CHAPTER VIII.

[1804 to 1806.]

What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has heard of me. I

LETTERS TO MANNING, WORDSWORTH, RICKMAN, AND did not immediately recognise the donor; but one of Richard's cards which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him

HAZLITT. — “MR. H." WRITTEN,

DAMNED.

ACCEPTED,

THERE is no vestige of Lamb's correspond- in a moment. Dick, you know, was always ence in the year 1804, nor does he seem to remarkable for flourishing. His card imhave written for the press. This year, how- ports, that 'orders (to wit, for brawn) from ever, added to his list of friends-one in any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, whose conversation he took great delight, will be duly executed,' &c. At first, I thought until death severed them - - William Hazlitt. of declining the present; but Richard knew This remarkable metaphysician and critic my blind side when he pitched upon brawn. had then just completed his first work, 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the the "Essay on the Principles of Human eating way. He might have sent sops from Action," but had not entirely given up his the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's hope of excelling as a painter. After a prolard, the tender brown judiciously scalped fessional tour through part of England, from a fillet of veal (dexterously replaced by during which he satisfied his sitters better a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive than himself, he remained some time at the livers, runaway gizzards of fowls, the eyes house of his brother, then practising as a of martyred pigs, tender effusions of laxative portrait painter with considerable success; woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, leveret's and while endeavouring to procure a pubears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been lisher for his work, painted a portrait of Lamb, of which an engraving is prefixed to the present volume.* It is one of the last of Hazlitt's efforts in an art which he afterwards illustrated with the most exquisite criticism which the knowledge and love of it could inspire.

Among the vestiges of the early part of 1805, are the four following letters to Manning. If the hero of the next letter, Mr. Richard Hopkins, is living, I trust he will not repine at being ranked with those

who

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

TO MR. MANNING.

"16, Mitre-court Buildings,
"Saturday, 24th Feb. 1805.

"Dear Manning,-I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been partially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has thrust himself into the important situations (no sinecures, believe me) of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College and the generous creature has contrived, with the greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present of Cambridge brawn.

* Edition, 1837.

ordinary presents, the every-day courtesies of dish-washers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common gullet-fancier that can properly esteem of it. It is like a picture of one of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, -'you must love him, ere to you he will seem worthy of your love;' so brawn, you must taste it ere to you it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept: those that will send out their tongue and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely court you, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's pictures (they call him Darveed), compared with the plain russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated above. Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a corporation dinner, compared with the reserved collegiate worth of brawn. Do me the favour to leave off the business which you may be at present upon, and go immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, and make my most respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his brawn is most excellent; and that I am moreover obliged to him for his innuendo

During the last five years, tobacco had been at once Lamb's solace and his bane. In the hope of resisting the temptation of late conviviality to which it ministered, he formed a resolution, the virtue of which can be but dimly guessed, to abandon its use, and embodied the floating fancies which had attended on his long wavering in one of the richest of his poems "The Farewell to Tobacco." After many struggles he divorced himself from his genial enemy: and though he afterwards renewed acquaintance with milder dalliance, he ultimately abandoned it, and was guiltless of a pipe in his later years. The following letter, addressed while his sister was laid up with severe and protracted illness, will show his feelings at this time. Its affecting self-upbraidings refer to no greater failings than the social indulgences against which he was manfully struggling.

TO MISS WORDSWORTH.

"14th June, 1805.

express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid.

"I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which poor Mary made upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an auction only one week before she left home. They are sweet lines and upon a sweet picture. But I send them only as the last memorial of her.

VIRGIN AND CHILD, L. DA VINCI.
'Maternal Lady with thy virgin-grace,
Heaven-born, thy Jesus seemeth sure,
And thou a virgin pure.

Lady most perfect, when thy angel face
Men look upon, they wish to be

A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.'
"You had her lines about the Lady
Blanch.' You have not had some which she
wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian,
which I had hung up where that print of
Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully
interpreted two female figures from L, da
Vinci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light and
pretty.

Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?
Come, fair and pretty, tell to me

Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be?
Thou pretty art and fair,

But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare.
No need for Blanch her history to tell,

Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well;
But when I look on thee, I only know,
There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago.'

"This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all. But my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. That you may go on gathering strength and peace is the next wish to Mary's recovery.

"My dear Miss Wordsworth,-I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all Mary's former ones, will be but temporary. But I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I should think wrong; so used am I to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all that I know of her would be more than I think anybody could believe or ever understand; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her; for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older, and wiser, and better than me, and all my wretched imper- 'I had almost forgot your repeated invitafections I cover to myself by resolutely tion. Supposing that Mary will be well and thinking on her goodness. She would share able, there is another ability which you may life and death, heaven and hell, with me. guess at, which I cannot promise myself. In She lives but for me; and I know I have prudence we ought not to come. This illness been wasting and teasing her life for five will make it still more prudential to wait. years past incessantly with my cursed ways It is not a balance of this way of spending of going on. But even in this upbraiding of our money against another way, but an myself, I am offending against her, for I absolute question of whether we shall stop know that she has cleaved to me for better, now, or go on wasting away the little we for worse; and if the balance has been have got beforehand. My best love, however, against her hitherto, it was a noble trade. to you all; and to that most friendly creature, I am stupid, and lose myself in what I write. Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when I write rather what answers to my feelings you see or write to her.

(which are sometimes sharp enough) than |

"CHARLES LAMB."

The "Farewell to Tobacco " was shortly after transmitted to Mr. and Miss Wordsworth with the following::

TO MR. AND MISS WORDSWORTH.

"Sept. 28th, 1805.

"I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years; and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips even, when it has become a habit. This poem is the only one which I have finished since so long as when I wrote 'Hester Savory.' I have had it in my head to do it these two years, but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises. Now you have got it, you have got all my store, for I have absolutely not another line. No more bas Mary. We have nobody about us that cares for poetry, and who will rear grapes when he shall be the sole eater? Perhaps if you encourage us to show you what we may write, we may do something now and then before we absolutely forget the quantity of an English line for want of practice. The 'Tobacco,' being a little in the way of Withers (whom Southey so much likes), perhaps you will somehow convey it to him with my kind remembrances. Then, everybody will have seen it that I wish to see it, I having sent it to Malta.

"I remain, dear W. and D., yours truly, "C. LAMB."

which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about Monkey,* which can't so well be written: how it set up for a fine lady, and thought it had got lovers, and was obliged to be convinced of its age from the parish register, where it was proved to be only twelve; and an edict issued, that it should not give itself airs yet these four years; and how it got leave to be called Miss, by grace: these, and such like hows, were in my head to tell you, but who can write? Also how Manning is come to town in spectacles, and studies physic; is melancholy, and seems to have something in his head, which he don't impart. Then, how I am going to leave off smoking. O la! your Leonardos of Oxford made my mouth water. I was hurried through the gallery, and they escaped me. What do I say? I was a Goth then, and should not have noticed them. I had not settled my notions of beauty;-I have now for ever!-the small head, the long eye,-that sort of peering curve,-the wicked Italian mischief; the stick-at-nothing, Herodias' daughter-kind of grace. You understand me? But you disappoint me, in passing over in absolute silence the Blenheim Leonardo. Didn't you see it? Excuse a lover's curiosity. I have seen no pictures of note since, except Mr. Dawe's gallery. It is curious to see how differently two great men treat the same subject, yet both excellent in their way. For instance, Milton and Mr. Dawe. Mr. D. has chosen to illustrate the story of Samson exactly in the point of

The following letter to Hazlitt bears date view in which Milton has been most happy: 18th Nov. 1805:

TO MR. HAZLITT.

I

the interview between the Jewish hero, blind and captive, and Dalilah. Milton has imagined his locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine's bristles; doubtless "Dear Hazlitt,-I was very glad to hear shaggy and black, as being hairs which, of a from you, and that your journey was so nation armed, contained the strength.' picturesque. We miss you, as we foretold we don't remember he says black; but could should. One or two things have happened, Milton imagine them to be yellow? Do which are beneath the dignity of epistolary you? Mr. Dawe with striking originality of communication, but which, seated about our conception, has crowned him with a thin ûreside at night, (the winter hands of pork yellow wig, in colour precisely like Dyson's; have begun,) gesture and emphasis might in curl and quantity, resembling Mrs. P―'s; have talked into some importance. Some- his limbs rather stout, about such a man thing about's wife; for instance, how as my brother or Rickman,-but no Atlas tall she is, and that she visits pranked up nor Hercules, nor yet so long as Dubois, the like a Queen of the May, with green The daughter of a friend, whom Lamb exceedingly liked

streamers: a good-natured woman though, from a child, and always called by this epithet.

C. LAMB."

clown of Sadler's Wells. This was judicious, and franks. Luck to Ned Search and the taking the spirit of the story rather than new art of colouring. Monkey sends her the fact: for doubtless God could communi- love; and Mary especially. cate national salvation to the trust of flax "Yours truly, and tow as well as hemp and cordage, and could draw down a temple with a golden tress as soon as with all the cables of the British

navy.

Lamb introduced Hazlitt to Godwin; and we find him early in the following year thus writing respecting the offer of Hazlitt's work to Johnson, and his literary pursuits

TO MR. HAZLITT.

"Jan. 15th, 1806.

"Wasn't you sorry for Lord Nelson? I have followed him in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall, (I was prejudiced against him before,) looking just as a hero should look; and I have been very much cut about it indeed. He was the only pre- "Dear Hazlitt,-Godwin went to Johnson's tence of a great man we had. Nobody is yesterday about your business. Johnson left of any name at all. His secretary died would not come down, or give any answer, by his side. I imagined him, a Mr. Scott, to but has promised to open the manuscript, be the man you met at Hume's; but I learnt and to give you an answer in one month. from Mrs. Hume that it is not the same. I Godwin will punctually go again (Wednesday met Mrs. H. one day and agreed to go on is Johnson's open day) yesterday four weeks the Sunday to tea, but the rain prevented us, next: i. e. in one lunar month from this and the distance. I have been to apologise, time. Till when, Johnson positively declines and we are to dine there the first fine giving any answer. I wish you joy on ending Sunday! Strange perverseness. I never your Search. Mrs. H. was naming somewent while you stayed here, and now I go to thing about a 'Life of Fawcett,' to be by find you. What other news is there, Mary? you undertaken : the great Fawcett, as she What puns have I made in the last fort-explained to Manning, when he asked, What night? You never remember them. You Fawcett?" He innocently thought Fawcett have no relish of the comic. 'Oh! tell the Player. But Fawcett the divine is known Hazlitt not to forget to send the American to many people, albeit unknown to the Farmer. I dare say it is not so good as he Chinese inquirer. I should think, if you fancies; but a book's a book.' I have not liked it, and Johnson declined it, that Phillips heard from Wordsworth or from Malta since. is the man. He is perpetually bringing out Charles Kemble, it seems, enters into pos- biographies, Richardson, Wilks, Foot, Lee, session to-morrow. We sup at 109, Russell- Lewis, without number; little trim things street, this evening. I wish your friend in two easy volumes, price 12s. the two, made would not drink. It's a blemish in the up of letters to and from, scraps, posthumous greatest characters. You send me a modern | trifles, anecdotes, and about forty pages of quotation poetical. How do you like this in hard biography; you might dish up a Fawan old play? Vittoria Corombona, a spunky cettiad in three months and ask 601. or 801. Italian lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named I dare say that Phillips would catch the White Devil, being on her trial for at it. I wrote you the other day in a great murder, &c.--and questioned about seducing hurry. Did you get it? This is merely a a duke from his wife and the state, makes letter of business at Godwin's request. Lord Nelson is quiet at last. His ghost only keeps a slight fluttering in odes and elegies in newspapers, and impromptus, which could not be got ready before the funeral.

answer:

'Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me
So may you blame some fair and crystal river,
For that some melancholic distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in it.'

"N. B. I shall expect a line from you, if but a bare line, whenever you write to Russell-street, and a letter often when you do not. I pay no postage. But I will have consideration for you until Parliament time

for it.

"As for news, is coming to town on Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison. He hopes to get the rules of the Fleet. On the same, or nearly the same day, F-, my other quondam co-friend and drinker, will go to Newgate,