TO MR. WORDSWORTH. sweetly disposed; all leaning separate ways, The following is Lamb's account of the but so easy, like a flock of some divine same calamity, addressed shepherd; the colouring, like the economy of the picture, so sweet and harmonious-as good as Shakspeare's 'Twelfth Night,'almost, that is. It will give you a love of let her write. order, and cure you of restless, fidgetty passions for a week after-more musical "Mary's love to all of you-I wouldn't "Dear Wordsworth,—'Mr. H.' came out than the music which it would, but cannot, last night, and failed. I had many fears; yet in a manner does, show. I have no room the subject was not substantial enough. for the rest. Let me say, Angerstein sits in a room- —his study (only that and the library are shown), when he writes a common letter, as I am doing, surrounded with twenty pictures worth 60,0007. What a luxury! Apicius and Heliogabalus, hide your diminished heads! "Yours, my dear painter, "C. LAMB." Hazlitt married Miss Sarah Stoddart, sister of the present Sir John Stoddart, who became very intimate with Lamb and his sister. To her Lamb, on the 11th December, 1806, thus communicated the failure of "Mr. H." TO MRS. HAZLITT. John Bull must have solider fare than a letter. We are pretty stout about it; have had plenty of condoling friends; but, after all, we had rather it should have succeeded. You will see the prologue in most of the morning papers. It was received with such shouts as I never witnessed to a prologue. It was attempted to be encored. How hard!—a thing I did merely as a task, because it was wanted, and set no great store by; and 'Mr. H.'!! The quantity of friends we had in the house-my brother and I being in public offices, &c.—was astonishing, but they yielded at last to a few hisses. "A hundred bisses! (Hang the word, I write it like kisses-how different!)-a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps. The former come more directly from the "Don't mind this being a queer letter. I heart. Well, 'tis withdrawn, and there is am in haste, and taken up by visitors, condolers, &c. God bless you. "Dear Sarah,-Mary is a little cut at the ill success of 'Mr. H.' which came out last night, and failed. I know you'll be sorry, but never mind. We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoking man must write smoky farces. "Mary is pretty well, but I persuaded her to let me write. We did not apprise you of the coming out of Mr. H.' for fear of illluck. You were much better out of the house. If it had taken, your partaking of our good luck would have been one of our greatest joys. As it is, we shall expect you at the time you mentioned. But whenever you come you shall be most welcome. an end. "Better luck to us, [Turn over.] C. LAMB. "P.S. Pray, when any of you write to the Clarksons, give our kind loves, and say we shall not be able to come and see them at Christmas, as I shall have but a day or two, and tell them we bear our mortification pretty well." About this time Miss Lamb sought to contribute to her brother's scanty income by presenting the plots of some of Shakspeare's plays in prose, with the spirit of the poet's genius interfused, and many of his happiest expressions preserved, in which good work Lamb assisted her; though he always insisted, as he did in reference to "Mrs. Leicester's School," that her portions were the best. The following letter refers to "Mary is by no means unwell, but I made some of those aids, and gives a pleasant her let me write." "God bless you, dear Sarah, "Yours, most truly, C. L. instance of that shyness in Hazlitt, which he "Mary is just stuck fast in 'All's Well that Ends Well.' She complains of having to set forth so many female characters in boys' clothes. She begins to think Shakspeare must have wanted-Imagination. I, to encourage her, for she often faints in the prosecution of her great work, flatter her with telling her how well such a play and such a play is done. But she is stuck fast, and I have been obliged to promise to assist her. To do this, it will be necessary to leave off tobacco. But I had some thoughts of doing that before, for I sometimes think it does not agree with me. W. Hazlitt is in town. I took him to see a very pretty girl, professedly, where there were two young girls-the very head and sum of the girlery was two young girls-they neither laughed, nor sneered, nor giggled, nor whispered-but they were young girls-and he sat and frowned blacker and blacker, indignant that there should be such a thing as youth and beauty, till he tore me away before supper, in perfect misery, and owned he could not bear young girls; they drove him mad. So I took him home to my old nurse, where he recovered perfect tranquillity. Independent of this, and as I am not a young girl myself, he is a great acquisition to us. He is, rather imprudently I think, printing a political pamphlet on his own account, and will have to pay for the paper, &c. The first duty of an author, I take it, is never to pay anything. But non cuivis contigit adire Corinthum. The managers, I thank my stars, have settled that question for me. "Yours truly, C. LAMB." fantastic letter, in the nature of a hoax, having puzzled his father, who expected him at Wem, caused some inquiries of Lamb respecting the painter's retreat, to which he thus replied in a letter to THE REV. MR. HAZLITT. 66 'Temple, 18th February, 1808. "Sir, I am truly concerned that any mistake of mine should have caused you uneasiness, but I hope we have got a clue to William's absence, which may clear up all apprehensions. The people where he lodges in town have received direction from him to forward some linen to a place called Winterslow, in the county of Wilts (not far from Salisbury), where the lady lives whose cottage, pictured upon a card, if you opened my letter you have doubtless seen, and though we have had no explanation of the mystery since, we shrewdly suspect that at the time of writing that letter which has given you all this trouble, a certain son of yours (who is both painter and author) was at her elbow, and did assist in framing that very cartoon which was sent to amuse and mislead us in town, as to the real place of his destination. "And some words at the back of the said cartoon, which we had not marked so narrowly before, by the similarity of the handwriting to William's, do very much confirm the suspicion. If our theory be right, they have had the pleasure of their jest, and I am afraid you have paid for it in anxiety. "But I hope your uneasiness will now be removed, and you will pardon a suspense occasioned by Love, who does so many worse mischiefs every day. "The letter to the people where William lodges says, moreover, that he shall be in town in a fortnight. "My sister joins in respects to you and Mrs. Hazlitt, and in our kindest remembrances and wishes for the restoration of Peggy's health. "I am, Sir, your humble servant, "C. LAMB." Hazlitt, coming to reside in town, became a frequent guest of Lamb's, and a brilliant ornament of the parties which Lamb now began to collect on Wednesday evenings. He seems, in the beginning of 1808, to have sought solitude in a little inn on Salisbury Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt afterwards took up Plain, to which he became deeply attached, their temporary abode at Winterslow, to and which he has associated with some of which place Miss Lamb addressed the his profoundest meditations; and some following letter, containing interesting details of her own and her brother's life, and illus- During that walk a thought came into his trating her own gentle character: TO MRS. HAZLITT. "December 10th, 1808. "My dear Sarah,-I hear of you from your brother, but you do not write yourself, nor does Hazlitt. I beg that one or both of you will amend this fault as speedily as possible, for I am very anxious to hear of your health. I hope, as you say nothing about your fall to your brother, you are perfectly recovered from the effects of it. "You cannot think how very much we miss you and H. of a Wednesday eveningall the glory of the night, I may say, is at an end. Phillips makes his jokes, and there is no one to applaud him; Rickman argues, and there is no one to oppose him. mind, which he instantly sate down and improved upon till he brought it, in seven or eight days, into the compass of a reasonable sized pamphlet. "To propose a subscription to all welldisposed people to raise a certain sum of money, to be expended in the care of a cheap monument for the former and the future great dead men; the monument to be a white cross, with a wooden slab at the end, telling their names and qualifications. This wooden slab and white cross to be perpetuated to the end of time; to survive the fall of empires, and the destruction of cities, by means of a map, which, in case of an insurrection among the people, or any other cause by which a city or country may be destroyed, was to be carefully preserved; and then, "The worst miss of all to me is, that when when things got again into their usual order, we are in the dismals there is now no hope the white-cross-wooden-slab-makers were to of relief from any quarter whatsoever. go to work again and set the wooden slabs Hazlitt was most brilliant, most ornamental, in their former places. This, as nearly as as a Wednesday-man, but he was a more I can tell you, is the sum and substance of useful one on common days, when he dropt it; but it is written remarkably well—in in after a quarrel or a fit of the glooms. his very best manner for the proposal The Sheffington is quite out now, my brother (which seems to me very like throwing salt having got merry with claret and Tom on a sparrow's tail to catch him) occupies Sheridan. This visit, and the occasion of it, but half a page, which is followed by very is a profound secret, and therefore I tell it to fine writing on the benefits he conjectures nobody but you and Mrs. Reynolds. Through would follow if it were done; very excellent the medium of Wroughton, there came an thoughts on death, and our feelings concerninvitation and proposal from T. S., that C. L. ing dead friends, and the advantages an old should write some scenes in a speaking country has over a new one, even in the pantomime, the other parts of which Tom slender memorials we have of great men who now, and his father formerly, have manu- once flourished. factured between them. So in the Christmas holidays my brother, and his two great associates, we expect will be all three damned together; this is, I mean if Charles's share, which is done and sent in, is accepted. "I left this unfinished yesterday, in the hope that my brother would have done it for me. His reason for refusing me was 'no exquisite reason,' for it was because he must write a letter to Manning in three or four weeks, and therefore he could not be always writing letters,' he said. I wanted him to tell your husband about a great work which Godwin is going to publish to enlighten the world once more, and I shall not be able to make out what it is. He (Godwin) took his usual walk one evening, a fortnight since, to the end of Hatton Garden and back again. "Charles is come home and wants his dinner, and so the dead men must be no more thought of. Tell us how you go on, and how you like Winterslow and winter evenings. Knowles has not yet got back again, but he is in better spirits. John Hazlitt was here on Wednesday. Our love to Hazlitt. "Saturday." "Yours, affectionately, "M. LAMB." To this letter Charles added the following postscript: "There came this morning a printed prospectus from 'S. T. Coleridge, Grasmere,' of a weekly paper, to be called 'The Friend ;' a flaming prospectus. I have no time to give the heads of it. To commence first Saturday in January. There came also notice of a turkey from Mr. Clarkson, which I am more sanguine in expecting the accomplishment of than I am of Coleridge's prophecy. "C. LAMB." During the next year Lamb and his sister produced their charming little book of "Poetry for Children," and removed from Mitre Court to those rooms in Inner Temple Lane, most dear of all their abodes to the memory of their ancient friends—where first I knew them. The change produced its natural and sad effect on Miss Lamb, during whose absence Lamb addressed the following various letter TO MR. COLERIDGE. "June 7th, 1809. "Dear Coleridge,-I congratulate you on the appearance of 'The Friend.' Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfil the promise. I had a kind letter from you some time since, which I have left unanswered. I am also obliged to you, I believe, for a review in the Annual, am I not? The Monthly Review sneers at me, and asks 'if Comus is not good enough for Mr. Lamb?' because I have said no good serious dramas have been written since the death of Charles the First, except "Samson Agonistes;' so because they do not know, or won't remember, that Comus was written long before, I am to be set down as an undervaluer of Milton. O, Coleridge! do kill those reviews, or they will kill us; kill all we like! Be a friend to all else, but their foe. I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself, but I have got other at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, far more commodious and roomy. I have two rooms on third floor and five rooms above, with an inner staircase to myself, and all new painted, &c., and all for 307. a year! I came into them on Saturday week; and on Monday following, Mary was taken ill with fatigue of moving, and affected, I believe, by the novelty of the home she could not sleep, and I am left alone with a maid quite a stranger to me, and she has a month or two's sad distraction to go through. What sad large pieces it cuts out of life; out of her life, who is getting rather old; and we may not have many years to live together! I am weaker, and bear it worse than I ever did. But I hope we shall be comfortable by and bye. The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going. Just now it is dry. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it's like living in a garden. I try to persuade myself it is much pleasanter than Mitre Court; but, alas! the household gods are slow to come in a new mansion. They are in their infancy to me; I do not feel them yet; no hearth has blazed to them yet. How I hate and dread new places! "I was very glad to see Wordsworth's book advertised; I am to have it to-morrow lent me, and if Wordsworth don't send me an order for one upon Longman, I will buy it. It is greatly extolled and liked by all who have seen it. Let me hear from some of you, for I am desolate. I shall have to send you, in a week or two, two volumes of Juvenile Poetry, done by Mary and me within the last six months, and that tale in prose which Wordsworth so much liked, which was published at Christmas, with nine others, by us, and has reached a second edition. There's for you! We have almost worked ourselves out of child's work, and I don't know what to do. Sometimes I think of a drama, but I have no head for play-making; I can do the dialogue, and that's all. I am quite aground for a plan, and I must do something for money. Not that I have immediate wants, but I have prospective ones. O money, money, how blindly thou hast been worshipped, and how stupidly abused! Thou art health and liberty, and strength, and he that has thee may rattle his pockets at the foul fiend! "Nevertheless, do not understand by this that I have not quite enough for my occasions for a year or two to come. While I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch'd away my books which you had at the Courier Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, containing 'The White Devil,' Green's 'Tu Quoque,' and the 'Honest Whore,' perhaps the most valuable volume of them all— C. L." A journey into Wiltshire, to visit Hazlitt, followed Miss Lamb's recovery, and produced the following letters :— TO MR. COLERIDGE. 66 that I could not find. Pray, if you can, send my packet to you?-by what conveyremember what you did with it, or where ance ?-by Longman, Short-man, or how? you took it out with you a walking perhaps; Give my kindest remembrances to the send me word, for, to use the old plea, it Wordsworths. Tell him he must give me spoils a set. I found two other volumes a book. My kind love to Mrs. W. and to (you had three), the 'Arcadia,' and Daniel, Dorothy separately and conjointly. I wish enriched with manuscript notes. I wish you could all come and see me in my new every book I have were so noted. They have rooms. God bless you all. thoroughly converted me to relish Daniel, or to say I relish him, for, after all, I believe I did relish him. You well call him soberminded. Your notes are excellent. Perhaps you've forgot them. I have read a review in the Quarterly, by Southey, on the Missionaries, which is most masterly. I only grudge it being there. It is quite beautiful. Do 'Monday, Oct. 30th, 1809. remember my Dodsley; and, pray, do write, "Dear Coleridge,-I have but this moment or let some of you write. Clarkson tells me received your letter, dated the 9th instant, you are in a smoky house. Have you cured having just come off a journey from Wiltit? It is hard to cure anything of smoking. shire, where I have been with Mary on a Our little poems are but humble, but they visit to Hazlitt. The journey has been of You must read them, infinite service to her. We have had nothing remembering they were task-work; and but sunshiny days, and daily walks from perhaps you will admire the number of eight to twenty miles a-day; have seen subjects, all of children, picked out by an Wilton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, &c. old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents illness lasted but six weeks; it left her would not have found so many. Have weak, but the country has made us whole. you read 'Cœlebs?' It has reached eight We came back to our Hogarth Room. I editions in so many weeks, yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been something. I borrowed this 'Colebs in Search of a Wife,' of a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff written in the beginning: have no name. " If ever I marry a wife I'd marry a landlord's daughter, And drink cold brandy-and-water.' "I don't expect you can find time from your 'Friend' to write to me much, but write something, for there has been a long silence. You know Holcroft is dead. Godwin is well. He has written a very pretty, absurd book about sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about books; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write; but I could not let 'The Friend' pass without a congratulatory epistle. I won't criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell me how I shall Her have made several acquisitions since you saw them, and found Nos. 8, 9, 10 of The Friend. The account of Luther in the Warteburg is as fine as anything I ever read.* God forbid that a man who has such * about two miles from the city of Eisenach, in which The Warteburg is a Castle, standing on a lofty rock, Luther was confined, under the friendly arrest of the Elector of Saxony, after Charles V. had pronounced against him the Ban in the Imperial Diet; where he composed some of his greatest works, and translated the New Testament; and where he is recorded as engaged in the personal conflict with the Prince of Darkness, of which the vestiges are still shown in a black stain on the wall, from the inkstand hurled at the Enemy. In the Essay referred to, Coleridge accounts for the storydepicting the state of the great prisoner's mind in most vivid colours--and then presenting the following picture, which so nobly justifies Lamb's eulogy, that I venture to gratify myself by inserting it here. "Methinks I see him sitting, the heroic student, in his chamber in the Warteburg, with his midnight lamp before him, seen by the late traveller in the distant plain of Bischofsroda, as a star on the mountain! Below it lies the Hebrew Bible open, on which he gazes; his brow pressing on his palm, brooding over some obscure text, which he desires to make plain to the simple boor and to their own natural and living tongue. And he himself the humble artizan, and to transfer its whole force into does not understand it! Thick darkness lies on the original text; he counts the letters, he calls up the roots of each separate word, and questions them as the familiar Spirits of an Oracle. In vain; thick darkness |