The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 82

July 2, 1832.

AT midsummer or soon after (I will let you know the previous day), I will take a day with you in the purlieus of my old haunts. No offence has been taken, any more than meant. My house is full at present, but empty of its chief pride. She is dead to me for many months. But when I see you, then I will say, Come and see me. With undiminished friends.h.i.+p to you both,

Your faithful but queer C.L.

How you frighted me! Never write again, "Coleridge is dead," at the end of a line, and tamely come in with "to his friends" at the beginning of another. Love is quicker, and fear from love, than the transition ocular from Line to Line.

LETTER 547

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON

[Dated at end: Aug., 1832.]

My dear Wilson, I cannot let my old friend Mrs. Hazlitt (Sister in Law to poor Wm. Hazlitt) leave Enfield, without endeavouring to introduce her to you, and to Mrs. Wilson. Her daughter has a School in your neighbourhood, and for her talents and by [for] her merits I can _answer_. If it lies in your power to be useful to them in any way, the obligation to your old office-fellow will be great. I have not forgotten Mrs. Wilson's Alb.u.m, and if you, or she, will be the means of procuring but one pupil for Miss Hazlitt, I will rub up my poor poetic faculty to the best. But you and she will one day, I hope, bring the Alb.u.m with you to Enfield-- Poor Mary is ill, or would send her love--

Yours very Truly

C. LAMB.

News.--Collet is dead, Du Puy is dead. I am _not_.--Hone! is turned Believer in Irving and his unknown Tongues.

In the name of dear Defoe which alone might be a Bond of Union between us, Adieu!

[Mrs. Hazlitt was the wife of John Hazlitt, the miniature painter, who died in 1837. I have been unable to trace her daughter's history.

Collet I do not recognise. Probably an old fellow-clerk at the India House, as was Du Puy. It is true that Hone was converted by Irving, and became himself a preacher.]

LETTER 548

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[No date. ? Early October, 1832.]

For Lander's kindness I have just esteem. I shall tip him a Letter, when you tell me how to address him.

Give Emma's kindest regrets that I could not entice her good friend, your Nephew, here.

Her warmest love to the Bury Robinsons--our all three to

H. Crab. C.L.

[Mr. Macdonald's transcript adds: "Accompanying copy of Lander's verses to Emma Isola, and others, contributed to Miss Wordsworth's Alb.u.m, and poem written at Wast-water. C.L."

The Bury Robinsons were Crabb Robinson's brother and other relatives, whom Miss Isola had met when at Fornham.]

LETTER 549

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

[No date. October, 1832.]

Dear Sir, pray accept a little volume. 'Tis a legacy from Elia, you'll see. Silver and Gold had he none, but such as he had, left he you. I do not know how to thank you for attending to my request about the Alb.u.m. I thought you would never remember it. Are not you proud and thankful, Emma?

Yes, _very, both_-- EMMA ISOLA.

Many things I had to say to you, which there was not time for. _One_ why should I forget? 'tis for Rose Aylmer, which has a charm I cannot explain. I lived upon it for weeks.--

Next I forgot to tell you I knew all your Welch annoyancers, the measureless Beethams. I knew a quarter of a mile of them. 17 brothers and 16 sisters, as they appear to me in memory. There was one of them that used to fix his long legs on my fender, and tell a story of a shark, every night, endless, immortal. How have I grudged the salt sea ravener not having had his gorge of him!

The shortest of the daughters measured 5 foot eleven without her shoes.

Well, some day we may confer about them. But they were tall. Surely I have discover'd the longitude--

Sir, If you can spare a moment, I should be happy to hear from you--that rogue Robinson detained your verses, till I call'd for them. Don't entrust a bit of prose to the rogue, but believe me

Your obliged C.L.

My Sister sends her kind regards.

[Crabb Robinson took Landor to see Lamb on September 28, 1832. The following pa.s.sage in Forster's _Life of Landor_ describes the visit and explains this letter:--

The hour he pa.s.sed with Lamb was one of unalloyed enjoyment. A letter from Crabb Robinson before he came over had filled him with affection for that most lovable of men, who had not an infirmity to which his sweetness of nature did not give something of kins.h.i.+p to a virtue. "I have just seen Charles and Mary Lamb," Crabb Robinson had written (20th October, 1831), "living in absolute solitude at Enfield. I find your poems lying open before Lamb. Both tipsy and sober he is ever muttering _Rose Aylmer_. But it is not those lines only that have a curious fascination for him. He is always turning to _Gebir_ for things that haunt him in the same way." Their first and last hour was now pa.s.sed together, and before they parted they were old friends. I visited Lamb myself (with Barry Cornwall) the following month, and remember the boyish delight with which he read to us the verses which Landor has written in the alb.u.m of Emma Isola. He had just received them through Robinson, and had lost little time in making rich return by sending Landor his Last Essays of Elia.

These were Landor's verses:--

TO EMMA ISOLA

Etrurian domes, Pelasgian walls, Live fountains, with their nymphs around Terraced and citron-scented halls, Skies smiling upon sacred ground--

The giant Alps, averse to France, Point with impatient pride to those, Calling the Briton to advance, Amid eternal rocks and snows--

I dare not bid him stay behind, I dare not tell him where to see The fairest form, the purest mind, Ausonia! that e'er sprang from thee,

and this is "Rose Aylmer";--

Ah what avails the sceptred race!

Ah what the form divine!

What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.