and Independence": Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself. An "If his father had ever been on Westminster Bridge." allusion to Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed on Westminster Bridge" : Earth has not anything to show more fair. "The American boy." This was Zerah Colburn, the mathematical prodigy, born in Vermont State in 1804 and exhibited in America and Europe by his father.] LETTER 257 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE Jan. 10th, 1820. DEAR Coleridge, A Letter written in the blood of your The poor friend would indeed be of a nature to startle you ; but this is nought but harmless red ink, or, as the witty mercantile phrase hath it, Clerk's Blood. Damn 'em! my brain, guts, skin, flesh, bone, carcase, soul, TIME, is all theirs. Royal Exchange, Gresham's Folly, hath me body and spirit. I admire some of Lloyd's lines on you, and I admire your postponing reading them. He is a sad Tattler, but this is under the rose. Twenty years ago he estranged one friend from me quite, whom I have been regretting, but never could regain since; he almost alienated you (also) from me, or me from you, I don't know which. But that breach is closed. The dreary sea is filled up. He has lately been at work "telling again," as they call it, a most gratuitous piece of mischief, and has caused a coolness betwixt me and (not a friend exactly, but) [an] intimate acquaintance. I suspect, also, he saps Manning's faith in me, who am to Manning more than an acquaintance. Still I like his writing verses about you. Will your kind host and hostess give us a dinner next Sunday, and better still, not expect us if the weather is very bad. Why you should refuse twenty guineas per sheet for Blackwood's or any other magazine passes my poor comprehension. But, as Strap says, you know best. I have no quarrel with you about præprandial avocations-so don't imagine one. That Manchester sonnet I think very likely is Capel Lofft's. Another sonnet appeared with the same initials in the same paper, which turned out to be Procter's. What do the rascals mean? Am I to have the fathering of what idle rhymes every beggarly Poetaster pours forth! Who put your marine sonnet and about Browne into "Blackwood"? I did not. So no more, till we meet. ** Ever yours, C. L. [Charles Lloyd, returned to health, had written Desultory Thoughts in London, in which both Coleridge and Lamb appeared, *** and Lamb as Coleridge as The poem was published in 1821. Lloyd probably had sent it in manuscript or proof to Lamb and Coleridge. Some of Lloyd's lines on Coleridge run thus : How shall I fitly speak on such a theme? No! with magnanimous self-sacrifice, He felt there is a bliss in being wise, Quite independent of the wise man's name. It ne'er had known, but for that spirit brave, Sometimes I think that I'm a blossom blighted; If I am not inexorably spited Of all that dignifies mankind below; By him I speak of, I was so excited, While reason's scale was poising to and fro, "To the better cause;" that him I have to bless 1820 A Bereavement No! Those who most have seen me, since the hour Sole remnant of vast castle, still betrays Thy love, than by fresh friends to have been lov'd. 567 The story of one of Lloyd's former indiscretions is told in the earlier letters of this collection. I cannot say what friend he quite alienated, unless it was James White. The nature of the later offence of which Lamb accuses Lloyd is now unknown. "That Manchester sonnet. 99 A sonnet entitled "Manchester," referring to the Luddites, and signed C. L., by Capel Lofft. Procter's "C. L." sonnet was upon Macready. The marine sonnet was 66 Fancy in Nubibus" (see page 559). "About Browne" refers to a note by Coleridge on Sir Thomas Browne in the same number, signed G. J.—possibly James Gillman's initials reversed. We learn from a letter from Coleridge to J. H. Green (January 14, 1820) that the visit to Highgate which Lamb mentions was a New Year visit of annual occurrence. Lamb's reference to præprandial avocations touches upon Coleridge's habit of coming down to see his guests only when dinner was ready.] MY LETTER 258 MARY LAMB TO MRS. VINCENT NOVELLO Newington, Monday. [Spring of 1820.] Y dear Friend,-Since we heard of your sad sorrow, you have been perpetually in our thoughts; therefore, you may well imagine how welcome your kind remembrance of it must be. I know not how enough to thank you for it. You bid me write a long letter; but my mind is so possessed with the idea that you must be occupied with one only thought, that all trivial matters seem impertinent. I have just been reading again Mr. Hunt's delicious Essay; which I am sure must have come so home to your hearts, I shall always love him for it. I feel that it is all that one can think, but which none but he could have done so prettily. May he lose the memory of his own babies in seeing them all grow old around him! Together with the recollection of your dear baby, the image of a little sister I once had comes as fresh into my mind as if I had seen her as lately. A little cap with |