The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 78

Why is a horse like a Quaker?

Because all his communication is by Hay and Neigh, after the Lord's counsel, "Let all your communication be Yea and Nay."

In these trifles I waste the precious day, while watching over the health of our more precious Emma, who has been sick in our house this long time. My Mary sends you greeting with me, she herself in sound health.

Given from the Enfield country seat, on I know not what Calends of April--I am Davus not an Almanac.[l]

P.S.--The Reform Bill is lost altogether.

The Reform Bill was introduced on March 1, 1831, by Lord John Russell; the second reading was carried on March 22 by a majority of 1. On its commitment on April 19 there was a majority of 8 against the Government.

Four days later the Government was again defeated by 22 and Parliament was dissolved. But later, of course, the Reform Bill was pa.s.sed.]

[Footnote 1: Allusion to the phrase of Davus the servant in Plautus--"Davus sum non Oedipus."]

LETTER 532

CHARLES LAMB TO H.F. CARY

[Dated at end:] Datum ab agro Enfeldiensi, Maii die s.e.xta, 1831.

a.s.sidens est mihi bona soror, Euripiden evolvens, donum vestrum, carissime Cary, pro quo gratias agimus, lecturi atque iterum lecturi idem. Pergratus est liber ambobus, nempe "Sacerdotis Commiserationis,"

sacrum opus a te ipso Humanissimae Religionis Sacerdote dono datum.

Lachrymantes gavisuri sumus; est ubi dolor fiat voluptas; nee semper dulce mihi est ridere; aliquando commutandum est he! he! he! c.u.m heu!

heu! heu!

A Musis Tragicis me non penitus abhorruisse lestis sit Carmen Calamitosum, nescio quo autore lingua prius vernaculi scriptum, et nuperrime a me ipso Latine versum, scilicet, "Tom Tom of Islington."

Tenuistine?

"Thomas Thomas de Islington, Uxorem duxit Die quadam Solis, Abduxit domum sequenti die, Emit baculum subsequenti, Vapulat ilia postera, Aegrotat succedenti, Mortua fit crastina."

Et miro gaudio afficitur Thomas luce postera quod subsequenti (nempe, Dominica) uxor sit efferenda.

"En Iliades Domesticas!

En circulum calamitatum!

Plane hebdomadalem tragoediam."

I nunc et confer Euripiden vestrum his luctibus, hac morte uxoria; confer Alcesten! Hecuben! quasnon antiquas Heroinas Dolorosas.

Suffundor genas lachrymis, tantas strages revolvens. Quid restat nisi quod Tec.u.m Tuam Caram salutamus ambosque valere jubeamus, nosmet ipsi bene valentes. ELIA.

[Mr. Stephen Gwynn gives me the following translation:--

Sitting by me is my good sister, turning over Euripides, your gift, dear Cary [a pun here, "carissime care"], for which we thank you, and will read and re-read it. Most acceptable to both of us is this book of "Pity's Priest," a sacred work of your bestowing, yourself a priest of the most humane Religion. We shall take our pleasure weeping; there are times when pain turns pleasure, and I would not always be laughing: sometimes there should be a change--_heu heu!_ for _he! he!_

That I have not shrunk from the Tragic Muses, witness this Lamentable Ballad, first written in the vernacular by I know not what author and lately by myself put into Latin T. T. of Islington.

Have you heard it? (_See translation of preceding letter_.)

And Thomas is possessed with a wondrous joy on the following morning, because on the next day, that is, Sunday, his wife must be buried.

Lo, your domestic Iliads!

Lo, the wheel of Calamities The true tragedy of a week.

Go to now, compare your Euripides with these sorrows, this death of a wife! Compare Alcestis! Hecuba! or what not other sorrowing Heroines of antiquity.

My cheeks are tear-bedewed as I revolve such slaughter. What more to say, but to salute you Cary and your Cara, and wish you health, ourselves enjoying it.

In _Mary and Charles Lamb_, 1874, by W.C. Hazlitt, in the Catalogue of Charles Lamb's Library, for sale by Bartlett and Welford, New York, is this item:--"_Euripidis Tragediae, interp. Lat_. 8vo. Oxonii, 1821". "C.

and M. Lamb, from H.F. Cary," on flyleaf. This must be the book referred to. Euripides has been called the priest of pity.]

LETTER 533

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. July 14, 1831.]

Collier's Book would be right acceptable. And also a sixth vol. just publish'd of Nichols's Ill.u.s.trations of the Literary History of 18th Century. I agree with you, and do yet _not disagree_ with W.W., as to H. It rejoyced my heart to read his friendly spirited mention of your publications. It might be a drawback to my pleasure, that he has tried to decry my "Nicky," but on deliberate re- and reperusal of his censure I cannot in the remotest degree understand what he means to say. He and I used to dispute about h.e.l.l Eternities, I taking the affirmative. I love to puzzle atheists, and--parsons. I fancy it runs in his head, that I meant to rivet the idea of a personal devil. Then about the glorious three days! there was never a year or day in my past life, since I was pen-worthy, that I should not have written precisely as I have. Logic and modesty are not among H.'s virtues. Talfourd flatters me upon a poem which "n.o.body but I could have written," but which I have neither seen nor heard of--"The Banquet," or "Banqueting Something,"

that has appeared in The Tatler. Know you of it? How capitally the Frenchman has a.n.a.lysed Satan! I was hinder'd, or I was about doing the same thing in English, for him to put into French, as I prosified Hood's midsummer fairies. The garden of _cabbage_ escap'd him, he turns it into a garden of pot herbs. So local allusions perish in translation. About 8 days before you told me of R.'s interview with the Premier, I, at the desire of Badams, wrote a letter to him (Badams) in the most moving terms setting forth the age, infirmities &c. of Coleridge. This letter was convey'd to [by] B. to his friend Mr. Ellice of the Treasury, Brother in Law to Lord Grey, who immediately pa.s.s'd it on [to] Lord Grey, who a.s.sured him of immediate relief by a grant on the King's Bounty, which news E. communicated to B. with a desire to confer with me on the subject, on which I went up to THE Treasury (yesterday fortnight) and was received by the Great Man with the utmost cordiality, (shook hands with me coming and going) a fine hearty Gentleman, and, as seeming willing to relieve any anxiety from me, promised me an answer thro'

Badams in 2 or 3 days at furthest. Meantime Gilman's extraordinary insolent letter comes out in the Times! As to _my_ acquiescing in this strange step, I told Mr. Ellice (who expressly said that the thing was renewable three-yearly) that I consider'd such a grant as almost equivalent to the lost pension, as from C.'s appearance and the representations of the Gilmans, I scarce could think C.'s life worth 2 years' purchase. I did not know that the Chancellor had been previously applied to. Well, after seeing Ellice I wrote in the most urgent manner to the Gilmans, insisting on an immediate letter of acknowledgment from Coleridge, or them _in his name_ to Badams, who not knowing C. had come forward so disinterestedly amidst his complicated illnesses and embarra.s.sments, to _use up_ an interest, which he may so well need, in favor of a stranger; and from that day not a letter has B. or even myself, received from Highgate, unless _that publish'd one in the Times is meant as a general answer to all the friends who have stirr'd to do C. service_! Poor C. is not to blame, for he is in leading strings.--I particularly wish you would read this part of my note to Mr. Rogers. Now for home matters--Our next 2 Sundays will be choked up with all the Sugdens. The third will be free, when we hope you will show your sister the way to Enfield and leave her with us for a few days. In the mean while, could you not run down some week day (afternoon, say) and sleep at the Horse Shoe? I want to have my 2d vol. Elias bound Specimen fas.h.i.+on, and to consult you about 'em. Kenney has just a.s.sured me, that he has just touch'd 100 from the theatre; you are a d.a.m.n'd fool if you don't exact your Tythe of him, and with that a.s.surance I rest

Your Brother fool C.L.

[Collier's book would be his _History of English Dramatic Poetry_, 1831.

Nichols's _Ill.u.s.trations_ had been begun by John Nichols, and six volumes were published between 1817 and 1831. It was completed in two more volumes by his son, John Bowyer Nichols, in 1848 and 1858.

"H."--Leigh Hunt. We do not know what W.W., presumably Wordsworth, had to say of him; but this is how Hunt had referred to Moxon's publications and Lamb's _Satan in Search of a Wife_ in _The Tatler_ for June 4, 1831, the occasion being a review of "Selections from Wordsworth" for schools:--

Mr. Moxon has begun his career as a bookseller in singularly high taste. He has no connection but with the select of the earth. The least thing he does, is to give us a dandy poem, suitable to Bond street, and not without wit. We allude to the Byronian brochure, ent.i.tled "_Mischief_." But this is a mere condescension to the elegance of the street he lives in. Mr. Moxon commenced with some of the primaeval delicacies of _Charles Lamb_. He then astonished us with Mr. Rogers' poems on _Italy_.... Of some of these publications we have already spoken,--Mr. Lamb's _Alb.u.m Verses_ among them. And why (the reader may ask) not have noticed his _Satan in Search of a Wife_? Because, to say the truth, we did not think it worthy of him.

We rejoice in Mr. Lamb's accession to the good cause advocated by Sterne and Burns, refreshed by the wholesome mirth of Mr. Moncrieff, and finally carried (like a number of other astonished humanities, who little thought of the matter, and are not all sensible of it now) on the triumphant shoulders of the Glorious Three Days. But Mr.

Lamb, in the extreme sympathy of his delight, has taken for granted, that everything that can be uttered on the subject will be held to be worth uttering, purely for its own sake, and because it could not well have been said twelve months ago. He merges himself, out of the pure transport of his good will, into the joyous common-places of others; just as if he had joined a great set of children in tossing over some mighty bowl of snap-dragon, too scalding to bear; and thought that nothing could be so good as to echo their "hurras!"

Furthermore, we fear that some of his old friends, on the wrong side of the _House_, would think a little of his merriment profane: though for our parts, if we are certain of anything in this world, it is that nothing can be more Christian.

"The Banquet." I cannot find this poem. It is, I think, not in _The Tatler_.

"How capitally the Frenchman ..." I cannot find any French paraphrase of _Satan in Search of a Wife_, nor has a search at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris revealed one.

"R.'s interview with the Premier." R. would be Rogers. Perhaps the best explanation of this portion of Lamb's letter is the following pa.s.sage from Mr. d.y.k.es Campbell's memoir of Coleridge:--

On June 26, 1830, died George IV., and with him died the pensions of the Royal a.s.sociates. Apparently they did not find this out until the following year. In the _Englishman's Magazine_ for June, 1831, attention was directed to the fact that "intimation had been given to Mr.

Coleridge and his brother a.s.sociates that they must expect their allowances 'very shortly' to cease"--the allowances having been a personal bounty of the late King. On June 3, 1831, Gillman wrote a letter to the _Times_, "in consequence of a paragraph which appeared in the _Times_ of this day." He states that on the sudden suppression of the honorarium, representations on Coleridge's behalf were made to Lord Brougham, with the result that the Treasury (Lord Grey) offered a private grant of 200, which Coleridge "had felt it his duty most respectfully to decline." Stuart, however, wrote to King William's son, the Earl of Munster, pointing out the hards.h.i.+p entailed on Coleridge, "who is old and infirm, and without other means of subsistence." He begs the Earl to lay the matter before his royal father. To this a reply came, excusing the King on account of his "very reduced income," but promising that the matter shall be laid before His Majesty. To these letters, which are printed in _Letters from the Lake Poets_ (pages 319-322), the following note is appended: "The annuity ... was not renewed, but a sum of 300 was ultimately handed over to Coleridge by the Treasury." Even apart from this bounty, Coleridge was not a sufferer by the withdrawal of the King's pension, for Frere made it up to him annually.

It is interesting to know that Lamb played so useful and characteristic a part in this matter.