1833 To Avoid the Law 963 [John Taylor, representing the firm of Taylor & Hessey, seems to have set up a claim of copyright in those essays in the Last Essays of Elia that were printed in the London Magazine. For Procter's part, see next letter. Piozziana; or, Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi (Johnson's Mrs. Thrale), was published in 1833. It was by the Rev. E. Mangin. Mad. Darblay would be The Memoirs of Dr. Burney, 1832, by his daughter Madame d'Arblay (Admiral Burney's niece). The book was severely handled in the Quarterly for April, 1833. The following letter, which is undated, seems to refer to the difficulty mentioned above :-] D LETTER 566 CHARLES LAMB TO B. W. PROCTER Enfield, Monday. EAR P——, I have more than £30 in my house, and am independent of quarter-day, not having received my pension. Pray settle, I beg of you, the matter with Mr. Taylor. I know nothing of bills, but most gladly will I forward to you that sum for him, for Mary is very anxious that M[oxon] may not get into any litigation. The money is literally rotting in my desk for want of use. I should not interfere with Mtell M- when you see him, but Mary is really uneasy; so lay it to that account, not mine. Yours ever and two evers, C. L. Do it smack at once, and I will explain to M- why I did it. It is simply done to ease her mind. When you have settled, write, and I'll send the bank notes to you twice, in halves. Deduct from it your share in broken bottles, which, you being capital in your lists, I take to be two shillings. Do it as you love Mary and me. Then Elia's himself again. D LETTER 567 CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE [March 6, 1833.] EAR Friend-Thee hast sent a Christian epistle to me, and I should not feel clear if I neglected to reply to it, which would have been sooner if that vain young man, to whom thou didst intrust it, had not kept it back. We should rejoice to see thy outward man here, especially on a day which should not be a first day, being liable to worldly callers in on that day. Our little book is delayed by a heathenish injunction, threatened by the man Taylor. Canst thou copy and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse which in my younger days I wrote on friend Aders' pictures? find it in the book called the Table Book. Thou wilt Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom the world calleth Mary and Emma, greet you with me. 6th of 3d month 4th day. CH. LAMB. [On this letter is written by Hone in pencil : "This acknowledges a note from me to C. L. written in January preceding and sent by young Will Hazlitt. Received in my paralysis. March, 1833." On this day Lamb gave Hone two books with the same inscription in each-very tipsily written.] LETTER 568 CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON [P.M. March 19, 1833-] I SHALL expect Forster and two Moxons on Sunday, and hope for Procter. I am obliged to be in town next Monday. Could we contrive to make a party (paying or not is immaterial) for Miss Kelly's that night, and can you shelter us after the play, I mean Emma and me? I fear, I cannot persuade Mary to join us. N.B. I can sleep at a public house. Send an Elia (mind, I insist on buying it) to T. Manning Esq. at Sir G. Tuthill's Cavendish Square. DO WRITE. [Miss Kelly was then giving an entertainment called "Dramatic Recollections at the Strand Theatre.] THIS instant recone, copy, which I cannot just now re HIS instant receiv'd, this instant I answer your's-Dr. demand, because at his desire I have sent a 66 "" Satan to him, which when he ask'd for, I frankly told him, was imputed a lampoon on HIM ! ! ! I have sent it him, and cannot, till we come to explanation, go to him or send But on the faith of a Gentleman, you shall have it back some day for another. The 3 I send. I think 2 of the blunders perfectly immaterial. But your feelings, and I fear pocket, is every thing. I have just time to pack this off by the 2 o Clock stage. Yours till me meet At all events I behave more gentlemanlike than Emma did, in returning the copies. Yours till we meet--DO COME. Bring the Sonnets Why not publish 'em ?-or let another Bookseller? [Dr. Cresswell was vicar of Edmonton. Having married the daughter of a tailor-or so Mr. Fuller Russell states in his account of a conversation with Lamb in Notes and Queries—he was in danger of being ribaldly associated with Satan's matrimonial adventures in Lamb's ballad. I cannot explain to what book Lamb refers possibly to the Last Essays of Elia, which Moxon, having found errors in, wished to withdraw, substituting another. The point probably cannot be cleared up. The sonnets would be Moxon's own, which he had printed privately (see a later letter).] DR LETTER 570 CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON [P.M. March 30, 1833.] R M. Emma and we are delighted with the Sonnets, and she with her nice Walton. Mary is deep in the novel. Come as early as you can. I stupidly overlookd your proposal to meet you in Green Lanes, for in some strange way I burnt my leg, shin-quarter, at Forster's ; * it is laid up on a stool, and Asbury attends. You'll see us all as usual, about Taylor, when you come. Yours ever C. L. * Or the night I came home, for I felt it not bad till yesterday. But I scarce can hobble across the room. I have secured 4 places for night: in haste. [I fancy that the last sentence refers to an offer for Miss Isola's hand which Moxon had just made to Lamb.] DE LETTER 571 CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON [No date. Spring, 1833.] EAR M. many thanks for the Books; the Faust I will acknowledge to the Author. But most thanks for one immortal sentence, "If I do not cheat him, never trust me again." I do not know whether to admire most, the wit or justness of the sentiment. It has my cordial approbation. My sense of meum and tuum applauds it. I maintain it, the eighth commandment hath a secret special reservation, by which the reptile is exempt from any protection from it; as a dog, or a nigger, he is not a holder of property. Not a ninth of what he detains from the world is his own. Keep your hands from picking and stealing is no ways referable to his acquists. I doubt whether bearing false witness against thy neighbor at all contemplated this possible scrub. Could Moses have seen the speck in vision? An ex post facto law alone could relieve him, and we are taught to expect no eleventh commandment. The out-law to the Mosaic dispensation!-unworthy to have seen Moses' behind-to lay his desecrating hands upon Elia! Has the irriverent ark-toucher been struck blind I wonder? The more I think of him, the less I think of him. His meanness is invisible with aid of solar microscope, my moral eye smarts at him. The less flea that bites little fleas ! The great Beast! the beggarly nit! More when we meet. Mind, you'll come, two of you-and couldn't you go off in the morning, that we may have a daylong curse at him, if curses are not dis-hallowed by descending so low? Amen, Maledicatur in extremis. 1833 Moxon's Sonnets 967 [Abraham Hayward's translation of Faust was published by Moxon in February, 1833. Lamb's letter of thanks was said by the late Edmund Yates to be a very odd one. I have not seen it. We may perhaps assume that Moxon's reply to Lamb's letter stating that Taylor's claim had been paid contained the "immortal sentence." "Not a ninth." A tailor (Taylor) is only a ninth of a man. "The less flea." Remembering Swift's lines in "On Poetry, a Rhapsody": S So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite 'em, LETTER 572 CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER [No date.? March, 1833.] WALLOW your damn'd dinner and your brandy and water fast & come immediately I want to take Knowles in to Emma's only female friend for 5 minutes only, and we are free for the eveng. I'll do a Prologue. [The prologue was for Sheridan Knowles' play "The Wife." Lamb wrote both prologue and epilogue (see Vol. IV.).] DE LETTER 573 CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON [No date. ? April 10, 1833.] EAR M. The first Oak sonnet, and the Nightingale, may show their faces in any Annual unblushing. Some of the others are very good. The Sabbath too much what you have written before. Shall we look for you Sunday, we did in vain Good Friday [April 5]. [A signature was added by Mrs. Moxon for Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson, evidently from another letter:-] Your truest friend C. LAMB. |