Mrs. Montague was very sorry to find you gone. I have not seen much of her, for I have kept very much at home since her return. I mean to stay at home and keep early hours all this winter. I have a new maid coming this evening. Betty, that you left here, went from me last week, and I took a girl lately from the country, who was fetched away in a few days by her sister, who took it into her head that the Temple was an improper place for a girl to live in. I wish the one that is coming may suit me. She is seven & twenty, with a very plain person, therefore I may hope she will be in little danger here. Henry Robinson, and many other friends that you made here, enquire continually after you. The Spanish lady is gone, and now poor Robinson is left quite forlorn. The streets remind me so much of you that I wish for you every showy shop I pass by. I hope we had many pleasant fireside hours together, but I almost fear the stupid dispirited state I was in made me seem a very flat companion; but I know I listened with great pleasure to many interesting conversations. I thank you for what you have done for Phillips, his fate will be decided in about a week. He has lately breakfasted with Sir Joseph Banks, who received him with great civility but made him no promise of support. Sir Joseph told him a new candidate had started up who it was expected would be favoured by the council. I am afraid Phillips stands a very poor chance. I am doing nothing, I wish I was, for if I were once more busily employed at work, I should be more satisfied with myself. I should not feel so helpless, & so useless. I hope you will write soon, your letters give me great pleasure; you have made me so well acquainted with all your household, that I must hope for frequent accounts how you are all going Remember us affectionately to your brother & sister. I hope the little Katherine continues mending. God bless you all & every one. on. Novr. 13, 1810. Your affectionate friend M. LAMB. LETTER 185 (continued). [Charles Lamb adds :—] Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the Geographers used to cram monsters in the voids of their maps & call it Terra Incognita. She has told you how she has taken to water, like a hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame imita 1810 COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 421 tion, but it goes against me a little at first. I have been aquavorous now for full four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps & rheumatisms, and cold internally so that fire won't warm me, yet I bear all for virtues sake. Must I then leave you, Gin, Rum, Brandy, Aqua Vita-pleasant jolly fellows-Damn Temperance and them that first invented it, some Anti Noahite. Coleridge has powdered his head, and looks like Bacchus, Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn sober, but his Clock has not struck yet, meantime he pours down goblet after goblet, the 2d to see where the 1st is gone, the 3d to see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there's another coming, and a 5th to say he's not sure he's the last. William Henshaw is dead. He died yesterday, aged 56. It was but a twelvemonth or so back that his Father, an ancient Gunsmith & my Godfather, sounded me as to my willingness to be guardian to this William in case of his (the old man's) death. William had three times broke in business, twice in England, once in t'other Hemisphere. He returned from America a sot & hath liquidated all debts. What a hopeful ward I am rid of. Ætatis 56. I must have taken care of his morals, seen that he did not form imprudent connections, given my consent before he could have married &c. From all which the stroke of death hath relieved me. Mrs. Reynolds is the name of the Lady to whom I will remember you tomorrow. Farewell. Wish me strength to continue. I've been eating jugg'd Hare. The toast & water makes me quite sick. C. LAMB. NOTE [After the preceding letter Mary Lamb had been taken ill-but not, I think, mentally-and Dorothy Wordsworth's visit was put off. Coleridge, The Friend having ceased, had come to London with the Montagus on October 26 to stay with them indefinitely at 55 Frith Street, Soho. But a few days after his arrival Montagu had inadvisedly repeated what he unjustifiably called a warning phrase of Wordsworth's concerning Coleridge's difficult habits as a guest-the word "nuisance" being mentioned-and this had so plunged Coleridge in grief that he left Soho for Hammersmith, where his friends the Morgans were living. Montagu's indiscretion led to a quarrel between Coleridge and Wordsworth which was long of healing. This is no place in which to tell the story, which has small part in Lamb's life; but it led to one of the few letters from Coleridge to Lamb that have been preserved (see Mr. E. H. Coleridge's edition of Coleridge's Letters, page 586). Carlisle was Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840), the surgeon and a friend of Lamb. "The Spanish lady"—Madam Lavaggi. See Robinson's Diary, 1869, Vol. I., page 303. 66 " Phillips.' This would be Ned Phillips, I presume, not the Colonel. I have not discovered for what post he was trying. "The little Katherine." Catherine Wordsworth, born September 6, 1808, lived only until June 4, 1812. "I have been aquavorous." Writing to Dorothy Wordsworth on December 23 Crabb Robinson says that Lamb has abstained from alcohol and tobacco since Lord Mayor's Day (November 9). "Bacchus ever sleek and young." After Dryden, "Alexander's Feast," III., 2:— Bacchus ever fair and ever young. "William Henshaw." I know nothing more of this unfortunate man.] LETTER 186 MARY AND CHARLES LAMB TO MISS WORDSWORTH MY [P.M. Nov. 23, 1810.] Y dear Friend, Miss Monkhouse left town yesterday, but I saw her on Sunday evening at Mrs. Montagu's. She looked very well & said her health was greatly improved. She promised to call on me before she left town but the weather having been very bad I suppose has prevented her. She received the letter which came through my brother's hands and I have learned from Mrs. Montagu that all your commissions are executed. It was Carlisle that she consulted, and she is to continue taking his prescriptions in the country. Mr. Monkhouse & Mr. Addison drank tea with us one evening last week. Miss Monkhouse is a very pleasing girl, she reminds me, a little, of Miss Hutchinson. I have not seen Henry Robinson for some days past, but I remember he told me he had received a letter from you, and he talked of Spanish papers which he should send to Mr. Southey. I wonder he does not write, for I have always understood him to be a very regular correspondent, and he seemed very proud of your letter. I am tolerably well, but I still affect the invalid take medicines, and keep at home as much as I possibly can. Water-drinking, though I confess it to be a flat thing, is become very easy to me. Charles perseveres in it most manfully. Coleridge is just in the same state as when I wrote last-I have not seen him since Sunday, he was then at Mr. Morgan's but talked of taking a lodging. 1810 DOMESTIC DIFFICULTY 423 Phillips feels a certainty that he shall lose his election, for the new candidate is himself a Fellow of the Royal Society, and [it] is thought Sir Joseph Banks will favour him. It will now be soon decided. My new maid is now sick in bed. Am I not unlucky? She would have suited me very well if she had been healthy, but I must send her away if she is not better tomorrow. Charles promised to add a few lines, I will therefore leave him plenty of room, for he may perhaps think of something to entertain you. I am sure I cannot. I hope you will not return to Grasmere till all fear of the Scarlet Fever is over, I rejoice to hear so good an account of the children and hope you will write often. When I write next I will endeavour to get a frank. This I cannot do but when the parliament is sitting, and as you seemed anxious about Miss Monkhouse I would not defer sending this, though otherwise it is not worth paying one penny for. God bless you all. Yours affectionately M. LAMB. LETTER 186 (continued). [Charles Lamb adds:-] We are in a pickle. Mary from her affectation of physiognomy has hired a stupid big country wench who looked honest, as she thought, and has been doing her work some days but without eating-eats no butter nor meat, but prefers cheese with her tea for breakfast-and now it comes out that she was ill when she came with lifting her mother about (who is now with God) when she was dying, and with riding up from Norfolk 4 days and nights in the waggon. She got advice yesterday and took something which has made her bring up a quart of blood, and she now lies, a dead weight upon our humanity, in her bed, incapable of getting up, refusing to go into an hospital, having no body in town but a poor asthmatic dying Uncle, whose son lately married a drab who fills his house, and there is no where she can go, and she seems to have made up her mind to take her flight to heaven from our bed.-O God! Ô God!-for the little wheelbarrow which trundled the Hunchback from door to door to try the various charities of different professions of Mankind! Here's her Uncle just crawled up, he is far liker Death than He. O the Parish, the Parish, the hospital, the infirmary, the charnel house, these are places meet for such guests, not our quiet mansion where nothing but affluent plenty and literary ease should abound. -Howard's House, Howard's House, or where the Parylitic descended thro' the sky-light (what a God's Gift) to get at our Savior. In this perplexity such topics as Spanish papers and Monkhouses sink into comparative insignificance. What shall we do?If she died, it were something: gladly would I pay the coffin maker and the bellman and searchers-O Christ. C. L. NOTE [Miss Monkhouse was the daughter of the Wordsworths' and Lambs' friend, Thomas Monkhouse. "Mr. Addison." I have not traced this gentleman. Miss Hutchinson was Sarah Hutchinson, sister of Mrs. Wordsworth. "The Hunchback." In the Arabian Nights. "Howard's House." This would be Cold-Bath Fields Prison, erected in 1794 upon some humane suggestions of Howard the Philanthropist. "The Paralytic." See Mark ii.] LETTERS 187 AND 188 CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT Wednesday, November 28, 1810. DEA EAR Hazlitt-I sent you on Saturday a Cobbett, containing your reply to the Edinburgh Review, which I thought you would be glad to receive as an example of attention on the part of Mr. Cobbett to insert it so speedily. Did you get it? We have received your pig, and return you thanks; it will be dressed in due form, with appropriate sauce, this day. Mary has been very ill indeed since you saw her; that is, as ill as she can be to remain at home. But she is a good deal better now, owing to a very careful regimen. She drinks nothing but water, and never goes out; she does not even go to the Captain's. Her indisposition has been ever since that night you left town; the night Miss W[ordsworth] came. Her coming, and that d-d Mrs. Godwin coming and staying so late that night, so overset her that she lay broad awake all that night, and it was by a miracle that she escaped a very bad illness, which I thoroughly expected. I have made up my mind that she shall never have any one in the house again with her, and that no one shall sleep with her, not even for a night; for it is a very serious |