1809 LAMB'S BOOKS 405 had not been supported financially as he had hoped, and had already begun to think of stopping the paper. Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827), of Coleorton, the friend and patron of men of genius, had helped, with Sotheby, in the establishment of The Friend, and was instrumental subsequently in procuring a pension for Coleridge. William Sotheby (1757-1833), the translator and author, had received subscriptions for Coleridge's lectures. "The rich Auditors in Albemarle Street "-those who had listened to Coleridge's lectures at the Royal Institution. "The pamphlet." Presumably Wordsworth's "Convention of Cintra." "You never saw a book-case." Leigh Hunt wrote of Lamb's books in the essay "My Books," in The Literary Examiner :— It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls; -now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden : there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high fantastical" Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids.] LETTER 178 MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT November 7th, 1809. Μ' Y dear Sarah-The dear, quiet, lazy, delicious month we spent with you is remembered by me with such regret, that I feel quite discontent & Winterslow-sick. I assure you, I never passed such a pleasant time in the country in my life, both in the house & out of it, the card playing quarrels, and a few gaspings for breath after your swift footsteps up the high hills excepted, and those drawbacks are not unpleasant in the recollection. We have got some salt butter to make our toast seem like yours, and we have tried to eat meat suppers, but that would not do, for we left our appetites behind us; and the dry loaf, which offended you, now comes in at night unaccompanied; but, sorry am I to add, it is soon followed by the pipe and the gin bottle. We smoked the very first night of our arrival. Great news! I have just been interrupted by Mr. Daw, who comes to tell me he was yesterday elected a Royal Academician. He said none of his own friends voted for him; he got it by strangers, who were pleased with his picture of Mrs. White. Charles says he does not believe Northcote ever voted for the admission of any one. Though a very cold day, Daw was in a prodigious sweat, for joy at his good fortune. More great news! my beautiful green curtains were put up yesterday, and all the doors listed with green baize, and four new boards put to the coal-hole, and fastening hasps put to the window, and my died Manning silk cut out. Yesterday was an eventful day: for yesterday too Martin Burney was to be examined by Lord Eldon, previous to his being admitted as an Attorney; but he has not yet been here to announce his success. I carried the baby-caps to Mrs. [John] Hazlitt; she was much pleased, and vastly thankful. Mr. [John] H. got fifty-four guineas at Rochester, and has now several pictures in hand. I am going to tell you a secret, for says she would be sorry to have it talked of. One night came home from the ale-house, bringing with him a great, rough, ill-looking fellow, whom he introduced to as Mr. Brown, a gentleman he had hired as a mad keeper, to take care of him, at forty pounds a year, being ten pounds under the usual price for keepers, which sum Mr. Brown had agreed to remit out of pure friendship. It was with great difficulty, and by threatening to call in the aid of watchmen and constables, that could prevail on Mr. Brown to leave the house. We had a good chearful meeting on Wednesday: much talk of Winterslow, its woods & its nice sun flowers. I did not so much like Phillips at Winterslow, as I now like him for having been with us at Winterslow. We roasted the last of his beach, of oily nut prolific,' on Friday, at the Captain's. Nurse is now established in Paradise, alias the Incurable Ward [of Westminster Hospital]. I have seen her sitting in most superb state, surrounded by her seven incurable companions. They call each other ladies. Nurse looks as if she would be considered as the first lady in the ward only one seemed at [all] like to rival her in dignity. A man in the India House has resigned, by which Charles will get twenty pounds a year; and White has prevailed on him to write some more lottery-puffs. If that ends in smoke, the twenty pounds is a sure card, and has made us very joyful. I continue very well, & return you very sincere thanks for my good health and improved looks, which have almost made Mrs. Godwin die with envy; she longs to come to Winterslow as much 1809 THE MEMOIRS OF HOLCROFT 407 as the spiteful elder sister did to go to the well for a gift to spit diamonds Jane and I have agreed to boil a round of beef for your suppers, when you come to town again. She, Jane, broke two of the Hogarth glasses while we were away-whereat I made a great noise. Farewel. Love to William, and Charles's love and good wishes for the speedy arrival of the Life of Holcroft, & the bearer thereof. Yours most affectionately, M. LAMB. Tuesday. Charles told Mrs. Godwin, Hazlitt had found a well in his garden, which, water being scarce in your country, would bring him in two hundred a year; and she came in great haste the next morning to ask me if it were true. Your brother and his &c. are quite well. NOTE [George Dawe had just been elected not Royal Academician but Associate. He became full R.A. in 1814. Mrs. White was the wife of Anthony White, the surgeon, who had been apprenticed to Sir Anthony Carlisle. Northcote was James Northcote, R.A., whose Conversations Hazlitt recorded some years later. Martin Burney never made a successful lawyer. His life was destined to be unhappy and unprofitable, as we shall see later. "I am going to tell you a secret." In the absence of the original these blanks cannot be filled in, nor are they important. "Beach, of oily nut prolific." From Cowper's Task, "The Sofa," lines 315, 316. "Lottery puffs." See note on page 326. "The spiteful elder sister." This story is in Grimm, I think. "The Life of Holcroft." The Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft, begun by Holcroft and finished by Hazlitt, although completed in 1810, was not published until 1816. Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated January 1, 1810, thanking him for a turkey. Lamb mentions that his 1809 holiday had been spent in Wiltshire, where he saw Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. He adds that Coleridge's Friend is occasionally sublime. This was the last letter of the correspondence. Robert Lloyd died on October 26, 1811. Lamb wrote in the Gentleman's Magazine a memoir of him, which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition, page 132.] LETTER 179 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING Mary sends her love. DE Jan. 2nd, 1810. EAR Manning,-When I last wrote to you, I was in lodgings. I am now in chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I should be happy to see you any evening. Bring any of your friends, the Mandarins, with you. I have two sitting-rooms: I call them so par excellence, for you may stand, or loll, or lean, or try any posture in them; but they are best for sitting; not squatting down Japanese fashion, but the more decorous use of the postwhich European usage has consecrated. I have two of these rooms on the third floor, and five sleeping, cooking, &c., rooms, on the fourth floor. In my best room is a choice collection of the works of Hogarth, an English painter of some humour. In my next best are shelves containing a small but well-chosen library. My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent-cold with brandy, and not very insipid without. Here I hope to set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, the undertaker, gives me notice that I may have possession of my last lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of books by my last, to give you some idea of the state of European literature. There comes with this two volumes, done up as letters, of minor poetry, a sequel to " Mrs. Leicester; the best you may suppose mine; the next best are my coadjutor's; you may amuse yourself in guessing them out; but I must tell you mine are but one-third in quantity of the whole. So much for a very delicate subject. It is hard to speak of one's self, &c. Holcroft had finished his life when I wrote to you, and Hazlitt has since finished his life-I do not mean his own life, but he has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little book for children on titles of honour and to give them some idea of the difference of rank and gradual rising, I have made a little scale, supposing myself to receive the following various accessions of dignity from the king, who is the fountain of honour-As at first, 1, Mr. C. Lamb; 2, C. Lamb, Esq.; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart.; 4, Baron Lamb of Stamford; 5, Viscount Lamb; 6, Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Duke Lamb. It would look like quibbling to carry it on further, and especially as it is not necessary for children to go beyond the ordinary titles of sub-regal dignity in 1 Where my family come from. I have chosen that if ever I should have my choice. 1810 A DREAM OF HONOUR 409 our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent, higher than which is nothing but the Lamb of God. Puns I have not made many (nor punch much), since the date of my last; one I cannot help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which I remarked, that they must be very sharp-set. But in general I cultivate the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. Do you know Kate *** I am stuffed out so with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It is NewYear here. That is, it was New-Year half a-year back, when I was writing this. Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them.i The Persian ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to see him worship the sun on Primrose Hill at half past six in the morning, 28th November; but he did not come, which makes me think the old fire-worshippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. Have you trampled on the Cross yet? The Persian ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him Shaw Nonsense. While I think of it, I have put three letters besides my own three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and some gentleman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they, come safe? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you said you did not know Kate I express her by nine stars, though she is but one, but if ever one star differed from another in glory You must have seen her at her father's. Try and remember her. Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called the "Friend," which I would send, if I could; but the difficulty I had in getting the packets of books out to you before deters me; and you'll want something new to read when you come home. It is chiefly intended to puff off Wordsworth's poetry; but there are some noble things in it by the by. Except Kate, I have had no vision of excellence this year, and she passed by like the queen on her coronation day; you don't know whether you saw her or not. Kate is fifteen: I go about moping, and sing the old pathetic ballad I used to like in my youth "She's sweet Fifteen, I Mrs. Bland sung it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Bland's. 1[See Appendix II., page 971.] |