The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 78

Yours truly,

M. LAMB.

LETTER 201

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT

(_Added to same letter_)

Dear Hazlitt,

I cannot help accompanying my sister's congratulations to Sarah with some of my own to you on this happy occasion of a man child being born--

Delighted Fancy already sees him some future rich alderman or opulent merchant; painting perhaps a little in his leisure hours for amus.e.m.e.nt like the late H. Bunbury, Esq.

Pray, are the Winterslow Estates entailed? I am afraid lest the young dog when he grows up should cut down the woods, and leave no groves for widows to take their lonesome solace in. The Wem Estate of course can only devolve on him, in case of your brother leaving no male issue.

Well, my blessing and heaven's be upon him, and make him like his father, with something a better temper and a smoother head of hair, and then all the men and women must love him.

Martin and the Card-boys join in congratulations. Love to Sarah. Sorry we are not within Caudle-shot. C. LAMB.

If the widow be a.s.sistant on this notable occasion, give our due respects and kind remembrances to her.

[William Hazlitt's son, William Hazlitt, afterwards the Registrar, was born on September 26, 1811, He had been preceded by another boy, in 1809, who lived, however, only a few months.

"H. Bunbury." Henry William Bunbury, the caricaturist and painter, and the husband of Goldsmith's friend, Catherine Horneck, the "Jessamy Bride." He died in 1811.

The Card-boys would be Lamb's Wednesday visitors.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior, dated September 8, 1812. It is printed in _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_: a letter of criticism of Mr. Lloyd's translation of the _Epistles_ of Horace.

A letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Junior, belonging to this period, is now no more, in common with all but two of his letters, the remainder of which were destroyed by Lloyd's son, Charles Grosvenor Lloyd. Writing to Daniel Stuart on October 13, 1812, Wordsworth says. "Lamb writes to Lloyd that C.'s play [Coleridge's "Remorse"] is accepted."

We now come to a period of three years in Lamb's life which is represented in the correspondence by only two or three letters. Not until August 9, 1814, does he return to his old manner. During this time Lamb is known to have written his first essay on Christ's Hospital, his "Confessions of a Drunkard," the little but excellent series of Table-Talk in _The Examiner_ and some verses in the same paper. Possibly he wrote many letters too, but they have disappeared. We know from Crabb Robinson's _Diary_ that it was a social period with the Lambs; the India House work also becoming more exacting than before.]

LETTER 202

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN DYER COLLIER

[No date. Probably 1812.]

Dear Sir--Mrs. Collier has been kind enough to say that you would endeavour to procure a reporter's situation for W. Hazlitt. I went to consult him upon it last night, and he acceded very eagerly to the proposal, and requests me to say how very much obliged he feels to your kindness, and how glad he should be for its success. He is, indeed, at his wits' end for a livelihood; and, I should think, especially qualified for such an employment, from his singular facility in retaining all conversations at which he has been ever present. I think you may recommend him with confidence. I am sure I shall _myself_ be obliged to you for your exertions, having a great regard for him.

Yours truly,

C. LAMB.

Sunday morning.

[John Payne Collier, who prints this in his _Old Man's Diary_, adds: "The result was that my father procured for Hazlitt the situation of a parliamentary reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_; but he did not retain it long, and as his talents were undoubted, Mr. Perry transferred to him the office of theatrical critic, a position which was subsequently held for several years by a person of much inferior talents."

Crabb Robinson mentions in his _Diary_ under the date December 24, 1812, that Hazlitt is in high spirits from his engagement with Perry as parliamentary reporter at four guineas a week.

I place here, not having any definite date, a letter on a kindred subject from Mary Lamb:--]

LETTER 203

MARY LAMB TO MRS. JOHN DYER COLLIER [No date.]

Dear Mrs. C.--This note will be given to you by a young friend of mine, whom I wish you would employ: she has commenced business as a mantua-maker, and, if you and my girls would try her, I think she could fit you all three, and it will be doing her an essential service. She is, I think, very deserving, and if you procure work for her among your friends and acquaintances, so much the better. My best love to you and my girls. We are both well.

Yours affectionately, MARY LAMB.

[John Payne Collier remarks: "Southey and Coleridge, as is well known, married two sisters of the name of Fricker. I never saw either of them, but a third sister settled as a mantua-maker in London, and for some years she worked for my mother and her daughters. She was an intelligent woman, but by no means above her business, though she was fond of talking of her two poet-married relations. She was introduced to my mother by the following note from Mary Lamb, who always spoke of my sisters as _her_ girls."

Mary Lamb had herself worked as a mantua-maker for some years previous to the autumn of 1796.]

LETTER 204

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN SCOTT [P.M. (? Feb.), 1814.]

Sir--Your explanation is perfectly pleasant to me, and I accede to your proposal most willingly.

As I began with the beginning of this month, I will if you please call upon you for _your part of the engagement_ (supposing I shall have performed mine) on the 1st of March next, and thence forward if it suit you quarterly.--You will occasionally wink at BRISKETS & VEINY PIECES.

Your hble. Svt.

C. LAMB.

Sat.u.r.day.

[John Scott (1783-1821) we shall meet later, in 1820, in connection with the _London Magazine_, which he edited until the fatal termination of his quarrel with _Blackwood's_. Scott had just become editor of _The Champion_.

Lamb's only contribution to _The Champion_ under Scott, which can be identified, is the essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors," but there is little doubt that he supplied many of the extracts from old authors which were printed from time to time, and possibly one or two comic letters also. See the letter of Dec. 12, 1814.]