The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 71

This criticism of the Secondary Novels is usually preceded in the editions of Lamb's works by the following remarks contained in Lamb's letter to Wilson of December 16, 1822, which Wilson printed as page 428 of Vol. III., but they do not rightly form part of the article, which Lamb wrote seven years later, in 1829. I quote from the original MS. in the Bodleian:--

"In the appearance of _truth_, in all the incidents and conversations that occur in them, they exceed any works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The _Author_ never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be called, or rather Autobiographies) but the _Narrator_ chains us down to an implicit belief in every thing he says. There is all the minute detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot chuse but believe them. It is like reading Evidence given in a Court of Justice. So anxious the storyteller seems that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that when he has told us a matter of fact, or a motive, in a line or two farther down he _repeats_ it, with his favourite figure of speech, 'I say,' so and so--though he had made it abundantly plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master or mistress, who wishes to impress something upon their memories, and has a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed it is to such princ.i.p.ally that he writes.

His style is elsewhere beautiful, but plain and _homely_. Robinson Crusoe is delightful to all ranks and cla.s.ses, but it is easy to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly adapted to the lower conditions of readers; hence it is an especial favourite with sea-faring men, poor boys, servant-maids, &c. His novels are capital kitchen-reading, while they are worthy from their deep interest to find a shelf in the Libraries of the wealthiest, and the most learned. His pa.s.sion for _matter-of-fact narrative_, sometimes betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents which might happen to any man, and have no interest but the intense appearance of truth in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half, or two thirds, of Colonel Jack is of this description. The beginning of Colonel Jack is the most affecting natural picture of a young thief that was ever drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding it again when in despair, and then being in equal distress at not knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature; and, putting out of question the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, in my mind very much exceed Crusoe. Roxana (1st edition) is the next in Interest, though he left out the best part of it [in] subsequent Editions, from a foolish hyper criticism of his friend Southerne. But Moll Flanders, the account of the Plague, &c. &c. are all of one family, and have the same stamp of character."

One point in this 1822 criticism requires notice--that touching the first edition of _Roxana_. According to a letter from Lamb to Wilson, Lamb considered the curiosity of Roxana's daughter to be the best part of _Roxana_. But the episode of the daughter does not come into the first edition of the book (1724) at all, and is thought by some critics not to be De Foe's. Mr. Aitken, De Foe's latest editor, doubts the Southerne story altogether. In any case, Lamb was wrong in recommending the first edition for its completeness, for the later ones are fuller.

It was upon the episode of Susannah that G.o.dwin based his play, "Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote a prologue in praise of De Foe.

G.o.dwin's preface stated that the only edition of _Roxana_ then available--in 1807--in which to find the full story of Roxana's daughter, was that of 1745. G.o.dwin turned the avenging daughter into a son.

Writing to Wilson on the publication of his _Memoirs of De Foe_, Lamb says: "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 have nearly said the same things." (According to the dating of the letters the interval was not fifteen years, but seven.) Lamb also remarks, "De Foe was always my darling."

For a further criticism of De Foe see "The Good Clerk," page 148 of the present volume, and the notes to the same.

In introducing the criticism of the Secondary Novels, Wilson wrote:--

It may call for some surprise that De Foe should be so little known as a novelist, beyond the range of "Robinson Crusoe." To recall the attention of the public to his other fictions, the present writer is happy to enrich his work with some original remarks upon his secondary novels by his early friend, Charles Lamb, whose competency to form an accurate judgment upon the subject, no one will doubt who is acquainted with his genius.

Page 382, foot. _Mr. Coleridge has antic.i.p.ated us...._ Referring to Coleridge's remarks, see the _Biographia Literaria_, Vol. II., chapter iv.

Page 383, line 8. _An ingenious critic._ Lamb himself, in the 1822 criticism quoted above.

Page 383. CLARENCE SONGS.

_The Spectator_, July 24, 1830.

Concerning Lamb's theory that "Sweet La.s.s of Richmond Hill" was written upon Prince William, the editor of _The Spectator_ remarks that it had reference to George IV.--a monarch upon whom Lamb himself had done his share of rhyming. Lamb was at Christ's Hospital from 1782-1789. Prince William, who was born in 1765, became a mids.h.i.+pman in 1779. His promotion to lieutenant came in 1785, and to captain in the following year. The ballad to which Lamb refers is called "Duke William's Frolic." It relates how Duke William and a n.o.bleman, dressing themselves like sailors, repaired to an inn to drink. While there the Press gang came; the Duke was said to have been impudent to the lieutenant and was condemned to be flogged. The ballad (as given in Mr. John Ashton's _Modern Street Ballads_, 1888) ends:--

Then instantly the boatswain's mate began for to undress him, But, presently, he did espy the star upon his breast, sir; Then on their knees they straight did fall, and for mercy soon did call, He replied, You're base villains, thus using us poor sailors.

No wonder that my royal father cannot man his s.h.i.+pping, 'Tis by using them so barbarously, and always them a-whipping.

But for the future, sailors all, shall have good usage, great and small, To hear the news, together all cried, May G.o.d bless Duke William.

He ordered them fresh officers that stood in need of wealth, And with the crew he left some gold, that they might drink his health, And when that they did go away, the sailors loud huzzaed, Crying, Blessed be that happy day whereon was born Duke William.

Tom Sheridan, the dramatist's son, was born in 1775, and died in 1817, so that in 1783 he was only eight years old.

Page 385. RECOLLECTIONS OF A LATE ROYAL ACADEMICIAN.

_The Englishman's Magazine_, September, 1831. Not reprinted by Lamb.

In the magazine the t.i.tle ran:--

"PETER'S NET

"'_All is fish that comes to my net_'

"_No. 1.--Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_"

Moxon had taken over _The Englishman's Magazine_, started in April, 1831, in time to control the August number, in which had appeared a notice stating, of Elia, that "in succeeding months he promiseth to grace" the pages of the magazine "with a series of essays, under the quaint appellation of 'PETER'S NET.'" The magazine, however, lived only until the October number. Writing to Moxon at the time that he sent the MS. of this essay, Lamb remarked:--

"The R. A. here memorised was George Dawe, whom I knew well, and heard many anecdotes of, from Daniels and Westall, at H. Rogers's; to each of them it will be well to send a magazine in my name. It will fly like wildfire among the Royal Academicians and artists.... The 'Peter's Net'

does not intend funny things only. All is fish. And leave out the sickening 'Elia' at the end. Then it may comprise letters and characters addressed to Peter; but a signature forces it to be all characteristic of the one man, Elia, or the one man, Peter, which cramped me formerly."

George Dawe was born in 1781, the son of Philip Dawe, a mezzotint engraver. At first he engraved too, but after a course of study in the Royal Academy schools he took to portrait-painting, among his early sitters being William G.o.dwin. Throughout his career he painted portraits, varied at first with figure subjects of the kind described by Lamb. He was made an a.s.sociate in 1809 and an R.A. in 1814. His introduction to royal circles came with the marriage of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in 1816. After her death he went to Brussels in the suite of the Duke of Kent, and painted the Duke of Wellington. It was in 1819 that he visited St. Petersburg, remaining nine years, and painting nearly four hundred portraits, first of the officers who fought against Napoleon, and afterwards of other personages. He left in 1828, but returned in 1829 after a visit to England, and a short but profitable sojourn in Berlin. He died in 1829, and was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's. A pa.s.sage in his will shows Dawe to have been a rather more interesting character than Lamb suggests, and his _Life of George Morland_, 1807, has considerable merit.

Coleridge also knew Dawe well. Dawe painted a picture on a subject in "Love," drew Coleridge's portrait and took a cast of his face; and in 1812 Coleridge thus recommends him to Mrs. Coleridge's hospitality:--

He is a very modest man, his manners not over polished, and his worst point is that he is (at least, I have found him so) a fearful questionist, whenever he thinks he can pick up any information, or ideas, poetical, historical, topographical, or artistical, that he can make bear on his own profession. But he is sincere, friendly, strictly _moral_ in every respect, I firmly believe even to _innocence_, and in point of cheerful indefatigableness of industry, in regularity, and temperance--in short, in a glad, yet quiet, devotion of his whole being to the art he has made choice of, he is the only man I ever knew who goes near to rival Southey--gentlemanly address, person, physiognomy, knowledge, learning and genius being of course wholly excluded from the comparison.

Many years later, however, Coleridge endorsed Dawe's funeral card in the following terms, "The Grub" being the nickname by which Dawe was known:--

I really would have attended the Grub's Canonization in St. Paul's, under the impression that it would gratify his sister, Mrs. Wright; but Mr. G. interposed a conditional but sufficiently decorous negative. "No! Unless you wish to follow his Grubs.h.i.+p still further _down_." So I pleaded ill health. But the very Thursday morning I went to Town to see my daughter, for the first time, as _Mrs. Henry Coleridge_, in Gower Street, and, odd enough, the stage was stopped by the Pompous Funeral of the unchangeable and predestinated Grub, and I extemporised:--

"As Grub Dawe pa.s.s'd beneath the Hea.r.s.e's Lid, On which a large RESURGAM met the eye, _Col_, who well knew the Grub, cried, Lord forbid!

I trust, he's only telling us a lie!"

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Page 385, line 2 of essay. _To the Russian._ Among Dawe's court paintings was an equestrian portrait of Alexander I., twenty feet high.

His collection of portraits painted during his residence in Russia was lodged in a gallery built for it in the Winter Palace.

Page 385, line 11 of essay. _"Timon" as it was last acted._ Referring to the performance of "Timon of Athens," given exactly as in Shakespeare's day, with no women in the cast, at Drury Lane on October 28, 1816.

Page 385, line 9 from foot. _The Haytian._ I can find no authority for Lamb's suggestion that Dawe might have gone to Hayti to paint the court of Christophe. Probably Lamb based the theory, as a joke, upon a story of Dawe which Sir Anthony Carlisle, the surgeon, and a friend of Lamb's, used to tell. The story is told in _The Library of the Fine Arts_, 1831, in the following terms:--

In a conversation with Sir A. Carlisle, that eminent surgeon told Dawe that he had lately sent to Bartholemew's Hospital a negro of prodigious power and fine form, such as he had never before seen, and the sight of whom had given him better conceptions of the beauty of Grecian sculpture than he had previously possessed.

Struck with this account Dawe went to the Hospital where he found the man had been discharged. Any other person would here have given up the pursuit, but Dawe was not to be baffled in a favourite object; he accordingly commenced a strict search through all those parts of the town where such a person was likely to be found; and at length, after much inquiry, found him on board a s.h.i.+p about to sail for the West Indies. Dawe, though his means at that time were not so great as they afterwards became, induced the man to go home with him, where he maintained him some time; and the Negro having among other instances of his strength, told him of his once seizing a buffalo by the nostrils and bearing it down to the ground, Dawe was so struck by the fact as suited for the composition of a powerful picture, that he placed the man in the posture he described, and drew him in that att.i.tude. When the picture was sent for the premium of the British Inst.i.tution, several of the governors objected to it as being a portrait and not an historical picture; notwithstanding this, however, the better judgment of the majority awarded it the prize.

Page 386, line 2. _Widow H._ This was probably Mrs. Hope, wife of Thomas Hope, the famous virtuoso and patron, who had just died--in February, 1831. Dawe was one of his less capable proteges. It was Mr. and Mrs.

Hope whom Dubost, the French painter, out of pique, caricatured as "Beauty and the Beast." On the exhibition of the picture in public, the incident caused some notoriety, and George Dyer's friend Jekyll was engaged in the subsequent law-suit.

Page 386, line 16 from foot. _His father._ Philip Dawe, mezzotint engraver, who flourished 1760-1780, the friend of George Morland and the pupil of that painter's father, Henry Robert Morland (1730?-1797), and engraver of many of his pictures. George Dawe wrote George Morland's life.

Page 386, line 13 from foot. _Carrington and Bowles._ Properly, Carington Bowles, of 69 St. Paul's Churchyard. The laundress was.h.i.+ng was probably Lamb's recollection of one of the well-known pair, "Lady's-Maid Ironing" and "Lady's-Maid Soaping Linen," by Henry Morland, the originals of which are in the National Gallery. I cannot identify among the hundreds of Carington Bowles' publications in the British Museum the picture that Lamb so much admired in the Hornsey Road. But the inn would probably be that which is now The King's Head (or Yard of Pork), at the corner of Crouch End Hill (a continuation of Hornsey Lane), Crouch Hill, Coleridge Road and Broadway. The picture has gone.

Page 387, line 14 from foot. _He proceeded Academician._ Lamb wrote to Manning in 1810, "Mr. Dawe is made a.s.sociate of the Royal Academy. By what law of a.s.sociation, I can't guess."

Page 388, line 15 from foot. _Sampson ... Dalilah._ The letters contain an earlier account of the picture. Writing to Hazlitt in 1805 Lamb says: "I have seen no pictures of note since, except Mr. Dawe's gallery. It is curious to see how differently two great men treat the same subject, yet both excellent in their way: for instance, Milton and Mr. Dawe. Mr. Dawe has chosen to ill.u.s.trate the story of Sampson exactly in the point of view in which Milton has been most happy: the interview between the Jewish Hero, blind and captive, and Dalilah. Milton has imagined his Locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine's bristles; doubtless s.h.a.ggy and black, as being hairs 'which of a nation armed contained the strength.' I don't remember, he _says_ black: but could Milton imagine them to be yellow? Do you? Mr. Dawe with striking originality of conception has crowned him with a thin yellow wig, in colour precisely like Dyson's, in curl and quant.i.ty resembling Mrs.

Professor's,[73] his Limbs rather stout, about such a man as my Brother or Rickman--but no Atlas nor Hercules, nor yet so bony as Dubois, the Clown of Sadler's Wells. This was judicious, taking the spirit of the story rather than the fact: for doubtless G.o.d could communicate national salvation to the trust of flax and tow as well as hemp and cordage, and could draw down a Temple with a golden tress as soon as with all the cables of the British navy."

[73] Mrs. G.o.dwin.--ED.

Page 390, line 11. _Half a million._ Probably nearer 100,000. Dawe, however, lost much of this by money-lending, and died worth only 25,000.