The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 66

I do not want Mr. Jameson or Lady Morgan.

Enfield

Wedn'y

["The Garrick Papers." Lamb refers, I suppose, to the _Private Correspondence of David Garrick_, in some form previous to its publication in 1832.

"Anne of Geierstein." Scott's novel was published this year.

"Mr. Jameson." I cannot find any book by a Mr. Jameson likely to have been offered to Lamb; but Mrs. Jameson's _Loves of the Poets_ was published this year. Probably he meant to write Mrs. Jameson. Lady Morgan was the author of _The Wild Irish Girl_ and other novels. Her 1829 book was _The Book of the Boudoir_.]

LETTER 492

CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN

Chase-Side, Enfield, 26th Oct., 1829.

Dear Gillman,--Allsop brought me your kind message yesterday. How can I account for having not visited Highgate this long time? Change of place seemed to have changed me. How grieved I was to hear in what indifferent health Coleridge has been, and I not to know of it! A little school divinity, well applied, may be healing. I send him honest Tom of Aquin; that was always an obscure great idea to me: I never thought or dreamed to see him in the flesh, but t'other day I rescued him from a stall in Barbican, and brought him off in triumph. He comes to greet Coleridge's acceptance, for his shoe-latchets I am unworthy to unloose. Yet there are pretty pro's and con's, and such unsatisfactory learning in him.

Commend me to the question of etiquette-- "_utrum annunciatio debuerit fieri per angelum_"--_Quaest. 30, Articilus 2_. I protest, till now I had thought Gabriel a fellow of some mark and livelihood, not a simple esquire, as I find him. Well, do not break your lay brains, nor I neither, with these curious nothings. They are nuts to our dear friend, whom hoping to see at your first friendly hint that it will be convenient, I end with begging our very kindest loves to Mrs. Gillman.

We have had a sorry house of it here. Our spirits have been reduced till we were at hope's end what to do-- obliged to quit this house, and afraid to engage another, till in extremity I took the desperate resolve of kicking house and all down, like Bunyan's pack; and here we are in a new life at board and lodging, with an honest couple our neighbours. We have ridded ourselves of the cares of dirty acres; and the change, though of less than a week, has had the most beneficial effects on Mary already. She looks two years and a half younger for it. But we have had sore trials.

G.o.d send us one happy meeting!--Yours faithfully,

C. LAMB.

["The question of etiquette." See the _Summa Theologies_, Pars Tertia, Quest. x.x.x., Articulus II. It would be interesting to know whether Lamb remembered an earlier letter in which he had set Coleridge some similar "nuts."

"In a new life." The Lambs moved next door, to the Westwoods. The house, altered externally, still stands (1912) and is known as "Westwood Cottage."]

LETTER 493

CHARLES LAMB TO VINCENT NOVELLO

[P.M. Probably Nov. 10, 1829.]

Dear FUGUE-IST,

or hear'st thou rather

CONTRAPUNTIST--?

We expect you four (as many as the Table will hold without squeeging) at Mrs. Westwood's Table D'Hote on Thursday. You will find the White House shut up, and us moved under the wing of the Phoenix, which gives us friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry, we have none, but cleanly accomodings at the Crown & Horseshoe.

Yours harmonically,

C.L.

[Addressed: Vincentio (what Ho!) Novello, a Squire, 66, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.]

["The Phoenix." Mr. Westwood was agent for the Phoenix Insurance Company, and the badge of that office was probably on the house.]

LETTER 494

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON

Enfield, 15th November, 1829.

My dear Wilson,--I have not opened a packet of unknown contents for many years, that gave me so much pleasure as when I disclosed your three volumes. I have given them a careful perusal, and they have taken their degree of cla.s.sical books upon my shelves. De Foe was always my darling; but what darkness was I in as to far the larger part of his writings! I have now an epitome of them all. I think the way in which you have done the "Life" the most judicious you could have pitched upon. You have made him tell his own story, and your comments are in keeping with the tale.

Why, I never heard of such a work as "the Review." Strange that in my stall-hunting days I never so much as lit upon an odd volume of it. This circ.u.mstance looks as if they were never of any great circulation. But I may have met with 'em, and not knowing the prize, overpast 'em. I was almost a stranger to the whole history of Dissenters in those reigns, and picked my way through that strange book the "Consolidator" at random. How affecting are some of his personal appeals! what a machine of projects he set on foot! and following writers have picked his pocket of the patents. I do not understand where-abouts in _Roxana_ he himself left off. I always thought the complete-tourist-sort of description of the town she pa.s.ses through on her last embarkation miserably unseasonable and out of place. I knew not they were spurious. Enlighten me as to where the apocryphal matter commences. I, by accident, can correct one A.D. "Family Instructor," vol. ii. 1718; you say his first volume had then reached the fourth edition; now I have a fifth, printed for Eman. Matthews, 1717. So have I plucked one rotten date, or rather picked it up where it had inadvertently fallen, from your flouris.h.i.+ng date tree, the Palm of Engaddi. I may take it for my pains. I think yours a book which every public library must have, and every English scholar should have. I am sure it has enriched my meagre stock of the author's works. I seem to be twice as opulent. Mary is by my side just finis.h.i.+ng the second volume. It must have interest to divert her away so long from her modern novels. Colburn will be quite jealous. I was a little disappointed at my "Ode to the Treadmill" not finding a place; but it came out of time. The two papers of mine will puzzle the reader, being so akin. Odd that, never keeping a sc.r.a.p of my own letters, with some fifteen years' interval I should nearly have said the same things.

But I shall always feel happy in having my name go down any how with De Foe's, and that of his historiographer. I promise myself, if not immortality, yet diuternity of being read in consequence. We have both had much illness this year; and feeling infirmities and fretfulness grow upon us, we have cast off the cares of housekeeping, sold off our goods, and commenced boarding and lodging with a very comfortable old couple next door to where you found us. We use a sort of common table.

Nevertheless, we have reserved a private one for an old friend; and when Mrs. Wilson and you revisit Babylon, we shall pray you to make it yours for a season. Our very kindest remembrances to you both. From your old friend and _fellow-journalist_, now in _two instances_,

C. LAMB.

Hazlitt is going to make your book a basis for a review of De Foe's Novels in the "Edinbro'." I wish I had health and spirits to do it. Hone I have not seen, but I doubt not he will be much pleased with your performance. I very much hope you will give us an account of Dunton, &c.

But what I should more like to see would be a Life and Times of Bunyan.

Wis.h.i.+ng health to you and long life to your healthy book, again I subscribe me,

Yours in verity,

C.L.

[Wilson's _Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe_ had just been published in three volumes, with the date 1830.

Defoe's _Review_ was started in February, 1704, under the t.i.tle, _A Review of the Affairs of France.... purged from the Errors and Partiality of News-writers, and Petty-Statesmen, of all sides_. It continued until May, 1713. _The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of sundry Transactions from the world in the moon. Translated from the Lunar Language_, was published in 1765, a political satire, which, it has been thought, gave hints to Swift for Gulliver.

Lamb had sent Wilson his "Ode to the Treadmill." The substance of his letter of December 16, 1822, was printed by Wilson in Chapter XXII. of Vol. III.; the new material which he wrote especially for the book, was printed in Chapter XVII. of the same volume. The s.p.a.ce dividing them was not fifteen years but seven.

"Diuternity." Spelt "diuturnity." A rare word signifying long duration.

"_Fellow-journalist_." The other instance would be in connection with the journals of the India House, where Wilson had once been a clerk with Lamb.

Hazlitt's review of Wilson's book is in the _Edinburgh_ for January, 1830, with this reference to Lamb's criticisms: "_Captain Singleton_ is a hardened, brutal desperado, without one redeeming trait, or almost human feeling; and, in spite of what Mr. Lamb says of his lonely musings and agonies of a conscience-stricken repentance, we find nothing of this in the text."

"Dunton." This would be John Dunton (1659-1733), the bookseller, and author of _The Athenian Gazette, Dunton's Whipping-Post_, and scores of pamphlets and satires.]

LETTER 495