The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 74

Old Tycho Brahe and modern Herschel Had something in them; but who's Purcel?

The devil, with his foot so cloven, For aught I care, may take Beethoven; And, if the bargain does not suit, I'll throw him Weber in to boot!

There's not the splitting of a splinter To chuse 'twixt _him last named_, and Winter.

Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido Knew just as much, G.o.d knows, as I do.

I would not go four miles to visit Sebastian Bach-or Batch-which is it?

No more I would for Bononcini.

As for Novello and Rossini, I shall not say a word about [to grieve] 'em, Because they're living. So I leave 'em.

Martin Burney is as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word "heir,"

which I contended was p.r.o.nounced like "air;" he said that might be in common parlance; or that we might so use it, speaking of the "Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the Law Courts it was necessary to give it a full aspiration, and to say _Hayer_; he thought it might even vitiate a cause, if a Counsel p.r.o.nounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he "would consult Serjeant Wilde;" who gave it against him. Sometimes he falleth into the water, sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and insisted on reading Virgil's "Eneid" all through with me (which he did,) because a Counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a Court of Justice. A third time, he would carve a fowl, which he did very ill-favoredly, because "we did not know how indispensable it was for a Barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were of more consequence than we supposed." So he goes on, hara.s.sing about the way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong one--harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He deserves one--: may be, he has tired him out.

I am----with this long scrawl, but I thought in your exile, you might like a letter. Commend me to all the wonders in Derbys.h.i.+re, and tell the devil I humbly kiss--my hand to him. Yours ever,

C. LAMB.

["Free Thoughts." The version in Ayrton's alb.u.m differs a little from this, the princ.i.p.al difference being in line 13, "primitive" for "un-Spaniardised." Lamb's story of the origin of the verses is not necessarily correct. I fancy that he had written them for Novello before he produced them in reply to Ayrton's challenge. When sending the poem to Ayrton in a letter at this time, not available for this edition (written apparently just after Novello had paid the visit, referred to above), Lamb wrote that it was written to gratify Novello.

Mary Lamb (or Charles Lamb, personating her) appended the following postscript to the verses in Novello's alb.u.m:--

The reason why my brother's so severe, Vincentio is--my brother has no ear: And Caradori her mellifluous throat Might stretch in vain to make him learn a note.

Of common tunes he knows not anything, Nor "Rule, Britannia" from "G.o.d save the King."

He rail at Handel! He the gamut quiz!

I'd lay my life he knows not what it is.

His spite at music is a pretty whim-- He loves not it, because it loves not him.

M. LAMB.

"Serjeant Wilde"-Thomas Wilde (1782-1855), afterwards Lord Truro, a friend of Lamb's, who is said to have helped him with squibs in the Newark election in 1829, when Martin Burney was among his supporters (see Vol. V. of my large edition, page 341).

Here had I permission, I would print Lamb's letter to Ayrton, given in the Boston Bibliophile edition, incorporating the same poem.]

LETTER 520

CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT

June 3, 1830.

Dear Sarah,--I named your thought about William to his father, who expressed such horror and aversion to the idea of his singing in public, that I cannot meddle in it directly or indirectly. Ayrton is a kind fellow, and if you chuse to consult him by Letter, or otherwise, he will give you the best advice, I am sure, very readily. _I have no doubt that M. Burney's objection to interfering was the same--with mine._ With thanks for your pleasant long letter, which is not that of an Invalid, and sympathy for your sad sufferings, I remain, in haste,

Yours Truly,

Mary's kindest Love.

[There was some talk of William Hazlitt Junr. becoming a pupil of Braham and taking up music seriously. He did not do so.

Here should come a note from Lamb to Hone, dated Enfield, June 17, 1830, in which Lamb offers Hone 1 per quarter for yesterday's Times, after the Coffee-House customers have done with it. He ends with the wish, "Vivant Coffee, Coffee-potque!"]

LETTER 521

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. June 28, 1830.]

DEAR B.B.--Could you dream of my publis.h.i.+ng without sending a copy to you? You will find something new to you in the vol. particularly the Translations. Moxon will send to you the moment it is out. He is the young poet of Xmas, whom the Author of the Pleasures of Memory has set up in the bookvending business with a volunteer'd loan of 500--such munificence is rare to an almost stranger. But Rogers, I am told, has done many goodnatured things of this nature. I need not say how glad to see A.K. and Lucy we should have been,--and still shall be, if it be practicable. Our direction is Mr. Westwood's, Chase Side Enfield, but alas I know not theirs. We can give them a bed. Coaches come daily from the Bell, Holborn.

You will see that I am worn to the poetical dregs, condescending to Acrostics, which are nine fathom beneath Alb.u.m verses--but they were written at the request of the Lady where our Emma is, to whom I paid a visit in April to bring home Emma for a change of air after a severe illness, in which she had been treated like a daughter by the good Parson and his whole family. She has since return'd to her occupation. I thought on you in Suffolk, but was 40 miles from Woodbridge. I heard of you the other day from Mr. Pulham of the India House.

Long live King William the 4th.

S.T.C. says, we have had wicked kings, foolish kings, wise kings, good kings (but few) but never till now have we had a Blackguard King--

Charles 2d was profligate, but a Gentleman.

I have nineteen Letters to dispatch this leisure Sabbath for Moxon to send about with Copies-so you will forgive me short measure--and believe me

Yours ever

C.L.

Pray do let us see your Quakeresses if possible.

[Lamb's _Alb.u.m Verses_ was almost ready. The translations were those from Vincent Bourne.

William IV. came to the throne on June 26, 1830.

"I have nineteen Letters." The fact that none of these is forthcoming helps to ill.u.s.trate the imperfect state of Lamb's correspondence as (even among so many differing editions) we now have it. But of course the number may have been an exaggeration.

Here should come a note from Lamb to Hone, dated July 1, 1830, in which Lamb asks that the newspaper be kept as he is meditating a town residence (see next letter).

Here probably should come an undated letter to Mrs. John Rickman, accompanying a gift of _Alb.u.m Verses_. Lamb says: "Will you re-give, or _lend_ me, by the bearer, the one Volume of juvenile Poetry? I have tidings of a second at Brighton." He proposes that he and Mrs. Rickman shall some day play old whist for the two.]

LETTER 522

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. 30 August, 1830.]

Dear B.B.--my address is 34 Southampton Buildings, Holborn. For G.o.d's sake do not let me [be] pester'd with Annuals. They are all rogues who edit them, and something else who write in them. I am still alone, and very much out of sorts, and cannot spur up my mind to writing. The sight of one of those Year Books makes me sick. I get nothing by any of 'em, not even a Copy--

Thank you for your warm interest about my little volume, for the critics on which I care [? not] the 5 hundred thousandth part of the tythe of a half-farthing. I am too old a Militant for that. How n.o.ble, tho', in R.S. to come forward for an old friend, who had treated him so unworthily. Moxon has a shop without customers, I a Book without readers. But what a clamour against a poor collection of alb.u.m verses, as if we had put forth an Epic. I cannot scribble a long Letter--I am, when not at foot, very desolate, and take no interest in any thing, scarce hate any thing, but annuals. I am in an interregnum of thought and feeling--