The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 54

Let me never be forgotten to include in my rememb'ces my good friend and whilom correspondent Master Stephen.

How, especially, is Victoria?

I try to remember all I used to meet at Shacklewell. The little household, cake-producing, wine-bringing out Emma--the old servant, that didn't stay, and ought to have staid, and was always very dirty and friendly, and Miss H., the counter-tenor with a fine voice, whose sister married Thurtell. They all live in my mind's eye, and Mr. N.'s and Holmes's walks with us half back after supper. Troja fuit!

["_The Companion_." Leigh Hunt's paper lasted only for seven months.

Madame Pasta, of whom too much was written, was Giudetta Pasta (1798-1865), a singer of unusual compa.s.s, for whom Bellini wrote "La Somnambula."

The following is the account of the Sliding Watchman in the essay, "Walks Home by Night in Bad Weather. Watchmen":--

But the oddest of all was the _Sliding_ Watchman. Think of walking up a street in the depth of a frosty winter, with long ice in the gutters, and sleet over head, and then figure to yourself a sort of bale of a man in white, coming towards you with a lantern in one hand, and an umbrella over his head. It was the oddest mixture of luxury and hards.h.i.+p, of juvenility and old age! But this looked agreeable. Animal spirits carry everything before them; and our invincible friend seemed a watchman for Rabelais. Time was run at and b.u.t.ted by him like a goat. The slide seemed to bear him half through the night at once; he slipped from out of his box and his common-places at one rush of a merry thought, and seemed to say, "Everything's in imagination;--here goes the whole weight of my office."

"Your sister"--Mrs. Isabella Jane Towers, author of _The Children's Fireside_, 1828, and other books for children, to whom Lamb had sent a sonnet (see Vol. IV.).

"Novello... dedications... I read the _Atlas_." In _The Atlas_ for February 17 was reviewed _Select Airs from Spohr's celebrated Opera of Faust, arranged as duetts for the Pianoforte and inscribed to his friend Charles Cowden Clarke by Vincent Novello_. Holmes was musical critic for _The Atlas_.

"One Clarke a schoolmaster." See note to the letter to Clarke in the summer of 1821.

"Holofernes' days"--Holofernes, the schoolmaster, in "Love's Labour's Lost." Cowden Clarke had a.s.sisted his father.

"Master Stephen." I do not identify Stephen.

"Victoria"--Mary Victoria Novello, afterwards Mrs. Charles Cowden Clarke.

"At Shacklewell"--the Novellos' old home. They now lived in Bedford Street, Covent Garden.

"Whose sister married Thurtell." Thurtell, the murderer of Mr. Weare, I suppose.

In the Boston Bibliophile edition there is also a brief note to Clarke.]

LETTER 450

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[P.M. Feb. 26, 1828.]

My dear Robinson, It will be a very painful thing to us indeed, if you give up coming to see us, as we fear, on account of the nearness of the poor Lady you inquire after. It is true that on the occasion she mentions, which was on her return from last seeing her daughter, she was very heated and feverish, but there seems to be a great amendment in her since, and she has within a day or two pa.s.sed a quiet evening with us.

At the same time I dare not advise any thing one way or another respecting her daughter coming to live with her. I entirely disclaim the least opinion about it. If we named any thing before her, it was erroneously, on the notion that _she_ was the obstacle to the plan which had been suggested of placing her daughter in a Private Family, _which seem'd your wish_. But I have quite done with the subject. If we can be of any amus.e.m.e.nt to the poor Lady, without self disturbance, we will.

But come and see us after Circuit, as if she were not. You have no more affect'te friends than C. AND M. LAMB.

["The poor Lady" was, I imagine, the widow of Antony Robinson.]

LETTER 451

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

March 19th, 1828.

My dear M.--It is my firm determination to have nothing to do with "Forget-me-Nots"--pray excuse me as civilly as you can to Mr. Hurst. I will take care to refuse any other applications. The things which Pickering has, if to be had again, I have promised absolutely, you know, to poor Hood, from whom I had a melancholy epistle yesterday; besides that, Emma has decided objections to her own and her friend's Alb.u.m verses being published; but if she gets over that, they are decidedly Hood's.

Till we meet, farewell. Loves to Dash. C.L.

[Moxon seems to have asked Lamb for a contribution for one of Hurst's annuals, probably the _Keepsake_.

Hood was to edit _The Gem_ for 1829.

"Dash."--Moxon seems to have been the present master of the dog.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Edward Irving, introducing Hone, who in later life became devout and preached at the Weigh House Chapel in Eastcheap.]

LETTER 452

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. April 21, 1828.]

DEAR B.B.--You must excuse my silence. I have been in very poor health and spirits, and cannot write letters. I only write to a.s.sure you, as you wish'd, of my existence. All that which Mitford tells you of H.'s book is rhodomontade, only H. has written unguardedly about me, and nothing makes a man more foolish than his own foolish panegyric. But I am pretty well cased to flattery, or its contrary. Neither affect[s] me a turnip's worth. Do you see the Author of May you Like it? Do you write to him? Will you give my present plea to him of ill health for not acknowledge a pretty Book with a pretty frontispiece he sent me. He is most esteem'd by me. As for subscribing to Books, in plain truth I am a man of reduced income, and don't allow myself 12 s.h.i.+llings a-year to buy OLD BOOKS with, which must be my Excuse. I am truly sorry for Murray's demur, but I wash my hands of all booksellers, and hope to know them no more. I am sick and poorly and must leave off, with our joint kind remembrances to your daughter and friend A.K. C.L.

["H.'s book." In Hunt's _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_ Lamb was praised very warmly.

"The Author of May you Like it"--the Rev. C.B. Tayler. The book with a pretty frontispiece was _A Fireside Book_, 1828, with a frontispiece by George Cruikshank.

"Murray's demur"-an unfavourable reply, possibly to a suggestion of Barton's concerning a new volume.]

LETTER 453

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[May 1st, 1828.]

Dear A.--I am better. Mary quite well. We expected to see you before. I can't write long letters. So a friendly love to you all.

Yours ever,

C.L.

Enfield.