The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 50

"THEATRE

"COVENT GARDEN

"Mr. Cooke performed _Lear_ in the celebrated Tragedy of that name at this Theatre last night. It is a character little suited to his talents. In the expression of strong and turbulent pa.s.sions, he will always find his forte; but he wants gentleness and softness for melting and melancholy scenes. Whatever, therefore, may be his excellence in the ambitious and heroic _Richard_, those who have duly weighed his peculiar powers could not expect much from his representation of the broken-hearted _Lear_. No principle can be more clear, than that cruelty and ingrat.i.tude are black in proportion to the weakness and helplessness of the object on which they are exercised. The great master of the human heart accordingly makes this good old King represent himself as a man standing upon the last verge of life--a man 'eighty years old and upwards.' It is from turning such a man as this out of doors, and by his ungrateful children, too, to 'bide the pelting of the pityless storm,' that the interest princ.i.p.ally arises. In this line, so clearly marked by the poet, Mr. Cooke showed a total want of discrimination. His step was almost uniformly firm, and his whole deportment too vigorous for his years. The heart, therefore, could not feel that pity which the sight of a deserving object, physically unable to contend with unmerited hards.h.i.+ps, never fails to produce. His enunciation also, which was clear and strong, had none of the tremulousness of feeble old age, and his voice seldom succeeded in the modulation of tones sufficiently plaintive and delicate to express the agonies of a broken heart. The scene where he imprecates a curse upon the undutiful _Goneril_ was given with energy, but without that anguish which must wring a parent's bosom in such a situation. The mad scene with _Edgar_ was also a very imperfect piece of acting, and few of the beautiful pa.s.sages with which the piece abounds, received that excellent colouring and embellishment with which Mr.

Kemble in the same character calls down such plaudits in the other House. Mr. Cooke having so evidently placed himself in the way of comparison, this allusion cannot be deemed invidious.--This new essay should, however, make him slow to venture beyond his depth, and justifies our apprehension that he does not possess an elasticity of mind, a pliancy of powers, to enable him to pursue his rival through all the variety of his characters with the same success that he encounters him on Bosworth field.

"Mr. H. Siddons was an excellent _Edgar_; his mad scenes displayed much chaste and natural acting, and several pa.s.sages were marked with beauties peculiarly his own. His representation of the character would be still more interesting, were he to infuse into his manner more fondness for his mistress, _Cordelia_, and his unfortunate father, the _Earl of Gloucester_. Miss Murray, whose excellence in characters of simple pathos is so well known, was a most interesting portrait of _Cordelia_. She played the part with great delicacy and feeling, sweetness and simplicity.

"Mr. Hull, in _Glo'ster_, was natural and impressive; and Mr.

Waddy, though a little coa.r.s.e as _Earl of Kent_, was a good picture of blunt honesty in his humble disguise as _Caius_. The other characters did not possess much merit, or deserve much notice."

Page 44. II.--GRAND STATE BED.

Writing to Rickman about his _Morning Post_ work, in January, 1802, Lamb says that in addition to certain other things it was he who made the Lord Mayor's bed. The reference is undoubtedly to this little article on January 4, 1802.

Page 44. III.--FABLE FOR TWELFTH DAY.

On January 6 (Twelfth Night), 1802, this fable was printed in the _Morning Post_. That Lamb was the author no one need have any doubt after reading the _Elia_ essay, "Rejoicings on the New Year's Coming of Age."

Page 46. IV.--THE LONDONER.

_Morning Post_. February 1, 1802. _Works_, 1818.

This paper, although it is included in the _Works_ among "Letters under a.s.sumed signatures, published in _The Reflector_," and although it is nominally addressed to the editor of that paper, did not, however, appear in it. It was first printed in the _Morning Post_ for February 1, 1802, during Lamb's brief connection with that paper, the story of which is told in the note to the essay on "Newspapers" in _Elia_.

"The Londoner" in the _Morning Post_ differed from the version subsequently reprinted. See notes to vol. I. of my large edition.

John Forster, in his memoir of Lamb in the _New Monthly Magazine_ in 1835, has the following pa.s.sage, which, applying to Lamb's later life (Forster was only twenty-two when Lamb died), rounds off, with certain ecstatic pa.s.sages in the letters, the present London eulogium. The lines quoted by Forster are from "The Old Familiar Faces":--

"We recollect being once sent by her [Mary Lamb] to seek 'Charles,'

who had rambled away from her. We found him in the Temple, looking up, near Crown-office-row, at the house where he was born. Such was his ever-touching habit of seeking alliance with the scenes of old times. They were the dearer to him that distance had withdrawn them. He wished to pa.s.s his life among things gone by yet not forgotten; we shall never forget the affectionate 'Yes, boy,' with which he returned our repeating his own striking lines:--

"'Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse.'"

Page 46, line 11. _Great annual feast_. In stating that he was born on Lord Mayor's Day, Lamb stretched a point. His birthday was February 10.

Page 48. CHARACTERS OF DRAMATIC WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKSPEARE.

_Specimens_, 1808, and _Works_, 1818.

These notes are abridgments of the notes to Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_, 1808. The whole work is reproduced in my large edition, where such annotation as seems desirable may be found. The abridgment is printed here in order that the text of Lamb's own edition of his _Works_, 1818, may be preserved.

Page 65. ON THE INCONVENIENCES RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED.

To the circ.u.mstance that Leigh Hunt edited _The Reflector_, which was founded by his brother in 1810 as a literary and political quarterly, may be attributed in a large measure the beginning of Lamb's career as an essayist. Leigh Hunt, himself a Christ's Hospitaller, sought his contributors among old scholars of that school; from whom, as he remarked in the little note prefixed to the two-volume edition of the periodical, came "the largest and most entertaining part." Among these contributors were Lamb, George Dyer, Thomas Barnes, afterwards editor of _The Times_, Thomes Mitch.e.l.l, cla.s.sical scholar, James Scholefield, afterwards Greek Professor at Cambridge, Hunt himself, and Barron Field, who, though not actually a Christ's Hospitaller, was through his father, Henry Field, apothecary to the school, connected with it.

Until Lamb received Hunt's invitation to let his fancy play to what extent he would in _The Reflector's_ pages, he had received little or no encouragement as a writer; and he was naturally so diffident that without some external impulse he rarely brought himself to do his own work at all. Between _John Woodvil_ (1802) and the first _Reflector_ papers (1810) he had written "Mr. H.," performed his share in the children's books, and compiled the _Dramatic Specimens_: a tale of work which, considering that it was also a social period, and a busy period at the India House, is not trifling. But between the last _Reflector_ paper (1811 or 1812) and the first _Elia_ essay (1820) Lamb seems to have written nothing save the essays on Christ's Hospital, the "Confessions of a Drunkard," a few brief notes, reviews and dramatic criticisms, mainly at the instigation of Leigh Hunt, and some sc.r.a.ps of verse chiefly for _The Champion_. The world owes a great debt to Leigh Hunt for discerning Lamb's gifts and allowing him free rein. The comic letters to _The Reflector_ may not be Lamb at his best, though they are excellent stepping-stones to that state; but upon the essays on Shakespeare's tragedies and Hogarth's genius it is doubtful if Lamb could have improved at any period.

The _Reflector_ ran only to four numbers, which were very irregularly issued, and it then ceased. It ran nominally from October 1810 to December 1811. Crabb Robinson mentions reading No. I. on May 15, 1811.

Lamb, it may be remarked here, was destined to contribute to yet another _Reflector_. In 1832 Moxon started a weekly paper of that name in which part of Lamb's _Elia_ essay on the "Defect of Imagination in Modern Paintings" was printed. The venture, however, quickly failed, and all trace of it seems to have vanished.

Lamb's first _Reflector_ paper was ent.i.tled "ON THE INCONVENIENCES RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED."

It appeared in No. II., 1811, and was reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

He made yet another use of the central idea of this essay. The farce, "The p.a.w.nbroker's Daughter," written in 1825, turns upon the resuscitation of a hanged man, Jack Pendulous.

Page 68, line 6. _Smoke his cravat_. To smoke was old slang for to see, to notice. East-enders to-day would say "Pipe his necktie!"

Page 72, line 1. _The solution ... in "Hamlet."_

_First Clown._ What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the s.h.i.+pwright, or the carpenter?

_Second Clown._ The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

Act V., Scene I, lines 46-50.

Page 72. _Footnote. "The Spanish Tragedy."_ A play by Thomas Kyd (1557?-1595?), from which Lamb quoted largely in his _Specimens_, 1808.

This line is in Act III., in Hieronimo's instructions to the painter: "And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging, and tott'ring, and tott'ring, as you know the wind will wave a man...."

Page 72, line 3. _That scene in "Measure for Measure."_

_Pompey._ Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged, Master Barnardine!

_Abhorson._ What, ho, Barnardine!

_Bar._ [_Within._] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you?

_Pom._ Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death.

_Bar._ [_Within._] Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy.

_Abhor._ Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.

_Pom._ Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.

_Abhor._ Go in to him, and fetch him out.

_Pom._ He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.