The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 77

In the letter to Dorothy Wordsworth of June 14, 1805, quoted just above, Lamb says: "I cannot resist transcribing three or four Lines which poor Mary [she was at this time away from home in one of her enforced absences] made upon a Picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an Auction only one week before she left home.... They are sweet Lines, and upon a sweet Picture."

Mary Lamb wrote little verse besides the _Poetry for Children_ (see Vol. III. of this edition). To the pieces that are printed in the present volume I would add the lines suggested by the death of Captain John Wordsworth, the poet's brother, in the foundering of the _Abergavenny_ in February, 1805, when Coleridge was in Malta, which were sent by Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth, May 7, 1805:--

Why is he wandering on the sea?

Coleridge should now with Wordsworth be.

By slow degrees he'd steal away Their woe, and gently bring a ray (So happily he'd time relief) Of comfort from their very grief.

He'd tell them that their brother dead, When years have pa.s.sed o'er their head, Will be remember'd with such holy, True, and perfect melancholy, That ever this lost brother John Will be their hearts' companion.

His voice they'll always hear, his face they'll always see; There's nought in life so sweet as such a memory.

SONNETS

Page 43. _To Miss Kelly_.

Frances Maria Kelly (1790-1882)--or f.a.n.n.y Kelly, as she was usually called--was Lamb's favourite actress of his middle and later life and a personal friend of himself and his sister: so close that Lamb proposed marriage to her. See Lamb's criticisms of Miss Kelly's acting in Vol.

I., and notes. Another sonnet addressed by Lamb to Miss Kelly will be found on page 59 of the present volume.

Page 43. _On the Sight of Swans in Kensington Garden_. This is, I think, Lamb's only poem the inspiration of which was drawn from nature.

Page 44. _The Family Name_.

John Lamb, Charles's father, came from Lincoln. A recollection of his boyhood there is given in the _Elia_ essay "Poor Relations." The "stream" seems completely to have ended with Charles Lamb and his sister Mary: at least, research has yielded no descendants.

Crabb Robinson visited Goethe in the summer of 1829. The _Diary_ has this entry: "I inquired whether he knew the name of Lamb. 'Oh, yes! Did he not write a pretty sonnet on his own name?' Charles Lamb, though he always affected contempt for Goethe, yet was manifestly pleased that his name was known to him."

In the little memoir of Lamb prefixed by M. Amedee Pichot to a French edition of the _Tales from Shakespeare_ in 1842 the following translation of this sonnet is given:--

MON NOM DE FAMILLE

Dis-moi, d'ou nous viens-tu, nom pacifique et doux, Nom transmis sans reproche?... A qui te devons-nous, Nom qui meurs avec moi? mon glason de poete A l'aeul de mon pere obscurement s'arrete.

--Peut-etre nous viens-tu d'un timide pasteur, Doux comme ses agneaux, raille pour sa douceur.

Mais peut-etre qu'aussi, moins commune origine, Nous viens-tu d'un heros, d'un pieux paladin, Qui croyant honorer ainsi l'Agneau divin, Te prit en revenant des champs de Palestine.

Mais qu'importe apres tout ... qu'il soit ill.u.s.tre ou non, Je ne ferai jamais une tache a ce nom.

Page 44. _To John Lamb, Esq._

John Lamb, Charles's brother, was born in 1763 and was thus by twelve years his senior. At the time this poem appeared, in 1818, he was accountant of the South-Sea House. He died on October 26, 1821 (see the _Elia_ essays "My Relations" and "Dream Children").

Page 45. _To Martin Charles Burney, Esq._

Lamb prefixed this sonnet to Vol. II. of his _Works_, 1818. In Vol. I.

he had placed the dedication to Coleridge which we have already seen.

Martin Charles Burney was the son of Rear-Admiral James Burney, Lamb's old friend, and nephew of Madame d'Arblay. He was a barrister by profession; dabbled a little in authors.h.i.+p; was very quaint in some of his ways and given to curiously intense and sudden enthusiasms; and was devoted to Mary Lamb and her brother. When these two were at work on their _Tales from Shakespear_ Martin Burney would sit with them and attempt to write for children too. Lamb's letter of May 24, 1830, to Sarah Hazlitt has some amusing stories of his friend, at whom (like George Dyer) he could laugh as well as love. Lamb speaks of him on one occasion as on the top round of his ladder of friends.h.i.+p. Writing to Sarah Hazlitt, Lamb says:--"Martin Burney is as good, and as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word 'heir,' which I contended was p.r.o.nounced like 'air'; he said that might be in common parlance; or that we might so use it, speaking of the 'Heir at Law,' a comedy; but that in the law courts it was necessary to give it a full aspiration, and to say _hayer_; he thought it might even vitiate a cause, if a counsel p.r.o.nounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he 'would consult Serjeant Wilde,' who gave it against him. Sometimes he falleth into the water; sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and insisted on reading Virgil's 'Eneid' all through with me (which he did), because a Counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a Court of Justice. A third time, he would carve a fowl, which he did very ill-favouredly, because 'we did not know how indispensable it was for a barrister to do all those sort of things well? Those little things were of more consequence than we supposed.' So he goes on, hara.s.sing about the way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong one----harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He deserves one: may be, he has tired him out."

Martin Burney, of whom another glimpse is caught in the _Elia_ essay "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading," died in 1860. At Mary Lamb's funeral he was inconsolable.

Page 46. CHARLES LAMB'S _ALb.u.m VERSES_, 1830.

The publication of this volume, in 1830, was due more to Lamb's kindness of heart than to any desire to come before the world again as a poet.

But Edward Moxon, Lamb's young friend, was just starting his publis.h.i.+ng business, with Samuel Rogers as a financial patron; and Lamb, who had long been his chief literary adviser, could not well refuse the request to help him with a new book. _Alb.u.m Verses_ became thus the first of the many notable books of poetry which Moxon was to issue between 1830 and 1858, the year of his death. Among them Tennyson's _Poems_, 1833 and 1842; _The Princess_, 1847; _In Memoriam_, 1850; _Maud_, 1855; and Browning's _Sordello_, 1840, and _Bells and Pomegranates_, 1843-1846.

The dedication of _Alb.u.m Verses_ tells the story of its being:--

"DEDICATION

"TO THE PUBLISHER

"DEAR MOXON,

"I do not know to whom a Dedication of these Trifles is more properly due than to yourself. You suggested the printing of them. You were desirous of exhibiting a specimen of the _manner_ in which Publications, entrusted to your future care, would appear. With more propriety, perhaps, the 'Christmas,' or some other of your own simple, unpretending Compositions, might have served this purpose. But I forget--you have bid a long adieu to the Muses. I had on my hands sundry Copies of Verses written for _Alb.u.ms_--

"Those Books kept by modern young Ladies for show, Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know--

"or otherwise floating about in Periodicals; which you have chosen in this manner to embody. I feel little interest in their publication. They are simply--_Advertis.e.m.e.nt Verses_.

"It is not for me, nor you, to allude in public to the kindness of our honoured Friend, under whose auspices you are become a Bookseller. May that fine-minded Veteran in Verse enjoy life long enough to see his patronage justified! I venture to predict that your habits of industry, and your cheerful spirit, will carry you through the world.

"I am, Dear Moxon,

"Your Friend and sincere Well-wisher, CHARLES LAMB.

"ENFIELD, _1st June, 1830_."

The reference to "Christmas" is to Moxon's poem of that name, published in 1829, and dedicated to Lamb.--The couplet concerning Alb.u.ms is from one of Lamb's own pieces (see page 104).--The Veteran in Verse was Samuel Rogers, who, then sixty-seven, lived yet another twenty-five years. Moxon published the superb editions of his _Italy_ and his _Poems_ ill.u.s.trated by Turner and Stothard.

Lamb's motives in issuing _Alb.u.m Verses_ were cruelly misunderstood by the _Literary Gazette_ (edited by William Jerdan). In the number for July 10, 1830, was printed a contemptuous review beginning with this pa.s.sage:--

If any thing could prevent our laughing at the present collection of absurdities, it would be a lamentable conviction of the blinding and engrossing nature of vanity. We could forgive the folly of the original composition, but cannot but marvel at the egotism which has preserved, and the conceit which has published.

Lamb himself probably was not much disturbed by Jerdan's venom, but Southey took it much to heart, and a few weeks later sent to _The Times_ (of August 6, 1830) the following lines in praise of his friend:--