"Does any one read at Canton? Lord Moira is President of the Westminster Library. I suppose you might have interest with Sir Joseph Banks to get to be president of any similar institution that should be set up at Canton. I think public reading-rooms the best mode of educating young men. Solitary reading is apt to give the headache. Besides, who knows that you do read? There are ten thousand institutions similar to the Royal Institution which have sprung up from it. There is the London Institution, the Southwark Institution, the Russellsquare Rooms Institution, &c.-College quasi Con-lege, a place where people read together. Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town; he is to have apartments in the Mansion-House. Well, my dear Manning, talking cannot be infinite; I have said all I have to say; the rest is but remembrances, which we shall bear in our heads of you while we have heads. Here is a packet of trifles nothing worth; but it is a trifling part of the world where I live; emptiness abounds. But in fulness of affection, we remain yours, "C. L." snakes, that hiss'd me into madness. 'Twas fell from the Doctor's mouth. White is at like St. Anthony's temptations. Mercy on Christ's Hospital, a wit of the first magnius, that God should give his favourite tude, but had rather be thought a gentleman, children, men, mouths to speak with, to like Congreve. You know Congreve's repulse discourse rationally, to promise smoothly, to which he gave to Voltaire, when he came to flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to visit him as a literary man, that he wished counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, to be considered only in the light of a private and to kiss with, and that they should turn gentleman. I think the impertinent Frenchthem into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, man was properly answered. I should just hyenas, and whistle like tempests, and emit serve any member of the French institute in breath through them like distillations of the same manner, that wished to be introaspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent duced to me. labours of their fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them! Heaven be pleased to make the teeth rot out of them all, therefore! Make them a reproach, and all that pass by them to loll out their tongue at them! Blind mouths! as Milton somewhere calls them. Do you like Braham's singing? The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like as the boys follow Tom the Piper. I was insensible to music till he gave me a new sense. Oh that you could go to the new opera of Kais to-night! 'Tis all about Eastern manners; it would just suit you. It describes the wild Arabs, wandering Egyptians, lying dervises, and all that sort of people, to a hair. You needn't ha' gone so far to see what you see, if you saw it as I do every night at Drurylane Theatre. Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mrs. Siddons', or Mr. Kemble's acting; and when it is not impassioned, it is as good as hearing a person of fine sense talking. The brave little Jew! I made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire ? Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of it, though I see no great joke in it.) I said that Holcroft said, being asked who were the best dramatic writers of the day, 'HOOK AND I.' Mr. Hook is author of several pieces, Tekeli, &c. You know what hooks and eyes are, don't you? Your letter had many things in it hard to be understood: the puns were ready and Swift-like; but don't you begin to be melancholy in the midst of Eastern customs! 'The mind does not easily conform to foreign usages, even in trifles it requires something that it has been familiar with.' That begins one of Dr. Hawkesworth's papers in the Adventurer, and is, I think, as sensible a remark as ever The two books referred to in this letter were shortly after published. "The Adventures of Ulysses" had some tinge of the quaintness of Chapman; it gives the plot of the earliest and one of the most charming of romances, without spoiling its interest. The "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare," were received with more favour than Lamb's previous works, though it was only by slow and imperceptible degrees that they won their way to the apprehensions of the most influential minds, and wrought out the genial purpose of the editor in renewing a taste for the great contemporaries of Shakspeare. It is easy to conceive of readers strongly dissenting from some of the passionate eulogies of these notes, and even taking offence at the boldness of the allusions; but that any one should read these essences of criticism, suggesting the profoundest thoughts, and replete throughout with fine imagery, and find in them "nothing remarkable," is a mystery which puzzles us. But when the same critic speaks of the heroine of the "Broken Heart" "as "the light-heeled Calantha," it is easy to appreciate his fitness for sitting in judgment on the old English drama and the congenial expositor of its grandeurs ! "The Monthly Review" vouchsafed a notice* again! Perhaps the next fleet may bring in its large print, upon the whole favourable, you a letter from Martin Burney, to say that according to the existing fashion of criticism, he writes by desire of Miss Lamb, who is but still "craftily qualified." It will scarcely not well enough to write herself, to inform be credited, without reference to the article you that her brother died on Thursday last, itself, that on the notes the critic pronounces 14th June, &c. But I hope not. I should this judgment: "The notes before us indeed be sorry to give occasion to open a correshave nothing very remarkable, except the pondence betwen Martin and you. This style, which is formally abrupt and elabo- letter must be short, for I have driven it off rately quaint. Some of the most studied to the very moment of doing up the packets; attempts to display excessive feeling we had and besides, that which I refer to above is a noted for animadversion, but the task is very long one; and if you have received my unnecessary," &c. books, you will have enough to do to read them. While I think on it, let me tell you, we are moved. Don't come any more to Mitre-court Buildings. We are at 34, Southampton Buildings, Chancery-lane, and shall be here till about the end of May, then we remove to No. 4, Inner Temple-lane, where I mean to live and die; for I have such horror of moving, that I would not take a benefice from the King, if I was not indulged with non-residence. What a dislocation of comfort is comprised in that word moving! Such a heap of little nasty things, after you think all is got into the cart: old dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials, things that it is impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but which the women, who preside on these occasions, will not leave behind if it was to save your soul; they'd keep the cart ten minutes to stow in dirty pipes and broken matches, to show their economy. Then you can find nothing you want for many days after you get into your new lodgings. You must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret. Our place of final destination,-I don't mean the grave, but No. 4, Inner Temple-lane,-looks out upon a gloomy churchyard-like court, called Harecourt, with three trees and a pump in it. Do you know it? I was born near it, and used to drink at that pump when I was a Rechabite of six years old. If you see newspapers you will read about Mrs. Clarke. The sensation in London about this nonsensical business is marvellous. I remember nothing in my life like it. Thousands of ballads, caricatures, lives of Mrs. Clarke, in every In this year Miss Lamb published her charming work, entitled "Mrs. Leicester's School," to which Lamb contributed three of the tales. The best, however, are his sister's, as he delighted to insist; and no tales more happily adapted to nurture all sweet and childlike feelings in children were ever written. Another joint-publication, "Poetry for Children," followed, which also is worthy of its title. Early in 1809, Lamb removed from Mitrecourt Buildings to Southampton Buildings, but only for a few months, and preparatory to a settlement (which he meant to be final) in the Temple. The next letter to Manning, (still in China,) of 28th March, 1809, is from Southampton Buildings. TO MR. MANNING. "Dear Manning,-I sent you a long letter by the ships which sailed the beginning of last month, accompanied with books, &c. Since I last wrote is dead. So there is one of your friends whom you will never see April, 1809. * blind alley. Yet in the midst of this stir, fourth floor. In my best room is a choice a sublime abstracted dancing-master, who collection of the works of Hogarth, an English attends a family we know at Kensington, painter, of some humour. In my next best being asked a question about the progress of are shelves containing a small, but wellthe examinations in the House, inquired who chosen library. My best room commands a Mrs. Clarke was? He had heard nothing court, in which there are trees and a pump, of it. He had evaded this omnipresence by the water of which is excellent cold, with utter insignificancy! The Duke should brandy, and not very insipid without. Here make that man his confidential valet. II hope to set up my rest, and not quit till proposed locking him up, barring him the Mr. Powell, the undertaker, gives me notice use of his fiddle and red pumps, until he had that I may have possession of my last lodging. minutely perused and committed to memory, He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I the whole body of the examinations, which sent you a parcel of books by my last, to employed the House of Commons a fortnight, give you some idea of the state of European to teach him to be more attentive to what literature. There comes with this two concerns the public. I think I told you of volumes, done up as letters, of minor poetry, Godwin's little book, and of Coleridge's pro- a sequel to 'Mrs. Leicester;' the best you spectus, in my last; if I did not, remind me may suppose mine; the next best are my of it, and I will send you them, or an account coadjutor's; you may amuse yourself in of them, next fleet. I have no conveniency guessing them out; but I must tell you mine of doing it by this. Mrs. grows every are but one-third in quantity of the whole. day in disfavour with me. I will be buried So much for a very delicate subject. It is with this inscription over me :- Here lies hard to speak of one's self, &c. Holcroft had C. L., the woman-hater:' I mean that hated finished his life when I wrote to you, and one woman for the rest, God bless them! Hazlitt has since finished his life; I do not How do you like the Mandarinesses? Are mean his own life, but he has finished a life you on some little footing with any of them? of Holcroft, which is going to press. Tuthill This is Wednesday. On Wednesdays is my is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I levee. The Captain, Martin, Phillips, (not have published a little book for children on the Sheriff,) Rickman, and some more, are titles of honour: and to give them some idea constant attendants, besides stray visitors. of the difference of rank and gradual rising, We play at whist, eat cold meat and hot I have made a little scale, supposing myself potatoes, and any gentleman that chooses to receive the following various accessions smokes. Why do you never drop in? You'll of dignity from the king, who is the fountain come some day, won't you? 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 "C. LAMB, &c." His next is after his removal to the Lamb; 6, Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Temple : TO MR. MANNING. "Jan. 2nd, 1810. 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 our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my dreams imagined myself still advancing, "Dear Manning,—When I last wrote 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 as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor Lamb; any of your friends, the Mandarins, with 11th, Pope Innocent, higher than which is you. I have two sitting-rooms: I call them nothing. Puns I have not made many, (nor so par excellence, for you may stand, or loll, punch much), since the date of my last; one or lean, or try any posture in them, but they I cannot help relating. A constable in are best for sitting; not squatting down Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that Japanese fashion, but the more decorous eight people dined at the top of the spire mode which European usage has consecrated. of the cathedral, upon which I remarked, I have two of these rooms on the third floor, "Where my family came from. I have chosen that, and five sleeping, cooking, &c. rooms, on the if ever I should have my choice." 'Queens drop away, And courtly Mildred dies while country Madge survives.' while blue-legged Maukin thrives; that they must be very sharp set. But in and one Phillips is engaged instead. Kate general I cultivate the reasoning part of my is vanished, but Miss B is always to be mind more than the imaginative. I am met with! 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 New-year 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. 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. 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 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. 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— but one. 'She's sweet fifteen, I'm one year more." ** "Mrs. Bland sung it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Bland's. That glorious singer, Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you could not tell which preponderated; but he is gone, That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but "I remain yours ever, "CH. LAMB." In the summer of 1810, Lamb and his sister spent their holidays with Hazlitt, who, having married Miss Stoddart, was living in a house belonging to his wife's family at Winterslow, on the border of Salisbury Plain. The following letter of 12th July, in this year, was addressed to Mr. Montague, who had urged him to employ a part of his leisure in a compilation. TO MR. MONTAGUE. The following is Lamb's postscript to a letter of Miss Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, after their return to London : and looks like Bacchus, Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn sober, but his clock has not struck yet; meantime he pours down goblet after goblet, the second to see where the first is gone, the third to see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there is another coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last.” "Sarum, July 12th, 1810. "Dear Montague,-I have turned and twisted the MSS. in my head, and can make "Mary has left a little space for me to nothing of them. I knew when I took them fill up with nonsense, as the geographers that I could not, but I do not like to do an used to cram monsters in the voids of the act of ungracious necessity at once; so I am maps, and call it Terra Incognita. She has ever committing myself by half engagements, told you how she has taken to water like a and total failures. I cannot make anybody hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame understand why I can't do such things; it is imitation, but it goes against me a little at a defect in my occiput. I cannot put other first. I have been acquaintance with it now people's thoughts together; I forget every for full four days, and it seems a moon. I am paragraph as fast as I read it; and my full of cramps, and rheumatisms, and cold head has received such a shock by an all- internally, so that fire won't warm me; yet night journey on the top of the coach, that I bear all for virtue's sake. Must I then I shall have enough to do to nurse it into leave you, gin, rum, brandy, aqua-vitæ, its natural pace before I go home. I must pleasant jolly fellows? Hang temperance | devote myself to imbecility; I must be and he that first invented it !—some Antigloriously useless while I stay here. How Noahite. C has powdered his head, is Mrs. M.? will she pardon my inefficiency? The city of Salisbury is full of weeping and wailing. The bank has stopped payment; and everybody in the town kept money at it, or has got some of its notes. Some have lost all they had in the world. It is the next thing to seeing a city with a plague within its walls. The Wilton people are all undone; all the manufacturers there kept cash at the Salisbury bank; and I do suppose it to be In the autumn of this year, the establishthe unhappiest county in England this, where ment of a Quarterly Magazine, entitled the I am making holiday. We propose setting "Reflector," opened a new sphere for Lamb's out for Oxford Tuesday fortnight, and coming powers as a humourist and critic. Its thereby home. But no more night travelling. editor, Mr. Leigh Hunt, having been educated My head is sore (understand it of the inside) in the same school, enjoyed many associations with that deduction from my natural rest and friendships in common with him, and which I suffered coming down. Neither was thus able to excite in Lamb the greatest Mary nor I can spare a morsel of our rest: motive for exertion in the zeal of kindness. it is incumbent on us to be misers of it. In this Magazine appeared some of Lamb's Travelling is not good for us, we travel so noblest effusions; his essay "On Garrick and seldom. If the sun be hell, it is not for the Acting," which contains the character of fire, but for the sempiternal motion of that Lear, perhaps the noblest criticism ever miserable body of light. How much more written, and on the noblest human subject; dignified leisure hath a mussel glued to his his delightful "Essays on Hogarth;" his unpassable rocky limit, two inch square! He" Farewell to Tobacco," and several of the hears the tide roll over him, backwards and choicest of his gayer pieces. forwards twice a-day (as the Salisbury long coach goes and returns in eight-and-forty hours), but knows better than to take an outside night-place a top on't. He is the owl of the sea-Minerva's fish-the fish of wisdom. "Our kindest remembrances to Mrs. M. The number of the Quarterly Review, for December, 1811, contained an attack upon Lamb, which it would be difficult, as well as painful, to characterise as it deserves. Mr. Weber, in his edition of "Ford," had extracted Lamb's note on the catastrophe of "The Broken Heart," in which Lamb, |