The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 79

Page 52. _The Christening._

These lines were first printed in _Blackwood's Magazine,_ May, 1829.

Page 53. _On an Infant Dying as soon as Born._

This poem was first printed in _The Gem,_ 1829. _The Gem_ was then edited by Thomas Hood, whose child--his firstborn--it was thatinspired the poem. Lamb sent the verses to Hood in May, 1827.

This is, I think, in many ways Lamb's most remarkable poem.

Hood's own poem on the same event, printed in _Memorials of Thomas Hood_, by his daughter, 1860, has some of the grace and tenderness of the Greek Anthology:--

Little eyes that scarce did see, Little lips that never smiled; Alas! my little dear dead child, Death is thy father, and not me, I but embraced thee, soon as he!

Page 55. _To Bernard Barton._

These lines were sent to Barton in 1827, together with the picture. On June 11, Lamb wrote again:--

"DEAR B.B.,

"One word more of the picture verses, and that for good and all; pray, with a neat pen alter one line--

"His learning seems to lay small stress on--

"to

"His learning lays no mighty stress on,

"to avoid the unseemly recurrence (ungrammatical also) of 'seems' in the next line, besides the nonsense of 'but' there, as it now stands. And I request you, as a personal favor to me, to erase the last line of all, which I should never have written from myself. The fact is, it was a silly joke of Hood's, who gave me the frame, (you judg'd rightly it was not its own,) with the remark that you would like it because it was b-----d b-----d [the last line in question was 'And broad brimmed, as the owner's calling'] and I lugg'd it in: but I shall be quite hurt if it stands, because tho' you and yours have too good sense to object to it, I would not have a sentence of mine seen that to any foolish ear might sound unrespectful to thee. Let it end at 'appalling.'"

Line 1. _Woodbridge_. Barton lived at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, where he was a clerk in the old Quaker bank of d.y.k.es & Alexander.

Line 15. _Ann Knight_. Ann Knight was a Quaker lady, also resident at Woodbridge, who kept a small school there, and who had visited the Lambs in London and greatly charmed them.

Line 16. _Cla.s.sic Mitford_. The Rev. John Mitford (1781-1859) was rector of Benhall, in Suffolk, near Woodbridge, and a friend of Barton's, through whom Lamb's acquaintance with him was carried on. Mitford edited many poets, among them Vincent Bourne. He was editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ from 1834 to 1850.

Footnote. _Carrington Bowles_. Carington Bowles, 69 St. Paul's Churchyard, was the publisher of this print, which was the work of the elder Morland, and was engraved by Philip Dawe, father of Lamb's George Dawe (see the essay "Recollections of a late Royal Academician," Vol.

I.).

Lines 26, 27, 28. _Obstinate ... Banyan_. It was not Obstinate, but Christian, who put his fingers in his ears (see the first pages of _The Pilgrim's Progress_). Lamb had the same slip of memory in his paper "On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatre" (Vol. I.).

Page 56. _The Young Catechist_. Lamb sent this poem to Barton in a letter in 1827, wherein he tells the story of its inception:--"An artist who painted me lately, had painted a Blackamoor praying, and not filling his canvas, stuff'd in his little girl aside of Blacky, gaping at him unmeaningly; and then didn't know what to call it. Now for a picture to be promoted to the Exhibition (Suffolk Street) as Historical, a subject is requisite. What does me. I but christen it the 'Young Catechist,' and furbishd it with Dialogue following, which dubb'd it an Historical Painting. Nothing to a friend at need.... When I'd done it the Artist (who had clapt in Miss merely as a fill-s.p.a.ce) swore I exprest his full meaning, and the damsel bridled up into a Missionary's vanity. I like verses to explain Pictures: seldom Pictures to ill.u.s.trate Poems."

The artist was Henry Meyer (1782?-1847), one of the foundation members of the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, to the exhibition of which in 1826 he sent his portrait of Lamb, now in the India Office.

This picture was in a shop in the Charing Cross Road in 1910.

Page 57. _She is Going_.

These lines were written for I know not what occasion, but the artist Henry Meyer engraved a picture of G.J.L. n.o.ble in 1837 and Lamb's lines were placed below.

Page 57. _To a Young Friend_.

The young friend was Emma Isola, who lived with the Lambs for some years as their adopted daughter. Emma Isola was the daughter of Charles Isola, Esquire Bedell of the University of Cambridge, who died in 1823, leaving her unprovided for. His father, and Emma Isola's grandfather, was Agostino Isola, who settled at Cambridge and taught Italian there.

Wordsworth was among his pupils. He edited a collection of _Pieces selected from the Italian Poets_, 1778; also editions of _Gerusalemme Liberata_ and _Orlando Furioso_, and a book of _Italian Dialogues_. Emma Isola is first mentioned by Lamb in an unpublished letter written to her aunt, Miss Humphreys, in January, 1821, arranging for the little girl's return to Trumpington Street, Cambridge, from London, where she had been spending her holidays with the Lambs. The Lambs had met her at Cambridge in the summer of 1820. The exact date of her adoption by the Lambs cannot be ascertained now. Emma Isola married Edward Moxon in 1833, and lived until 1891.

Page 58. _To the Same_.

Writing to Procter in January, 1829, Lamb calls Miss Isola "a silent brown girl," and in his letter of November, 1833, to Mr. and Mrs. Moxon, he says: "I hope you [Moxon] and Emma will have many a quarrel and many a make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation!) ..." See the poem "To a Friend on His Marriage," page 80, for a further description of Emma Isola's character.

SONNETS

Page 58. _Harmony in Unlikeness_.

The two lovely damsels were Emma Isola and her friend Maria.