BOOK IV.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN 1821 AND 1834.

LETTERS

ΤΟ

CHAPTER I.

COLERIDGE, COLLIER, LEIGH HUNT, ALLSOP, GODWIN, WORDSWORTH, AND HAYDON-GODWIN'S DIFFICULTIES -VISIT OF THE LAMBS TO PARIS.

C

[1821-2.]

HARLES MATHEWS, whom we have now to call the Elder, had come to reside at Highgate Hill, toward Kentish Town, in 1819; but it was not till two years later that he and his wife first met the Lambs at the Gilmans'. “It was at last arranged," writes Mrs. Mathews, “that we should dine on the fifth of May in this year at Mr. and Mrs. Gilman's . . . in order to meet this charming person and his amiable sister." The following notes to Coleridge and Gilman illustrate this episode. The postscript of the former seems to explain Lamb's allusion in the letter to Gilman to "a dying man -a man who was dying in 1807, and not dead yet! It does not seem as if the writer's feelings towards the host and hostess of his friend ever went beyond respect. He spoke of Mrs. Gilman as "the striking lady with the ebony tips."

"Dr. C.-I will not fail you on Friday by six, and Mary, perhaps, earlier. I very much wish to meet Charles Mathews, and am very much obliged to the Gilmans for the opportunity. Our kind respects to them always,

"ELIA."

Extract from a MS. note of S. T. C. in my Beaumont and Fletcher, dated April 17th, 1807:

"God bless you, my dear Charles Lamb; I am dying; I feel I have not many weeks left." 2

TO MR. GILMAN.3

"Wednesday, 2nd May, '21. "Dear Sir,-You dine so late on Friday, it will be impossible for us to go home by the eight o'clock stage. Will you oblige me by securing us beds in some house from which a stage goes to the Bank in the morning? I would write to Coleridge, but cannot think of troubling a dying man with such a request. Yours truly, "C. LAMB.

4

"If the beds in the town are all engaged, in consequence of Mr. Mathews's appearance, a hackney coach will serve. "We shall neither of us come much before the time." 5

1

["Memoirs of C. Mathews," by Mrs. Mathews, 1839, iii. 191.]

2 [This almost amounted to an idiosyncrasy on Coleridge's part. No doubt his health was delicate. He was very ill in the early part of 1801; and in a letter of 1808 to Lamb, he says, "O, Charles, I am very, very ill. Vixi."]

3

["Memoirs of C. Mathews," iii., 192-3.]

4 [An "At Home," which Mathews was to give in the neighbourhood.]

[They were the last to arrive. Mrs. Mathews says: "My husband, who was punctuality itself, and all the little party, except the Elia and his sister, were assembled. At last, Mr. and Miss Lamb appeared, and Mr. Coleridge led his friend up to my husband with a look, which seemed to say, 'I pray you, like this fellow.' For a description of Lamb's dress and aspect, I must refer to the book.]

دوو

[Presents of books and every other description of thing began to flow in from friends, new and old. Mr. J. P. Collier sent his "Poetical Decameron," " and was repaid by this letter, written from the lodging at Dalston, to which the brother and sister now occasionally retired for the sake of quiet :

TO JOHN PAYNE COLLIER.2

[Kingsland Row, Dalston], May 16th, 1821. “Dear J. P. C.,-Many thanks for the 'Decameron: I have not such a gentleman's book in my collection: it was a great treat to me, and I got it just as I was wanting something of the sort. I take less pleasure in books than heretofore, but I like books about books. In the second volume, in particular, are treasures your discoveries about 'Twelfth Night,' etc. What a Shakespearian essence that speech of Osrades for food!-Shakespeare is coarse to it— beginning' Forbear and eat no more.' Osrades warms up

to that, but does not set out ruffian-swaggerer. The character of the Ass with those three lines, worthy to be set in gilt vellum, and worn in frontlets by the noble beasts for ever—

"Thou would, perhaps, he should become thy foe,
And to that end dost beat him many times:

He cares not for himself, much less thy blow.'

Cervantes, Sterne, and Coleridge, have said positively nothing for asses compared with this.

"I write in haste; but p. 24, vol. i., the line you cannot appropriate is Gray's sonnet, specimenifyed by Wordsworth in first preface to L. B., as mixed of bad and good style: p. 143, 2nd vol., you will find last poem but one of the collection on Sidney's death in Spenser, the line,

6 Scipio, Cæsar, Petrarch of our time.'

1 ["The Poetical Decameron; or, Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry," 1820, 2 vols., small 8vo.]

2 [Collier's "Old Man's Diary," part 4, pp. 85-6. In the "Works of Lamb," 1876, p. 520, is a paper entitled, "The Ass," founded on a notice by Collier, in the "Decameron," of an Elizabethan book (translated from Heinsius) called "The Nobleness of the Ass," 1595.]

This fixes it to be Raleigh's: I had guess'd it to be Daniel's. The last after it, 'Silence augmenteth rage,' I will be crucified if it be not Lord Brooke's. Hang you, and all meddling researchers, hereafter, that by raking into learned dust may find me out wrong in my conjecture!

"Dear J. P. Č., I shall take the first opportunity of personally thanking you for my entertainment. We are at Dalston for the most part, but I fully hope for an evening soon with you in Russell or Bouverie Street, to talk over old times and books. Remember us kindly to Mrs. J. P. C. "Yours very kindly,

"CHARLES LAMB.

"I write in misery. "N.B.-The best pen I could borrow at our butcher's: the ink, I verily believe, came out of the kennel."]

It was at this time that Lamb formed an acquaintance with a man, who was not less remarkable for the probity and uprightness of his character and the soundness and farsightedness of his political views than for his varied and high attainments-WILLIAM HONE, who, in the face of the strongest official opposition and public prejudice, defeated the attempt to commit him to gaol for his political Parodies. His trial before Lord Ellenborough was brought to a climax by the defendant offering to hand up to the Bench a similar production, composed by Ellenborough's father, the Bishop of Carlisle. Lamb materially aided Hone by his encouragement and by his contributions to the “Table Book." The correspondence begins in 1821 with a note dated November 9th, where Lamb observes of graces—a subject he himself took up in one of his Essays: "Our Hebrew brethren seem to appreciate the good things of this life in more liberal latitude than we, to judge from their frequent graces. One, I think, you must have omitted—' After concluding a bargain.' Their distinction of fruits growing upon trees and upon the ground I can understand. A sow makes quite a different grunt (her grace) over chestnuts and pignuts."

An interesting account of the comparatively early acquaintance between Leigh Hunt and Lamb occurs in Hunt's "Autobiography," where the writer gratefully re

cords the visits of the brother and sister to him in prison between 1813 and 1815. Hunt says: "The Lambs came to comfort me in all weathers-hail or sunshine, in daylight or in darkness, even in the dreadful frost and snow of the beginning of 1814;" and under 1816 I have inserted an account of the copy of " Rimini," which was received and acknowledged by Lamb. But they did not see much of each other subsequently to Hunt's release; and Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke, who had introduced himself to Hunt at Horsemonger Lane with presents of fruit, and to Lamb during his visit to Margate in 1817, now wrote to the latter to complain of his neglect of Hunt, to which the subjoined letter is a reply.

TO C. COWDEN CLARKE.1

[1821.]

My dear Sir,-Your letter has lain in a draw[er] of my desk, upbraiding me every time I open the said draw [er], but it is almost impossible to answer such a letter in such a place, and I am out of the habit of replying to epistles otherwhere than at office. You express yourself concerning Hunt like a true friend, and have made me feel that I have somehow neglected him, but without knowing very well how to rectify it. I live so remote from him -by Hackney-that he is almost out of the pale of visitation at Hampstead. And I come but seldom to Covt. Gardn. this summer time, and when I do, am sure to pay for the late hours and pleasant Novello suppers which I incur. I also am an invalid. But I will hit upon some way, that you shall not have cause for your reproof in future. do not think I take the hint unkindly. When I shall be brought low by any sickness or untoward circumstance, write just such a letter to some tardy friend of mine-or come up yourself with your friendly Henshaw face-and

But

1 [Addressed, V. Novello, Esq., for C. C. Clarke, Esq. The latter, son of a schoolmaster at Enfield, introduced Keats to Leigh Hunt. Keats had been educated at Mr. Clarke's. These letters to C. C. Clarke and Novello were first printed in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for Oct., 1873, and Messrs. Chatto and Windus most liberally gave the editor their permission to use them.]