1800 CHAPEL STREET ABANDONED 167 am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. I almost wish that Mary were dead.-God bless you! Love to Sara and Hartley. NOTE C. LAMB. [Hetty was the Lambs' aged servant. Here should come a letter from Lamb to Thomas Manning clearly written on May 12, 1800, the same day as that to Coleridge, stating that Lamb has given up his house, and is looking for lodgings,-White (with whom he had stayed) having "all kindness but not sympathy".] LETTER 57 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [P.M. May 20, 1800.] DE EAR Manning, I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry and the kind honest prose which it contained. It was just such a letter as I should have expected from Manning. I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last. I have had a very eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. He will have rooms to let at midsummer, by which time I hope my sister will be well enough to join me. It is a great object to me to live in town, where we shall be much more private, and to quit a house and neighbourhood where poor Mary's disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort of marked people. We can be nowhere private except in the midst of London. We shall be in a family where we visit very frequently; only my landlord and I have not yet come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am still on the tremble, for I do not know where we could go into lodgings that would not be, in many respects, highly exceptionable. Only God send Mary well again, and I hope all will be well! The prospect, such as it is, has made me quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it will give you pleasure.-Farewell. NOTE C. LAMB. [Manning's letter containing the choice poetry has not been preserved. The friend in town was John Mathew Gutch (1776-1861), with whom Lamb had been at school at Christ's Hospital, who was now a law stationer, in partnership with one Anderson, at 27 Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, since demolished.] DE LETTER 58 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [No date.? May 25, 1800.] EAR Manning, I am a letter in your debt, but I am scarcely rich enough (in spirits) to pay you.-I am writing at an inn on the Ware road, in the neighbourhood of which I am going to pass two days, being Whitsuntide.-Excuse the pen, tis the best I can get.-Poor Mary is very bad yet. I went yesterday hoping I should see her getting well, then I might have come into the country more chearful, but I could not get to see her. This has been a sad damp. Indeed I never in my life have been more wretched than I was all day yesterday. I am glad I am going away from business for a little while, for my head has been hot and ill. I shall be very much alone where I am going, which always revives me. I hope you will accept of this worthless memento, which I merely send as a token that I am in your debt. I will write upon my return, on Thursday at farthest. I return on Wednesday. God bless you. I was afraid you would think me forgetful, and that made me scribble this jumble. Sunday. NOTE [Here probably also should come an unpublished letter (in the possession of Mr. Dobell) from Lamb to Manning, in which Lamb remarks that his goddess is Pecunia. Mr. Dobell also has another letter to Manning belonging to the same period, in which Lamb returns to the subject of poverty: "You dropt a word whether in jest or earnest, as if you would join me in some work, such as a review or series of papers, essays, or anything.-Were you serious? I want home occupation, & I more want money. Had you any scheme, or was it, as G. Dyer says, en passant? If I don't have a Legacy left me shortly I must get into pay with some newspaper for small gains. Mutton is twelvepence a pound." Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, in which he describes a visit to Gutch's family at Oxford, and mentions his admiration for a fine head of Bishop Taylor in All Souls' Library, which was an inducement to the Oxford visit. He refers to Charles Lloyd's settlement in the Lakes, and suggests that it may be the means of again uniting him and Coleridge; adding that such men as Coleridge and Wordsworth would exclude solitude in the Hebrides or Thule. 1800 A "BITE" 169 The following undated letter, which may be placed a little too soon in its present position, comes with a certain fitness here :-] D LETTER 59 CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN MATHEW GUTCH [No date. 1800.] EAR Gutch, Anderson is not come home, and I am almost afraid to tell you what has happen'd, lest it should seem to have happend by my fault in not writing for you home sooner.— This morning Henry, the eldest lad, was missing. We supposd he was only gone out on a morning's stroll, and that he would return, but he did not return & we discovered that he had opened your desk before he went, & I suppose taken all the money he could find, for on diligent search I could find none, and on opening your Letter to Anderson, which I thought necessary to get at the key, I learn that you had a good deal of money there. Several people have been here after you to-day, & the boys seem quite frightened, and do not know what to do. In particular, one gentleman wants to have some writings finished by TuesdayFor God's sake set out by the first coach. Mary has been crying all day about it, and I am now just going to some law stationer in the neighbourhood, that the eldest boy has recommended, to get him to come and be in the house for a day or so, to manage. I cannot think what detains Anderson. His sister is quite frightend about him. I am very sorry I did not write yesterday, but Henry persuaded me to wait till he could ascertain when some job must be done (at the furthest) for Mr. Foulkes, and as nothing had occurrd besides I did not like to disturb your pleasures. I now see my error, and shall be heartily ashamed to see you. [That is as far as the letter goes on the first page. We then turn over, and find (as Gutch, to his immense relief, found before us) written right across both pages:] A BITE!!! Anderson is come home, and the wheels of thy business are going on as ever. The boy is honest, and I am thy friend. And how does the coach-maker's daughter? Thou art her Phaeton, her Gig, and her Sociable. Commend me to Rob. C. LAMB. Saturday, NOTE [This letter is the first example extant of Lamb's tendency to hoaxing. Gutch was at that time courting a Miss Wheeley, the daughter of a Birmingham coachbuilder. It was while he was in Birmingham that Lamb wrote the letter. Anderson was his partner in business. Rob would be Robert Lloyd, then at Birmingham again. This, and one other, are the only letters of Lamb to Gutch that escaped destruction.] D' LETTER 60 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE [? Late July, 1800.] EAR Coleridge,-Soon after I wrote to you last, an offer was made me by Gutch (you must remember him? at Christ'syou saw him, slightly, one day with Thomson at our house)-to come and lodge with him at his house in Southampton Buildings, Chancery-Lane. This was a very comfortable offer to me, the rooms being at a reasonable rent, and including the use of an old servant, besides being infinitely preferable to ordinary lodgings in our case, as you must perceive. As Gutch knew all our story and the perpetual liability to a recurrence in my sister's disorder, probably to the end of her life, I certainly think the offer very generous and very friendly. I have got three rooms (including servant) under £34 a year. Here I soon found myself at home; and here, in six weeks after, Mary was well enough to join me. So we are once more settled. I am afraid we are not placed out of the reach of future interruptions. But I am determined to take what snatches of pleasure we can between the acts of our distressful drama. . . . I have passed two days at Oxford on a visit, which I have long put off, to Gutch's family. The sight of the Bodleian Library and, above all, a fine bust of Bishop Taylor at All Souls', were particularly gratifying to me; unluckily, it was not a family where I could take Mary with me, and I am afraid there is something of dishonesty in any pleasures I take without her. She never goes anywhere. I do not know what I can add to this letter. I hope you are better by this time; and I desire to be affectionately remembered to Sara and Hartley. I expected before this to have had tidings of another little philosopher. Lloyd's wife is on the point of favouring the world. Have you seen the new edition of Burns? his posthumous works and letters? I have only been able to procure the first volume, which contains his life-very confusedly and badly written, and interspersed with dull pathological and medical discussions. It 1800 COLERIDGE'S BOOKS 171 is written by a Dr. Currie. Do you know the well-meaning doctor? Alas, ne sutor ultra crepitum! [A few words omitted here.] I hope to hear again from you very soon. Godwin is gone to Ireland on a visit to Grattan. Before he went I passed much time with him, and he has showed me particular attentions: N.B. A thing I much like. Your books are all safe: only I have not thought it necessary to fetch away your last batch, which I understand are at Johnson's the bookseller, who has got quite as much room, and will take as much care of them as myself and you can send for them immediately from him. I wish you would advert to a letter I sent you at Grasmere about "Christabel," and comply with my request contained therein. Love to all friends round Skiddaw. NOTE C. LAMB. [The Coleridges had recently moved into Greta Hall, Keswick. Thomson would, I think, be Marmaduke Thompson, an old Christ's Hospitaller, to whom Lamb dedicated Rosamund Gray. He became a missionary. "Another little philosopher." Derwent Coleridge was born September 14, 1800. Lloyd's eldest son, Charles Grosvenor Lloyd, was born July 31, 1800. Dr. James Currie's Life of Burns was prefixed to an edition of his poems in 1800. Dugald Stewart called it "a strong and faithful picture." It was written to raise funds for Burns' widow and family. "Ne sutor ultra crepidam" is a phrase in Pliny, Valerius Maximus, and possibly other Latin writers. "Let the cobbler stick to his last." The translation of Lamb's version has to be omitted. Godwin had gone to stay with Curran : he saw much of Grattan also. Johnson, the publisher and bookseller, lived at 72 St. Paul's Churchyard. He published Priestley's works.] DE LETTER 61 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE Aug. 6th, 1800. EAR Coleridge,-I have taken to-day, and delivered to Longman and Co., Imprimis: your books, viz., three ponderous German dictionaries, one volume (I can find no more) of German and French ditto, sundry other German books unbound, as you left |