The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 34

[Footnote 5: Two _neat_ lines.]

[Footnote 6: Or _you_.]

[Footnote 7: Or _our_, as _they_ have altered it.]

[Footnote 8: Ant.i.thesis.]

["As one Tobin's." The rehearsals of "Antonio" were attended by G.o.dwin's friend, John Tobin, subsequently author of "The Honeymoon," in the hope, on account of G.o.dwin's reputation for heterodoxy, of deceiving people as to the real authors.h.i.+p of the play. It was, however, avowed by G.o.dwin on the t.i.tle-page.

Jack Bannister, the comedian, was a favourite actor of Lamb's. See the _Elia_ essay "On some of the Old Actors."

Miss Heard was a daughter of William Heard, the author of "The Snuff-Box," a feeble comedy. Miss Tidswell, by the irony of fate, had a part in Lamb's own play, "Mr. H.," six years later.

"I have not read the play." Meaning probably, "I have not read it in its final form." Lamb must have read it in earlier versions. I quote Mr.

Kegan Paul's summary of the plot of "Antonio":--

"Helena was betrothed, with her father's consent, to her brother Antonio's friend, Roderigo. While Antonio and Roderigo were at the wars, Helena fell in love with, and married, Don Gusman. She was the king's ward, who set aside the pre-contract. Antonio, returning, leaves his friend behind; he has had great sorrows, but all will be well when he comes to claim his bride. When Antonio finds his sister is married, the rage he exhibits is ferocious. He carries his sister off from her husband's house, and demands that the king shall annul the marriage with Gusman. There is then talk of Helena's entrance into a convent. At last the king, losing patience, gives judgment, as he had done before, that the pre-contract with Roderigo was invalid, and the marriage to Gusman valid. Whereupon Antonio bursts through the guards, and kills his sister."]

LETTER 76

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM G.o.dWIN

Dec. 14, 1800.

Late o' Sunday.

Dear Sir,--I have performed my office in a slovenly way, but judge for me. I sat down at 6 o'clock, and never left reading (and I read out to Mary) your play till 10. In this sitting I noted down lines as they occurred, exactly as you will read my rough paper. Do not be frightened at the bulk of my remarks, for they are almost all upon single lines, which, put together, do not amount to a hundred, and many of them merely verbal. I had but one object in view, abridgement for compression sake.

I have used a dogmatical language (which is truly ludicrous when the trivial nature of my remarks is considered), and, remember, my office was to hunt out faults. You may fairly abridge one half of them, as a fair deduction for the infirmities of Error, and a single reading, which leaves only fifty objections, most of them merely against words, on no short play. Remember, you const.i.tuted me Executioner, and a hangman has been seldom seen to be ashamed of his profession before Master Sheriff.

We'll talk of the Beauties (of which I am more than ever sure) when we meet,--Yours truly, C. L.

I will barely add, as you are on the very point of printing, that in my opinion neither prologue nor epilogue should accompany the play. It can only serve to remind your readers of its fate. _Both_ suppose an audience, and, that jest being gone, must convert into burlesque. Nor would I (but therein custom and decorum must be a law) print the actors'

names. Some things must be kept out of sight.

I have done, and I have but a few square inches of paper to fill up. I am emboldened by a little jorum of punch (vastly good) to say that next to _one man_, I am the most hurt at our ill success. The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector, looked not to be more lovely than Marshal's forehead when it spit forth sweat, at Critic-swords contending. I remember two honest lines by Marvel, (whose poems by the way I am just going to possess)

"Where every Mower's wholesome heat Smells like an Alexander's sweat."

["Antonio" was performed on December 13, with John Philip Kemble in the t.i.tle-role, and was a complete failure. Lamb wrote an account of the unlucky evening many years later in the "Old Actors" series in the _London Magazine_ (see Vol. II. of the present edition). He speaks there, as here, of Marshal's forehead--Marshal being John Marshall, a friend of the G.o.dwins.

After the play G.o.dwin supped with Lamb, when it was decided to publish "Antonio" at once. Lamb retained the MS. for criticism. The present letter in the original contains his comments, the only one of which that Mr. Kegan Paul thought worth reproducing being the following:-- "'Enviable' is a very bad word. I allude to 'Enviable right to bless us.' For instance, Burns, comparing the ills of manhood with the state of infancy, says, 'Oh! enviable early days;' here 'tis good, because the pa.s.sion lay in comparison. Excuse my insulting your judgment with an ill.u.s.tration. I believe I only wanted to beg in the name of a favourite Bardie, or at most to confirm my own judgment."

Lamb, it will be remembered, had refused to let Coleridge use "enviable"

in "Lewti." Burns's poem to which Lamb alludes is "Despondency, an Ode,"

Stanza 5, "Oh! enviable, early days."

G.o.dwin's play was published in 1801 without Lamb's epilogue.]

LETTER 77

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

Dec. 16th, 1800.

We are d.a.m.n'd!

Not the facetious epilogue could save us. For, as the editor of the "Morning Post," quick-sighted gentleman! hath this morning truly observed, (I beg pardon if I falsify his _words_, their profound _sense_ I am sure I retain,) both prologue and epilogue were worthy of accompanying such a piece; and indeed (mark the profundity, Mister Manning) were received with proper indignation by such of the audience only as thought either worth attending to. PROFESSOR, thy glories wax dim! Again, the incomparable author of the "True Briton" declareth in _his_ paper (bearing same date) that the epilogue was an indifferent attempt at humour and character, and failed in both. I forbear to mention the other papers, because I have not read them. O PROFESSOR, how different thy feelings now (_quantum mutatus ab illo professore, qui in agris philosophiae tantas victorias aquisivisti_),--how different thy proud feelings but one little week ago,--thy antic.i.p.ation of thy nine nights,--those visionary claps, which have soothed thy soul by day and thy dreams by night! Calling in accidentally on the Professor while he was out, I was ushered into the study; and my nose quickly (most sagacious always) pointed me to four tokens lying loose upon thy table, Professor, which indicated thy violent and satanical pride of heart.

Imprimis, there caught mine eye a list of six persons, thy friends, whom thou didst meditate inviting to a sumptuous dinner on the Thursday, antic.i.p.ating the profits of thy Sat.u.r.day's play to answer charges; I was in the honoured file! Next, a stronger evidence of thy violent and almost satanical pride, lay a list of all the morning papers (from the "Morning Chronicle" downwards to the "Porcupine,") with the places of their respective offices, where thou wast meditating to insert, and didst insert, an elaborate sketch of the story of thy play--stones in thy enemy's hand to bruise thee with; and severely wast thou bruised, O Professor! nor do I know what oil to pour into thy wounds. Next, which convinced me to a dead conviction of thy pride, violent and almost satanical pride--lay a list of books, which thy un-tragedy-favoured pocket could never answer; Dodsley's Old Plays, Malone's Shakspeare (still harping upon thy play, thy philosophy abandoned meanwhile to Christians and superst.i.tious minds); nay, I believe (if I can believe my memory), that the ambitious Encyclopaedia itself was part of thy meditated acquisitions; but many a playbook was there. All these visions are _d.a.m.ned_; and thou, Professor, must read Shakspere in future out of a common edition; and, hark ye, pray read him to a little better purpose! Last and strongest against thee (in colours manifest as the hand upon Belshazzar's wall), lay a volume of poems by C. Lloyd and C.

Lamb. Thy heart misgave thee, that thy a.s.sistant might possibly not have talent enough to furnish thee an epilogue! Manning, all these things came over my mind; all the gratulations that would have thickened upon him, and even some have glanced aside upon his humble friend; the vanity, and the fame, and the profits (the Professor is 500 ideal money out of pocket by this failure, besides 200 he would have got for the copyright, and the Professor is never much beforehand with the world; what he gets is all by the sweat of his brow and dint of brain, for the Professor, though a sure man, is also a slow); and now to muse upon thy altered physiognomy, thy pale and squalid appearance (a kind of _blue sickness_ about the eyelids), and thy crest fallen, and thy proud demand of 200 from thy bookseller changed to an uncertainty of his taking it at all, or giving thee full 50. The Professor has won my heart by this _his_ mournful catastrophe. You remember Marshall, who dined with him at my house; I met him in the lobby immediately after the d.a.m.nation of the Professor's play, and he looked to me like an angel: his face was lengthened, and ALL OVER SWEAT; I never saw such a care-fraught visage; I could have hugged him, I loved him so intensely--"From every pore of him a perfume fell." I have seen that man in many situations, and from my soul I think that a more G.o.d-like honest soul exists not in this world. The Professor's poor nerves trembling with the recent shock, he hurried him away to my house to supper; and there we comforted him as well as we could. He came to consult me about a change of catastrophe; but alas! the piece was condemned long before that crisis. I at first humoured him with a specious proposition, but have since joined his true friends in advising him to give it up. He did it with a pang, and is to print it as _his_.

L.

[The Professor was Lamb's name for G.o.dwin.

The _Porcupine_ was Cobbett's paper.]

LETTERS 78 AND 79

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [Middle December.]

I send you all of Coleridge's letters to me, which I have preserved: some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious critique on "Pride's Cure," by a young physician from EDINBRO, who modestly suggests quite another kind of a plot. These are monuments of my disappointment which I like to preserve.

In Coleridge's letters you will find a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt, to see genuine talent struggling against a pompous display of it. I also send you the Professor's letter to me (careful Professor! to conceal his _name_ even from his correspondent), ere yet the Professor's pride was cured. Oh monstrous and almost satanical pride!

You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch Doctor's, _which burn in status quo_), till I come to claim mine own.

C. LAMB.

For Mister Manning, Teacher of Mathematics and the Black Arts. There is another letter in the inside cover of the book opposite the blank leaf that _was_.

Mind this goes for a letter. (Acknowledge it _directly_, if only in ten words.)

DEAR MANNING--(I shall want to hear this comes safe.) I have scratched out a good deal, as you will see. Generally, what I have rejected was either false in feeling, or a violation of character--mostly of the first sort. I will here just instance in the concluding few lines of the "Dying Lover's Story," which completely contradicted his character of _silent_ and _unreproachful_. I hesitated a good deal what copy to send you, and at last resolved to send the worst, because you are familiar with it, and can make it out; and a stranger would find so much difficulty in doing it, that it would give him more pain than pleasure.

This is compounded precisely of the two persons' hands you requested it should be.--Yours sincerely,

C. LAMB.

[These were the letters accompanying the copy of "Pride's Cure" (or "John Woodvil") which Charles and Mary Lamb together made for Manning, as requested in the note on page 197.

All the letters mentioned by Lamb have vanished; unless by an unlikely chance the bundle contained Coleridge's letters on Mrs. Lamb's death and on the quarrel with Lamb and Lloyd.