my counsel. I am sadly given to blot, and modern blotting-paper gives no redress; it only smears, and makes it worse. The only remedy is scratching out, which gives it a clerkish look. The most innocent blots are made with red ink, and are rather ornamental. Marry, they are not always to be distinguished from the effusions of a cut finger. Well, I hope and trust thy tick doleru, or, however you spell it, is vanished, for I have frightful impressions of that tick, and do altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, or the tick of a death-watch. I take it to be a species of Vitus's dance (I omit the sanctity, writing to 'one of the men called friends'). I knew a young lady who could dance no other; she danced it through life, and very queer and fantastic were her steps. ing to him the estimate of it; but was "Heaven bless thee from such measures, C. L." Here is a humorous expostulation with Coleridge for carrying away a book from the cottage, in the absence of its inmates. TO MR. COLERIDGE, [No date.] with more than Arabian courtesy; there's a copy of More's fine poem, which is none of mine, but I cherish it as my own; I am none of those churlish landlords that advertise the goods to be taken away in ten days' time, or then to be sold to pay expenses. So you see I had no right to lend you that book; I may lend you my own books, because it is at my own hazard, but it is not "Dear C.,-Why will you make your honest to hazard a friend's property; I visits, which should give pleasure, matter of always make that distinction. I hope you regret to your friends? you never come but will bring it with you, or send it by Hartley; you take away some folio, that is part of my or he can bring that, and you the 'Polemical existence. With a great deal of difficulty I Discourses,' and come and eat some atoning was made to comprehend the extent of my mutton with us one of these days shortly. loss. My maid, Becky, brought me a dirty We are engaged two or three Sundays deep, bit of paper, which contained her description but always dine at home on week-days at of some book which Mr. Coleridge had taken half-past four. So come all four-men and away. It was 'Luster's Tables,' which, for books I mean-my third shelf (northern some time, I could not make out. What! compartment) from the top has two devilish has he carried away any of the tables, Becky?' gaps, where you have knocked out its two 'No, it wasn't any tables, but it was a book that he called Luster's Tables.' I was obliged to search personally among my shelves, and a huge fissure suddenly disclosed to me the true nature of the damage I had sustained. The following preface to a letter, addressed That book, C., you should not have taken to Miss Hutchinson, Mrs. Wordsworth's away, for it is not mine, it is the property of sister, playing on the pretended defects of a friend, who does not know its value, nor Miss Lamb's handwriting, is one of those indeed have I been very sedulous in explain- artifices of affection which, not finding scope eye-teeth. "Your wronged friend, "C. LAMB." What a strange mingling of humour and in eulogistic epithets, take refuge in apparent abuse. Lamb himself, at this time, wrote a solemn truth is there in the following singularly neat hand, having greatly improved reflection on Fauntleroy's fate, in a letter in the India House, where he also learned to addressed to Bernard Barton ? flourish, a facility he took a pride in, and flourishes sometimes indulged; but his (wherefore it would be too curious to inquire) almost always shaped themselves into a visionary corkscrew, "never made to draw." TO MISS HUTCHINSON. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Dec. 1st, 1824. "And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on "Dear Miss H.,-Mary has such an invin- such of my friends as, by a parity of situacible reluctance to any epistolary exertion, tion, are exposed to a similarity of temptathat I am sparing her a mortification by tion. My very style seems to myself to taking the pen from her. The plain truth become more impressive than usual, with the is, she writes such a pimping, mean, detestable change of theme. Who that standeth, hand, that she is ashamed of the formation knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands of her letters. There is an essential poverty as yet, I am most willing to believe, have and abjectness in the frame of them. They look like begging letters. And then she is sure to omit a most substantial word in the second draught (for she never ventures an epistle without a foul copy first), which is obliged to be interlined; which spoils the neatest epistle, you know. Her figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., where she has occasion to express numerals, as in the date (25th April, 1823), are not figures, but figurantes; and the combined posse go staggering up and down shameless, as drunkards in the daytime. It is no better when she rules her paper. Her Lines are not less erring' than her words. A sort of unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet; which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are not bold like this [here a large blot is inserted], but poor smears, half left in and half scratched out, with another smear left in their place. I like a clear letter. A bold free hand, and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go through them (a second operation) to dot her i's, and cross her t's. I don't think she can make a corkscrew if she tried, which has such a fine effect at the end or middle of an epistle, and fills up. "There is a corkscrew! One of the best I ever drew. By the way, what incomparable whisky that was of M.'s! But if I am to write a letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing, like a fencer at a fair. "It gives me great pleasure, &c. &c. &c. [The letter now begins.] never deviated into other's property. You In the year 1824, one of Lamb's last ties CHAPTER XV. LAMB'S EMANCIPATION FROM THE INDIA HOUSE. THE year 1825 is marked by one of the principal events in Lamb's uneventful life— his retirement from the drudgery of the desk, with a pension equal to two-thirds of his now liberal salary. The following letters vividly exhibit his hopes and his apprehensions before he received this noble boon from the East India Company, and his bewilderment of pleasure when he found himself in reality free. He has recorded his feelings in one of the most beautiful of his "Last Essays of Elia," entitled "The Superannuated Man;" but it will be interesting to contemplate them, "living as they rose," in the unstudied letters to which this chapter is devoted. to the theatre, as a scene of present enjoy- business scene; for though he went now and ment, was severed. Munden, the rich then to the theatre to gratify Miss Isola, or peculiarities of whose acting he has embalmed to please an author who was his friend, his in one of the choicest "Essays of Elia," real stage henceforth only spread itself out quitted the stage in the mellowness of his in the selectest chambers of his memory. powers. His relish for Munden's acting was almost a new sense; he did not compare him with the old comedians, as having common qualities with them, but regarded him as altogether of a different and original style. On the last night of his appearance, Lamb was very desirous to attend, but every place in the boxes had long been secured; and Lamb was not strong enough to stand the tremendous rush, by enduring which, alone, he could hope to obtain a place in the pit; when Munden's gratitude for his exquisite praise anticipated his wish, by providing for him and Miss Lamb places in a corner of the orchestra, close to the stage. The play of the "Poor Gentleman," in which Munden played "Sir Robert Bramble," had concluded, and the audience were impatiently waiting for the farce, in which the great comedian was to delight them for the last time, when my attention was suddenly called to Lamb by Miss Kelly, who sat with my party far withdrawn into the obscurity of one of the upper boxes, but overlooking the radiant hollow which waved below us, to our friend. A New Series of the London Magazine In his hand, directly beneath the line of stage- was commenced with this year, in an inlights, glistened a huge porter-pot, which he creased size and price; but the spirit of the was draining; while the broad face of old work had evaporated, as often happens to Munden was seen thrust out from the door periodical works, as the store of rich fancies by which the musicians enter, watching the with which its contributors had begun, was close of the draught, when he might receive in a measure exhausted. Lamb contributed and hide the portentous beaker from the a "Memoir of Liston," who occasionally gaze of the admiring neighbours. Some enlivened Lamb's evening parties with his unknown benefactor had sent four pots of society; and who, besides the interest which stout to keep up the veteran's heart during he derived from his theatrical fame, was his last trial; and, not able to drink them all, he bethought him of Lamb, and without considering the wonder which would be excited in the brilliant crowd who surrounded him, conveyed himself the cordial chalice to Lamb's parched lips. At the end of the same farce, Munden found himself unable to deliver from memory a short and elegant address which one of his sons had written for him; but, provided against accidents, took it from his pocket, wiped his eyes, put on his spectacles, read it, and made his last bow. This was, perhaps, the last night when "We accordingly find him shortly after Iamb took a hearty interest in the present making his début, as it is called, upon the recommended to Lamb by the cordial admiration he expressed for Munden, whom he used to imitate in a style delightfully blending his own humour with that of his sometime rival. The "Memoir" is altogether a fiction of which, as Lamb did not think it worthy of republication, I will only give a specimen. After a ludicrously improbable account of his hero's pedigree, birth, and early habits, Lamb thus represents his entrance on the life of an actor. the praise and the abuse much stronger, &c., but the new ones are capitally done. Horne Tooke is a matchless portrait. My advice is, to borrow it rather than buy it. I have it. He has laid too many colours on my likeness; but I have had so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much over-measure to Elia as Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then in the 22nd year of his age. TO BERNARD BARTON. Having a natural bent to tragedy, he chose "February 10th, 1825. the part of Pyrrhus,' in the 'Distrest "Dear B. B.,-The 'Spirit of the Age' is Mother,' to Sally Parker's ' Hermione.' We by Hazlitt, the characters of Coleridge, &c. find him afterwards as 'Barnwell,' 'Alta- he had done better in former publications, mont,' 'Chamont,' &c. ; but, as if nature had destined him to the sock, an unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy. His person at this latter period of which I have been speaking, was graceful, and even commanding; his countenance set to gravity; he had the power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sight almost beyond any other tragic actor. But gentlemen think proper to bestow. Lay it he could not hold it. To understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years, to those appalling reveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before the dissipation of a less recluse life, and more free society, now in his solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. In the midst of some most pathetic passage-the parting of Jaffier with his dying friend, for instance-he would suddenly be surprised with a fit of violent horse laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing before him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would peep out upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once or twice served his purpose, but no audiences could be expected to bear repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralysing every effort. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome, he had good sense enough to turn to emolument, and determined to make a commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for the sock, and the illusions instantly ceased, or, if they occurred for a short season, by their very co-operation, added a zest to his comic vein; some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata.” He completed his half century on the day when he addressed the following letter on and spare not. Your gentleman brother sets my mouth a-watering after liberty. Oh that I were kicked out of Leadenhall with every mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob. The birds of the air would not be so free as I should. How I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and ramble about purposeless, as an idiot! The author-mometer is a good fancy. I have caused great speculation in the dramatic (not thy) world by a lying 'Life of Liston,' all pure invention. The town has swallowed it, and it is copied into newspapers, play-bills, &c., as authentic. You do not know the Droll, and possibly missed reading the article (in our first number, new series). A life more improbable for him to have lived would not be easily invented. But your rebuke, coupled with 'Dream on J. Bunyan,' checks me. rather do more in my favourite way, but feel dry. I must laugh sometimes. I am poor Hypochondriacus, and not Liston. I'd "I have been harassed more than usually at office, which has stopt my correspondence lately. I write with a confused aching head, and you must accept this apology for a letter. "I will do something soon, if I can, as 2 peace-offering to the queen of the East Angles-something she shan't scold about. For the present farewell. "Thine, C. L." "I am fifty years old this day. Drink my health.” Freedom now gleamed on him, and he became restless with the approach of deliver ance. TO BERNARD BARTON. "March 23rd, 1825. letters contain his own expressions of delight on his deliverance, as conveyed to several of his dearest friends. In the first his happiness is a little checked by the death of Mr. Monkhouse, a relation of Mrs. Wordsworth, who had gradually won Lamb's affections, and who nobly deserved them. TO MR. WORDSWORTH. "Dear B. B.,—I have had no impulse to write, or attend to any single object but myself for weeks past-my single self, I by myself-I. I am sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation, that is to turn up my fortune; but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a glimpse of freedom, "Colebrook Cottage, 6th April, 1825. of becoming a gentleman at large; but I am put off from day to day. I have offered my "Dear Wordsworth,—I have been several resignation, and it is neither accepted nor times meditating a letter to you concerning rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this the good thing which has befallen me, but fearful suspense. Guess what an absorbing the thought of poor Monkhouse came across stake I feel it. I am not conscious of the me. He was one that I had exulted in the He and you existence of friends present or absent. The prospect of congratulating me. East India Directors alone can be that thing were to have been the first participators, for or not. I have just learned that indeed it has been ten weeks since the first nothing will be decided this week. Why motion of it. Here am I then, after thirtythe next? Why any week? It has fretted three years' slavery, sitting in my own room me into an itch of the fingers; I rub 'em at eleven o'clock this finest of all April against paper, and write to you, rather than mornings, a freed man, with 4417. a year for not allay this scorbuta. the remainder of my life, live I as long as John Dennis, who outlived his annuity and starved at ninety: 4417., i. e., 450l., with a deduction of 9l. for a provision secured to my sister, she being survivor, the pension guaranteed by Act Georgii Tertii, &c. to me "While I can write, let me abjure you to have no doubts of IRVING. Let Mr. Mdrop his disrespect. Irving has prefixed a dedication (of a missionary subject, first part) to Coleridge, the most beautiful, cordial, and sincere. He there acknowledges his obligation to S. T. C. for his knowledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, &c., to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose Gamaliel feet he sits weekly), rather than to that of all the men living. This from him, the great dandled and petted sectarian -to a religious character so equivocal in the world's eye as that of S. T. C., so foreign to the Kirk's estimate can this man be a quack? The language is as affecting as the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, 'This dedication will do you no good,' ie, not in the world's repute, or with your own people. That is a reason for doing it,' quoth Irving. "I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out-speaking, intrepid, and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You must like him. "Yours, in tremors of painful hope, "C. LAMB." These tremors of painful hope were soon changed into certain joy. The following "I came home FOR EVER on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelmed me. It was like passing from life into eternity. Every year to be as long as three, i. e., to have three times as much real time-time that is my own, in it! I wandered about thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holydays, even the annual month, were always uneasy joys; their conscious fugitiveness; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is holyday, there are no holydays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling that some good has happened to us. |