Charles Lamb: A Memoir Part 3

During these years Lamb's correspondence with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Walter Wilson, and Manning (princ.i.p.ally with Manning) goes on. It is sometimes critical, sometimes jocose. He discusses the merits of various authors, and more than once expresses his extreme distaste for didactic writing. Now, he says, it is too directly instructive. Then he complains that the knowledge, insignificant and vapid as it is, must come in the _shape_ of knowledge. He could not obtain at Newberry's shop any of the old "cla.s.sics of the Nursery," he says; whilst "Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs.

Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about."

His own domestic affairs struggle on as usual; at one time calm and pleasant, at another time troubled and uncomfortable, owing to the frequent recurrence of his sister's malady. In general he bore these changes with fort.i.tude; I do not observe more than one occasion on which (being then himself ill) his firmness seemed altogether to give way. In 1798, indeed, he had said, "I consider her perpetually on the brink of madness." But in May, 1800, his old servant Hetty having died, and Mary (sooner than usual) falling ill again, Charles was obliged to remove her to an asylum; and was left in the house alone with Hetty's dead body. "My heart is quite sick" (he cries), "and I don't know where to look for relief. My head is very bad. I almost wish that Mary were dead." This was the one solitary cry of anguish that he uttered during his long years of anxiety and suffering. At all other times he bowed his head in silence, uncomplaining.

Charles Lamb, with his sister, left Little Queen Street on or before 1800; in which year he seems to have migrated, first to Chapel Street, Pentonville; next to Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane; and finally to No. 16 Mitre Court Buildings, in the Temple, "a pistol shot off Baron Masere's;" and here he resided for about nine years.

It was during his stay at Pentonville that he "fell in love" with a young Quaker, called Hester Savory. As (he confesses) "I have never spoken to her during my life," it may be safely concluded that the attachment was essentially Platonic. This was the young girl who inspired those verses, now so widely known and admired. I remember them as being the first lines which I ever saw of Charles Lamb's writing. I remember and admire them still, for their natural, unaffected style; no pretence, no straining for images and fancies flying too high above the subject, but dealing with thoughts that were near his affections, in a fit and natural manner. The conclusion of the poem, composed and sent after her death (in February, 1803) to Manning, who was then in Paris, is very sad and tender:--

My sprightly neighbor, gone before To that unknown and silent sh.o.r.e, Shall we not meet, as heretofore, Some summer morning?

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Hath struck a bliss upon the day, A bliss that will not go away, A sweet forewarning.

[1] The most convincing evidence of Coleridge's powers is to be found in his Table Talk. It appears from it that he was ready to discuss (almost) any subject, and that he was capable of talking ably upon most, and cleverly upon all.

CHAPTER IV.

_(Migrations.)--"John Woodvil."--Blackesmoor.--Wordsworth.--Rickman.-- G.o.dwin.--Visit to the Lakes.--Morning Post.--Hazlitt.--Nelson.--Ode to Tobacco.--Dramatic Specimens, &c.--Inner Temple Lane.--Reflector.--Hogarth and Sir J. Reynolds.--Leigh Hunt.--Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt.--Russell Street and Theatrical Friends._

It is not always easy to fix Charles Lamb's doings (writings or migrations) to any precise date. The year may generally be ascertained; but the day or month is often a matter of surmise only. Even the dates of the letters are often derived from the postmarks, or are sometimes conjectured from circ.u.mstances. [1] Occasionally the labors of a drama or of lyric poems traverse several years, and are not to be referred to any one definite period. Thus "John Woodvil" (his tragedy) was begun in 1799, printed in 1800, and submitted to Mr. Kemble (then manager of Drury Lane Theatre) in the Christmas of that year, but was not published until 1801.

After this tragedy had been in Mr. Kemble's hands for about a year, Lamb naturally became urgent to hear his decision upon it. Upon applying for this he found that his play was--lost! This was at once acknowledged, and a "courteous request made for another copy, if I had one by me." Luckily, another copy existed. The "first runnings" of a genius were not, therefore, altogether lost, by having been cast, without a care, into the dusty limbo of the theatre. The other copy was at once supplied, and the play very speedily rejected. It was afterwards facetiously brought forward in one of the early numbers of the Edinburgh Review, and there noticed as a rude specimen of the earliest age of the drama, "older than AEschylus!"

Lamb met these accidents of fortune manfully, and did not abstain from exercising his own Shandean humor thereon. It must be confessed that "John Woodvil" is not a tragedy likely to bring much success to a playhouse. It is such a drama as a young poet, full of love for the Elizabethan writers, and without any knowledge of the requisitions of the stage, would be likely to produce. There is no plot; little probability in the story; which itself is not very scientifically developed. There are some pretty lines, especially some which have often been the subject of quotation; but there is not much merit in the characters of the drama, with the exception of the heroine, who is a heroine of the "purest water." Lamb's friend Southey, in writing to a correspondent, p.r.o.nounces the following opinion: "Lamb is printing his play, which will please you by the exquisite beauty of its poetry, and provoke you by the exquisite silliness of its story."

In October, 1799, Lamb went to see the remains of the old house (Gilston) in Hertfords.h.i.+re, where his grandmother once lived, and the "old church where the bones of my honored granddame lie." This visit was, in later years, recorded in the charming paper ent.i.tled "Blakesmoor in H----s.h.i.+re."

He found that the house where he had spent his pleasant holidays, when a little boy, had been demolished; it was, in fact, taken down for the purpose of reconstruction; but out of the ruins he conjures up pleasant ghosts, whom he restores and brings before a younger generation. There are few of his papers in which the past years of his life are more delightfully revived. The house had been "reduced to an antiquity." But we go with him to the gra.s.s plat, were he used to read Cowley; to the tapestried bedrooms, where the mythological people of Ovid used to stand forth, half alive; even to "that haunted bedroom in which old Sarah Battle died," and into which he "used to creep in a pa.s.sion of fear." These things are all touched with a delicate pen, mixed and incorporated with tender reflections; for, "The solitude of childhood" (as he says) "is not so much the mother of thought as the feeder of love." With him it was both.

Lamb became acquainted with Wordsworth when he visited Coleridge, in the summer of 1800. At that time his old schoolfellow lived at Stowey, and the greater poet was his neighbor. It is not satisfactorily shown in what manner the poetry of Wordsworth first attracted the notice of Charles Lamb, nor its first effect upon him. Perhaps the verse of Coleridge was not a bad stepping-stone to that elevation which enabled Charles to look into the interior of Wordsworth's mind. The two poets were not unlike in some respects, although Coleridge seldom (except perhaps in the "Ancient Mariner") ventured into the plain, downright phraseology of the other. It is very soon apparent, however, that Lamb was able to admit Wordsworth's great merits. In August, 1800 (just after the completion of his visit to Stowey), he writes, "I would pay five and forty thousand carriages"

(parcel fares) "to read Wordsworth's tragedy. Pray give me an order on Longman for the 'Lyrical Ballads.'" And in October, 1800, the two authors must have been on familiar terms with each other; for in a letter addressed by Lamb to Wordsworth, "Dear Wordsworth," it appears that the latter had requested him to advance money for the purchase of books, to a considerable amount. This was at a time when Lamb was "not plethorically abounding in cash." The books required an outlay of eight pounds, and Lamb had not the sum then in his possession. "It is a scurvy thing" (he writes) "to cry, Give me the money first; and I am the first of the Lambs that has done this for many centuries." Shortly afterwards Lamb sent his play to Wordsworth, who (this was previous to 30 January, 1801) appears to have invited Charles to visit him in c.u.mberland. Our humorist did not accept this invitation, being doubtful whether he could "afford so desperate a journey," and being (he says) "not at all romance-bit about Nature;" the earth, and sea, and sky, being, "when all is said, but a house to live in."

It is not part of my task to adjust the claims of the various writers of verse in this country to their stations in the Temple of Fame. If Keats was by nature the most essentially a poet in the present century, there is little doubt that Wordsworth has left his impress more broadly and more permanently than any other of our later writers upon the literature of England. There are barren, unpeopled wastes in the "Excursion," and in some of the longer poems; but when his Genius stirs, we find ourselves in rich places which have no parallel in any book since the death of Milton.

When his lyrical ballads first appeared, they encountered much opposition and some contempt. Readers had not for many years been accustomed to drink the waters of Helicon pure and undefiled; and Wordsworth (a prophet of the true faith) had to gird up his loins, march into the desert, and prepare for battle. He has, indeed, at last achieved a conquest; but a long course of time, although sure of eventual success, elapsed before he could boast of victory. The battle has been perilous. When the "Excursion" was published (in 1814), Lamb wrote a review of it for "The Quarterly Review."

Whatever might have been the actual fitness of this performance, it seems to have been hacked to pieces; more than a third of the substance cut away; the warm expressions converted into cold ones; and (in Lamb's phrase) "the eyes pulled out and the bleeding sockets left." This mangling (or amendment, as I suppose it was considered) was the work of the late Mr. Gifford. Charles had a great admiration for Wordsworth. It was short of prostration, however. He states that the style of "Peter Bell" does not satisfy him; but "'Hartleap Well' is the tale for me," are his words in 1819.

I have a vivid recollection of Wordsworth, who was a very grave man, with strong features and a deep voice. I met him first at the chambers (they were in the Temple) of Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson, one of the most amiable of men. I was a young versifier, and Wordsworth was just emerging out of a cloud of ignorant contumely into the sunrise of his fame. He was fond (perhaps too fond) of reciting his own poetry before friends and strangers. I was not attracted by his manner, which was almost too solemn, but I was deeply impressed by some of the weighty notes in his voice, when he was delivering out his oracles. I forget whether it was "Dion" or the beautiful poem of "Laodamia" that he read; but I remembered the reading long afterwards, as one recollects the roll of the spent thunder.

I met Wordsworth occasionally, afterwards, at Charles Lamb's, at Mr.

Rogers's, and elsewhere, and once he did me the honor to call upon me. I remember that he had a very gentle aspect when he looked at my children.

He took the hand of my dear daughter (who died lately) in his hand, and spoke some words to her, the recollection of which, perhaps, helped, with other things, to incline her to poetry. Hazlitt says that Wordsworth's face, notwithstanding his const.i.tutional gravity, sometimes revealed indications of dry humor. And once, at a morning visit, I heard him give an account of his having breakfasted in company with Coleridge, and allowed him to expatiate to the extent of his lungs. "How could you permit him to go on and weary himself?" said Rogers; "why, you are to meet him at dinner this evening." "Yes," replied Wordsworth; "I know that very well; but we like to take the _sting_ out of him beforehand."

About a year after Lamb's first knowledge of Manning, his small stock of friends was enlarged by the acquisition of Mr. John Rickman, one of the clerks of the House of Commons. "He is a most pleasant hand" (writes Lamb), "a fine rattling fellow, who has gone through life laughing at solemn apes; himself hugely literate, from matter of fact, to Xenophon and Plato: he can talk Greek with Porson, and nonsense with me." "He understands you" (he adds) "the first time. You never need speak twice to him. Fullest of matter, with least verbosity." A year or two afterwards, when Rickman went to Ireland, Lamb wrote to Manning, "I have lost by his going what seems to me I never can recover--_a finished man_. I almost dare p.r.o.nounce you never saw his equal. His memory will come to me as the brazen serpent to the Israelites." Robert Southey also, when writing to his brother (in 1804), says, "Coleridge and Rickman, with William Taylor, make my Trinity of living greatness." A voluminous correspondence took place between Southey and Rickman, ranging from 1800 to 1839, in the course of which a variety of important subjects--namely, History, Antiquities, Political Economy, Poor Law, and general Politics were deliberately argued between them. From this it appears that Southey, whose reading was very extensive, must have had great trust in the knowledge and judgment of Rickman.

Lamb's acquaintance with G.o.dwin, Holcroft, and Clarkson was formed about this time. G.o.dwin had been introduced to Lamb, by Coleridge, in 1800. The first interview is made memorable by G.o.dwin's opening question: "And pray, Mr. Lamb, are you toad or frog?" This inquiry, having reference to Gilray's offensive caricature, did not afford promise of a very cheerful intimacy. Lamb, however, who accorded great respect to G.o.dwin's intellect, did not resent it, but received his approaches favorably, and indeed entertained him at breakfast the next morning. The acquaintance afterwards expanded into familiarity; but I never observed the appearance of any warm friends.h.i.+p between them. G.o.dwin's precision and extreme coldness of manner (perhaps of disposition) prevented this; and Lamb was able, through all his admiration of the other's power, to discern those points in his character which were obnoxious to his own. Some years previously, Charles had entertained much dislike to the philosopher's opinions, and referred to him as "that G.o.dwin;" and afterwards, when eulogizing the quick and fine intellect of Rickman, he says, "He does not want explanation, translations, limitations, as G.o.dwin does, when you make an a.s.sertion."

When G.o.dwin published his "Essay on Sepulchres," wherein he professed to erect a wooden slab and a white cross, to be _perpetually_ renewed to the end of time ("to survive the fall of empires," as Miss Lamb says), in order to distinguish the site of every great man's grave, Lamb speaks of the project in these terms: "G.o.dwin has written a pretty absurd book about Sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him that it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir Thomas Browne." Sufficient intimacy, however, had arisen between them to induce Lamb to write a facetious epilogue to G.o.dwin's tragedy of "Antonio; or, the Soldier's Return." This came out in 1800, and was very speedily d.a.m.ned; although Lamb said that "it had one fine line;" which indeed he repeated occasionally. G.o.dwin bore this failure, it must be admitted, without being depressed by it, although he was a very poor man, and although he was "five hundred pounds _ideal_ money out of pocket by the failure."

In 1802 Lamb visited Coleridge, who was then living near Keswick, in c.u.mberland. For the first time in his life he beheld lakes and mountains; and the effect upon him was startling and unexpected. It was much like the impression made by the first sight of the Alps upon Leigh Hunt, who had theretofore always maintained that those merely great heaps of earth ought to have no effect upon a properly const.i.tuted mind; but he freely confessed afterwards, that he had been mistaken. Lamb had been more than once invited to visit the romantic Lake country. He had no desire to inspect the Ural chain, where the malachite is hidden, nor the silver regions of Potosi; but he was all at once affected by a desire of "visiting remote regions." It was a sudden irritability, which could only be quieted by travel.

Charles and his sister therefore went, without giving any notice to Coleridge, who, however, received them very kindly, and gave up all his time in order to show them the wonders of the neighborhood. The visitors arrived there in a "gorgeous sunset" (the only one that Lamb saw during his stay in the country), and thought that they had got "into fairy-land."

"We entered Coleridge's study" (he writes to Manning, shortly afterwards) "just in the dusk, when the mountains were all dark. Such an impression I never received from objects of sight, nor do I suppose I ever can again.

Glorious creatures, Skiddaw, &c. I shall never forget how ye lay about that night, like an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed, for the night."

They went to Coleridge's house, in which "he had a large, antique, ill- shaped room, with an old organ, never played upon, an Aeolian harp, and shelves of scattered folios," and remained there three weeks, visiting Wordsworth's cottage, he himself being absent, and meeting the Clarksons ("good, hospitable people"). They tarried there one night, and met Lloyd.

They clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, "and went to Gra.s.smere, Ambleside, Ullswater, and over the middle of Helvellyn." Coleridge then dwelt upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, quite "enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains." On his return to London, Lamb wrote to his late host, saying, "I feel I shall remember your mountains to the last day of my life. They haunt me perpetually. I am like a man who has been falling in love unknown to himself, which he finds out when he leaves the lady." He soon subsided, however, into his old natural metropolitan happiness.

Wordsworth was not in the Lake country when Lamb visited Coleridge; but after his return the great poet visited Charles in London, pa.s.sed some time there, and then departed for Yorks.h.i.+re, where he went in order to be married.

At this time Lamb contributed (generally facetiae) to various newspapers, now forgotten. One of them, it was said jocosely, had "two and twenty readers, including the printer, the pressman, and the devil." But he was still very poor; so poor that Coleridge offered to supply him with prose translations from the German, in order that he might versify them for the "Morning Post," and thus obtain a little money. In one of his letters Lamb says, "If I got or could but get fifty pounds a year only, in addition to what I have, I should live in affluence."

About the time that he is writing this, he is recommending Chapman's "Homer" to Coleridge; is refusing to admit Coleridge's _bona fide_ debt to himself of fifteen pounds; is composing Latin letters; and in other respects deporting himself like a "gentleman who lives at home at ease;"

not like a poor clerk, obliged to husband his small means, and to deny himself the cheap luxury of books that he had long coveted. "Do you remember" (his sister says to him, in the Essay on "Old China") "the brown suit that grew so threadbare, all because of that folio of Beaumont and Fletcher that you dragged home late at night from Barker's, in Covent Garden; when you set off near ten o'clock, on Sat.u.r.day night, from Islington, fearing you should be too late; and when you lugged it home, wis.h.i.+ng it was twice as c.u.mbersome," &c.

These realities of poverty, very imperfectly covered over by words of fiction, are very touching. It is deeply interesting, that Essay, where the rare enjoyments of a poor scholar are brought into contrast and relief with the indifference that grows upon him when his increased income enables him to acquire any objects he pleases. Those things are no longer distinguished as "enjoyments" which are not purchased by a sacrifice. "A purchase is but a purchase now. Formerly it used to be a triumph. A thing was worth buying when we felt the money that we paid for it."

(1804.) The intimacy of that extraordinary man, William Hazlitt, was the great gain of Lamb at this period of his life. If Lamb's youngest and tenderest reverence was given to Coleridge, Hazlitt's intellect must also have commanded his later permanent respect. Without the imagination and extreme facility of Coleridge, he had almost as much subtlety and far more steadfastness of mind. Perhaps this steadfastness remained sometimes until it took the color of obstinacy; but, as in the case of his constancy to the first Napoleon, it was obstinacy riveted and made firm by some concurring respect. I do not know that Hazlitt had the more affectionate nature of the two; but a.s.suredly he was less tossed about and his sight less obscured by floating fancies and vast changing projects (_muscae volitantes_) than the other. To the one are ascribed fierce and envious pa.s.sions; coa.r.s.e thoughts and habits--(he has indeed been crowned by defamation); whilst to Coleridge have been awarded reputation and glory, and praise from a thousand tongues. To secure justice we must wait for unbia.s.sed posterity.

I meet, at present, with few persons who recollect much of Hazlitt. Some profess to have heard nothing of him except his prejudices and violence; but his prejudices were few, and his violence (if violence he had) was of very rare occurrence. He was extremely patient, indeed, although earnest when discussing points in politics, respecting which he held very strong and decided opinions. But he circulated his thoughts on many other subjects, whereon he ought not to have excited offence or opposition. He wrote (and he wrote well) upon many things lying far beyond the limits of politics. To use his own words, "I have at least glanced over a number of subjects--painting, poetry, prose, plays, politics, parliamentary speakers, metaphysical lore, books, men, and things." This list, extensive as it is, does not specify very precisely all the subjects on which he wrote. His thoughts range over the literature of Elizabeth and James's times, and of the time of Charles II.; over a large portion of modern literature; over the distinguis.h.i.+ng character of men, their peculiarities of mind and manners; over the wonders of poetry, the subtleties of metaphysics, and the luminous regions of art. In painting, his criticisms (it is prettily said by Leigh Hunt) cast a light upon the subject like the glory reflected "from a painted window." I myself have, in my library, eighteen volumes of Hazlitt's works, and I do not possess all that he published. Besides being an original thinker, Hazlitt excelled in conversation. He was, moreover, a very temperate liver: yet his enemies proclaimed to the world that he was wanting even in sobriety. During the thirteen years that I knew him intimately, and (at certain seasons) saw him almost every day, I know that he drank nothing stronger than water; except tea, indeed, in which he indulged in the morning. Had he been as temperate in his political views as in his cups, he would have escaped the slander that pursued him through life.

The great intimacy between these two distinguished writers, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt (for they had known each other before), seems to have commenced in a singular manner. They were one day at G.o.dwin's, when "a fierce dispute was going on between Holcroft and Coleridge, as to which was best, 'Man as he was, or Man as he is to be.' 'Give me,' says Lamb, 'man as he is _not_ to be.'" "This was the beginning" (Hazlitt says,) "of a friends.h.i.+p which, I believe, still continues." Hazlitt married in 1805, and his wife soon became familiar with Mary Lamb. Indeed, Charles and his sister more than once visited the Hazlitts, who at that time lived at Winterslow, near Salisbury Plain, and enjoyed their visits greatly, walking from eight to twenty miles a day, and seeing Wilton, Stonehenge, and the other (to them unaccustomed) sights of the country. "The quiet, lazy, delicious month" pa.s.sed there is referred to in one of Miss Lamb's pleasant letters. And the acquaintance soon deepened into friends.h.i.+p.

Whatever good will was exhibited by Hazlitt (and there was much) is repaid by Lamb in his letter to Southey, published in the "London Magazine"

(October, 1823), wherein he places on record his pride and admiration of his friend. "So far from being ashamed of the intimacy" (he says), "it is my boast that I was able, for so many years, to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding or expecting to find such another companion."

Lamb's respect for men and things did not depend on repute. His fondness for old books seldom (never, perhaps, except in the single case of the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle) deluded him into a respect for old books which were without merit. He required that excellence should be combined with antiquity. A great name was generally to him simply a great name; no more.

If it had lasted through centuries, indeed, as in the case of Michael Angelo, then he admitted that "a great name implied greatness." He did not think that greatness lay in the "thews and sinews," or in the bulk alone.

When Nelson was walking on the quay at Yarmouth, the mob cried out in derision, "What! make that little fellow a captain!" Lamb thought otherwise; and in regret for the death of that great seaman, he says, "I have followed him ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall, _looking just as a hero should look_" (_i.e._, simply). "He was the only pretence of a great man we had." The large stage bl.u.s.terer and ostentatious drawcansir were never, in Lamb's estimation, models for heroes. In the case of the first Napoleon also, he writes, "He is a fine fellow, as my barber says; and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do him service in his fall." This was in August, 1815.

The famous "Ode to Tobacco" was written in 1805, and the pretty stories founded on the plays of Shakespeare were composed or translated about the year 1806; Lamb taking the tragic, and his sister the other share of the version. These tales were to produce about sixty pounds; to them a sum which was most important, for he and Mary at that time hailed the addition of twenty pounds to his salary (on the retirement of an elder clerk) as a grand addition to their comforts.

Charles was at this period (February, 1806) at work upon a farce, to be called "Mr. H.;" from which he says, "if it has a 'good run' I shall get two hundred pounds, and I hope one hundred pounds for the copyright." "Mr.

H." (which rested solely upon the absurdity of a name, which after all was not irresistibly absurd) was accepted at the theatre, but unfortunately it had _not_ "a good run." It failed, not quite undeservedly perhaps, for (although it has since had some success in America) there was not much probability of its prosperity in London. It was acted once (10th December, 1806), and was announced for repet.i.tion on the following evening, but was withdrawn. Lamb's courage and good humor did not fail. He joked about it to Wordsworth, said that he had many fears about it, and admitted that "John Bull required solider fare than a bare letter." As he says, in his letter to the poet, "a hundred hisses (hang the word, I write it like kisses) outweigh a thousand claps. The former come more directly from the heart. Well" (he adds), "it is withdrawn, and there's an end."

In 1807 were published "Specimens of Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakespeare;" and these made Lamb known as a man conversant with our old English literature, and helped mainly to direct the taste of the public to those fine writers. The book brought repute (perhaps a little money) to him. Soon afterwards he published "The Adventures of Ulysses," which was intended to be an introduction to the reading of "Telemachus," always a popular book. These "adventures" were derived from Chapman's "Translation of Homer," of which Lamb says, "Chapman is divine; and my abridgment has not, I hope, quite emptied him of his divinity."

In or about 1808 Miss Lamb's pretty little stories called "Mrs.

Leicester's School" (to which Charles contributed three tales) were published; and soon afterwards a small book ent.i.tled "Poetry for Children," being a joint publication by brother and sister, came out. "It was done by me and Mary in the last six months" (January, 1809). It does not appear to what extent, if at all, it added to the poor clerk's means.

In the same year (as Miss Lamb writes in December, 1808), Charles was invited by Tom Sheridan to write some scenes in a speaking Pantomime; the other parts of which (the eloquence not of words) had been already manufactured by Tom and his more celebrated father, Richard Brinsley. Lamb and Tom Sheridan had been, it seems, communicative over a bottle of claret, when an agreement for the above purpose was entered into between them. This was subsequently carried into effect, and a drama was composed.

This drama, still extant in the British Museum, in Lamb's own writing, appears to be a species of comic opera, the scene of which is laid in Gibraltar, but is without a name. I have not seen it, but speak upon the report of others.

In 1809 Lamb moved once more into the Temple, now to the top story of No.

4 Inner Temple Lane, "where the household G.o.ds are slow to come, but where I mean to live and die" (he says). From this place (since pulled down and rebuilt) he writes to Manning, who is in China, "Come, and bring any of your friends the Mandarins with you. My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent cold-- with brandy; and not very insipid without." He sends Manning some of his little books, to give him "some idea of European literature." It is in this letter (January, 1810) that he speaks of Braham and his singing, which I have elsewhere alluded to; of Kate with nine stars *********

("though she is but one"); of his book (for children) "on t.i.tles of honor," exemplifying the eleven gradations, by which Mr. C. Lamb rises in succession to be Baron, Marquis, Duke, and Emperor Lamb, and finally Pope Innocent, and other lively matters fit to solace an English mathematician self-banished to China.

In July, 1810, an abstinence from all spirituous liquors took place. Lamb says that his sister has "taken to water like a hungry otter," whilst he "limps after her" for virtue's sake; but he is "full of cramps and rheumatism, and cold internally, so that fire don't warm him." It is scarcely necessary to state that the period of entire abstinence was very transient.