and not have dreamed that he was seeing the same actor. I am jealous for the actor who pleased my youth. He was not a Parsons or a Dodd, but he was more wonderful. He seemed as if he could do anything. He was not an actor, Shall I instance Old

but something better, if you please. Foresight, in Love for Love,' in which Parsons was at once the old man, the astrologer, &c. Munden dropped the old man, the doater—which makes the character-but he substituted for it a moon-struck character, a perfect abstraction from this earth, that looked as if he had newly come down from the planets. Now, that is not what I call acting. It might be better. He was imaginative; he could impress upon an audience an idea-the low one, perhaps, of a leg of mutton and turnips; but such was the grandeur and singleness of his expressions, that that single expression would convey to all his auditory a notion of all the pleasures they had all received from all the legs of mutton and turnips they had ever eaten in their lives. Now, this is not acting, nor do I set down Munden amongst my old actors. He was only a wonderful man, exerting his vivid impressions through the agency of the stage. In one only thing did I see him act-that is, support a character; it was in a wretched farce, called 'Johnny Gilpin,' for Dowton's benefit, in which he did a cockney. The thing ran but one night; but when I say that Liston's Lubin Log was nothing to it, I say little it was transcendent. And here let me say of actors, envious actors, that of Munden Liston was used to speak almost with the enthusiasm due to the dead, in terms of such allowed superiority to every actor on the stage, and this at a time when Munden was gone by in the world's estimation, that it convinced me that artists (in which term I include poets, painters, &c.), are not so envious as the world think. I have little time, and therefore enclose a criticism on Munden's Old Dosey and his general acting 1 by a friend. "C. LAMB."

1

"Mr. Munden appears to us to be the most classical of actors. He is that in high farce, which Kemble was in

1 A little article inserted in "The Champion" before Lamb wrote his essay on the Acting of Munden. Lamb's reputation may cast on it sufficient interest to excuse its repetition here.

high tragedy. The lines of these great artists are, it must be admitted, sufficiently distinct; but the same elements are in both,—the same directness of purpose, the same singleness of aim, the same concentration of power, the same iron-casing of inflexible manner, the same statue-like precision of gesture, movement, and attitude. The hero of farce is as little affected with impulses from without, as the retired Prince of Tragedians. There is something solid, sterling, almost adamantine, in the building up of his most grotesque characters. When he fixes his wonderworking face in any of its most amazing varieties, it looks as if the picture were carved out from a rock by Nature in a sportive vein, and might last for ever. It is like what we can imagine a mask of the old Grecian Comedy to have been-only that it lives, and breathes, and changes. His most fantastical gestures are the grand ideal of farce. He seems as though he belonged to the earliest and the stateliest age of Comedy when, instead of superficial foibles and the airy varieties of fashion, she had the grand asperities of man to work on, when her grotesque images had something romantic about them, and when humour and parody were themselves heroic. His expressions of feeling and bursts of enthusiasm are among the most genuine which we have ever felt. They seem to come up from a depth of emotion in the heart, and burst through the sturdy casing of manner with a strength which seems increased tenfold by its real and hearty obstacle. The workings of his spirit seem to expand his frame, till we can scarcely believe that by measure it is small: for the space which he fills in the imagination is so real, that we almost mistake it for that of corporeal dimensions. His Old Dosey, in the excellent farce of Past Ten o'Clock,' is his grandest effort of this kind, and we know of nothing finer. He seems to have a heart of oak' indeed. His description of a sea-fight is the most noble and triumphant piece of enthusiasm which we remember. It is as if the spirits of a whole crew of nameless heroes 'were swelling in his bosom.' We never felt so ardent and proud a sympathy with the valour of England as when we heard it. May health long be his thus to do our hearts good-for we never saw any actor whose merits have the least resemblance to his even in

species; and when his genius is withdrawn from the stage, we shall not have left even a term by which we can fitly describe it."

We have now to introduce a new name in the correspondence.

TO W. S. LANDOR.

"9 April, 1832.

"Dear Sir,-Pray accept a little volume. 'Tis a legacy from Elia, you'll see. Silver and gold had he none, but such as he had left he you.' I do not know how to thank you for attending to my request about the Album. I thought you would never remember it. Are not you proud & thankful, Emma? [Yes: very both.-Emma Isola.]

66

Many things I had to say to you, which there was not time for. One why should I forget? 'tis for Rose Aylmer,' which has a charm I cannot explain. I lived upon it for weeks. Next, I forgot to tell you I knew all your Welch annoyancers, the measureless Bethams.2 I knew a quarter of a mile of them. 17 brothers and 16 sisters, as they appear to me in memory. There was one of them that used to fix his long legs on my fender, and tell a tale of a shark every night, endless, immortal. How have I grudged the salt sea ravener not having had his gorge of him! The shortest of the daughters measured 5 feet eleven without her shoes.3 Well, some day we may confer about them. But they were tall. Truly I have discover'd the longitude.

1 ["Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.”Acts, iii. 6.]

2 [See a letter from Miss Lamb to Miss Barbara Betham, Nov. 2, 1814, in my "Mary and Charles Lamb," 1874, p. 88. Some notelets from Lamb to her sister Miss Matilda Betham will be noticed presently; and under 1815-16 suprâ, I have already given one letter to the same lady, and extracts from others.]

3

[A curious parallel case existed formerly in the family of Sir John Sinclair, compiler of that valuable work of reference, the "Statistical Account of Scotland." Sinclair had six daughters only, however, each six feet in height-six-and-thirty feet of them; and the house where they lived at Edinburgh used to be nicknamed the "Giant's Causeway."]

66

Sir, if you can spare a moment, I should be happy to hear from you. That rogue Robinson detained your verses, till I call'd for them. Don't entrust a bit of prose to the rogue; but believe me

"Your obliged

"My sister sends her kind regards.

"W. S. Landor, Esq.,

"From Ch. Lamb."

"C. L.

Coleridge, now in declining health, seems to have feared, from a long intermission of Lamb's visits to Highgate, that there was some estrangement between them, and to have written to Lamb under that idea. The following note shews how much he was mistaken.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

"April 14th, 1832.

"My dear Coleridge,-Not an unkind thought has passed in my brain about you. But I have been wofully neglectful of you, so that I do not deserve to announce to you, that if I do not hear from you before then, I will set out on Wednesday morning to take you by the hand. I would do it this moment, but an unexpected visit might flurry you. I shall take silence for acquiescence, and come. I am glad you could write so long a letter. Old loves to, and hope of kind looks from, the Gilmans, when I come.

"If you ever thought an offence, much more wrote it, against me, it must have been in the times of Noah; and the great waters swept it away. Mary's most kind love, and maybe a wrong prophet of your bodings!-here she is crying for mere love over your letter. I wring out less, but not sincerer, showers.

"My direction is simply, Enfield."

CHAPTER XIX.

LETTERS TO MOXON, TALFOURD, AND FORSTER-LAST LETTER TO THE HAZLITTS.

[1832-3.]

THE HE present section brings us into the region of Notes and Notelets. The era of letter-writing has almost ceased. Many of those to whom Lamb delighted to deliver his thoughts at large are dead, or in failing health, and the spirit which their sympathy and communion had awakened and stimulated begins to wax languid. Short perfunctory rejoinders to inquiries, formal acknowledgments of friendly offers, scraps which are scarcely more than autographs, stand in the room of those splendid journal-like epistles to Coleridge, Wordsworth, Manning, Barton, and the Hazlitts. Very little else to come now. The first is unusually plaintive and lugubrious; but there is in it, notwithstanding, a certain hopeful transparency. The writer looks forward to seeing Moxon and the author of the "Statesmen of the Commonwealth" soon.

TO MR. MOXON.

[June 1, 1832.]

"I am a little more than half alive. I was more than half dead. The Ladies1 are very agreeable. I flatter myself I am less than disagreeable. Convey this to Mr. Forster— whom with you I shall just be able to see some ten days hence, "And believe me ever yours, "C. L.

"I take Forster's name to be John; but you know whom I mean the Pym-praiser, not pimp-raiser.

"Mr. Moxon,

"64, New Bond Street."

1

[Miss Isola and her schoolfellow Maria Fryer.]