Chapter 7

SCENE.--At Flint's.

FLINT. WILLIAM.

FLINT I have overwalked myself, and am quite exhausted. Tell Marian to come and play to me.

WILLIAM I shall, Sir. [_Exit._]

FLINT I have been troubled with an evil spirit of late; I think an evil spirit. It goes and comes, as my daughter is with or from me. It cannot stand before her gentle look, when, to please her father, she takes down her music-book. _Enter William._

WILLIAM Miss Marian went out soon after you, and is not returned.

FLINT That is a pity--That is a pity. Where can the foolish girl be gadding?

WILLIAM The shopmen say she went out with Mr. Davenport.

FLINT Davenport? Impossible.

WILLIAM They say they are sure it was he, by the same token that they saw her slip into his hand, when she was past the door, the casket which you gave her.

FLINT Gave her, William! I only intrusted it to her. She has robbed me. Marian is a thief. You must go to the Justice, William, and get out a warrant against her immediately. Do you help them in the description. Put in "Marian Flint," in plain words--no remonstrances, William--"daughter of Reuben Flint,"--no remonstrances, but do it--

WILLIAM Nay, sir--

FLINT I am rock, absolute rock, to all that you can say--A piece of solid rock.--What is it that makes my legs to fail, and my whole frame to totter thus? It has been my over walking. I am very faint. Support me in, William. [_Exeunt_]

SCENE.--_The Apartment of Miss Flyn._

MISS FLYN. BETTY.

MISS FLYN 'Tis past eleven. Every minute I expect Mr. Pendulous here. What a meeting do I anticipate!

BETTY Anticipate, truly! what other than a joyful meeting can it be between two agreed lovers who have been parted these four months?

MISS FLYN But in that cruel space what accidents have happened!--(_aside_)--As yet I perceive she is ignorant of this unfortunate affair.

BETTY Lord, madam, what accidents? He has not had a fall or a tumble, has he? He is not coming upon crutches?

MISS FLYN Not exactly a fall--(_aside_)--I wish I had courage to admit her to my confidence.

BETTY If his neck is whole, his heart is so too, I warrant it.

MISS FLYN His neck!--(_aside_)--She certainly mistrusts something. He writes me word that this must be his last interview.

BETTY Then I guess the whole business. The wretch is unfaithful. Some creature or other has got him into a noose.

MISS FLYN A noose!

BETTY And I shall never more see him hang----

MISS FLYN Hang, did you say, Betty?

BETTY About that dear, fond neck, I was going to add, madam, but you interrupted me.

MISS FLYN I can no longer labour with a secret which oppresses me thus. Can you be trusty?

BETTY Who, I, madam?--(_aside_)--Lord, I am so glad. Now I shall know all.

MISS FLYN This letter discloses the reason of his unaccountable long absence from me. Peruse it, and say if we have not reason to be unhappy.

_(Betty retires to the window to read the letter, Mr. Pendulous enters.)_

MISS FLYN My dear Pendulous!

PENDULOUS Maria!--nay, shun the embraces of a disgraced man, who comes but to tell you that you must renounce his society for ever.

MISS FLYN Nay, Pendulous, avoid me not.

PENDULOUS _(Aside.)_ That was tender. I may be mistaken. Whilst I stood on honourable terms, Maria might have met my caresses without a blush.

_(Betty, who has not attended to the entrance of Pendulous, through her eagerness to read the letter, comes forward.)_

BETTY Ha! ha! ha! What a funny story, madam; and is this all you make such a fuss about? I should not care if twenty of my lovers had been---- (_seeing Pendulous_)--Lord, Sir, I ask pardon.

PENDULOUS Are we not alone, then?

MISS FLYN 'Tis only Betty--my old servant. You remember Betty?

PENDULOUS What letter is that?

MISS FLYN O! something from her sweetheart, I suppose.

BETTY Yes, ma'am, that is all. I shall die of laughing.

PENDULOUS You have not surely been shewing her----

MISS FLYN I must be ingenuous. You must know, then, that I was just giving Betty a hint--as you came in.

PENDULOUS A hint!

MISS FLYN Yes, of our unfortunate embarrassment.

PENDULOUS My letter!

MISS FLYN I thought it as well that she should know it at first.

PENDULOUS 'Tis mighty well, madam. 'Tis as it should be. I was ordained to be a wretched laughing-stock to all the world; and it is fit that our drabs and our servant wenches should have their share of the amusement.

BETTY Marry come up! Drabs and servant wenches! and this from a person in his circumstances!

_(Betty flings herself out of the room, muttering.)_

MISS FLYN I understand not this language. I was prepared to give my Pendulous a tender meeting. To assure him, that however, in the eyes of the superficial and the censorious, he may have incurred a partial degradation, in the esteem of one, at least, he stood as high as ever. That it was not in the power of a ridiculous _accident,_ involving no guilt, no shadow of imputation, to separate two hearts, cemented by holiest vows, as ours have been. This untimely repulse to my affections may awaken scruples in me, which hitherto, in tenderness to you, I have suppressed.

PENDULOUS I very well understand what you call tenderness, madam; but in some situations, pity--pity--is the greatest insult.

MISS FLYN I can endure no longer. When you are in a calmer mood, you will be sorry that you have wrung my heart so. _[Exit.]_

PENDULOUS Maria! She is gone--in tears. Yet it seems she has had her scruples. She said she had tried to smother them. Mermaid Betty intimated as much.

_Re-enter Betty._

BETTY Never mind Retty, sir; depend upon it she will never 'peach.

PENDULOUS 'Peach!

BETTY Lord, sir, these scruples will blow over. Go to her again, when she is in a better humour. You know we must stand off a little at first, to save appearances.

PENDULOUS Appearances! _we!_

BETTY It will be decent to let some time elapse.

PENDULOUS Time elapse!

Lost, wretched Pendulous! to scorn betrayed, The scoff alike of mistress and of maid! What now remains for thee, forsaken man, But to complete thy fate's abortive plan, And finish what the feeble law began?

[_Exeunt._]

_Re-enter Miss Flyn, with Marian._

MISS FLYN Now both our lovers are gone, I hope my friend will have less reserve. You must consider this apartment as yours while you stay here. 'Tis larger and more commodious than your own.

MARIAN You are kind, Maria. My sad story I have troubled you with. I have some jewels here, which I unintentionally brought away. I have only to beg, that you will take the trouble to restore them to my father; and, without disclosing my present situation, to tell him, that my next step--with or without the concurrence of Mr. Davenport--shall be to throw myself at his feet, and beg to be forgiven. I dare not see him till you have explored the way for me. I am convinced I was tricked into this elopement.

MISS FLYN Your commands shall be obeyed implicitly.

MARIAN You are good (_agitated_).

MISS FLYN Moderate your apprehensions, my sweet friend. I too have known my sorrows--(_smiling_).--You have heard of the ridiculous affair.

MARIAN Between Mr. Pendulous and you? Davenport informed me of it, and we both took the liberty of blaming the over-niceness of your scruples.

MISS FLYN You mistake. The refinement is entirely on the part of my lover. He thinks me not nice enough. I am obliged to feign a little reluctance, that he may not take quite a distaste to me. Will you believe it, that he turns my very constancy into a reproach, and declares, that a woman must be devoid of all delicacy, that, after a thing of that sort, could endure the sight of her husband in----

MARIAN In what?

MISS FLYN The sight of a man at all in----

MARIAN I comprehend you not.

MISS FLYN In--in a--_(whispers)_--night cap, my dear; and now the mischief is out.

MARIAN Is there no way to cure him?

MISS FLYN None, unless I were to try the experiment, by placing myself in the hands of justice for a little while, how far an equality in misfortune might breed a sympathy in sentiment. Our reputations would be both upon a level, then, you know. What think you of a little innocent shop-lifting, in sport?

MARIAN And by that contrivance to be taken before a magistrate? the project sounds oddly.

MISS FLYN And yet I am more than half persuaded it is feasible.

_Enter Betty._

BETTY Mr. Davenport is below, ma'am, and desires to speak with you.

MARIAN You will excuse me--_(going--turning back.)_--You will remember the casket? _[Exit.]_

MISS FLYN Depend on me.

BETTY And a strange man desires to see you, ma'am. I do not half like his looks.

MISS FLYN Shew him in.

_(Exit Betty, and returns--with a Police Officer. Betty goes out.)_

OFFICER Your servant, ma'am. Your name is----

MISS FLYN Flyn, sir. Your business with me?

OFFICER _(Alternately surveying the lady and his paper of instructions.)_ Marian Flint.

MISS FLYN Maria Flyn.

OFFICER Aye, aye, Flyn or Flint. 'Tis all one. Some write plain Mary, and some put ann after it. I come about a casket.

MISS FLYN I guess the whole business. He takes me for my friend. Something may come out of this. I will humour him.

OFFICER _(Aside)_--Answers the description to a tittle. "Soft, grey eyes, pale complexion,"----

MISS FLYN Yet I have been told by flatterers that my eyes were blue--_(takes out a pocket-glass)_--I hope I look pretty tolerably to-day.

OFFICER Blue!--they are a sort of blueish-gray, now I look better; and as for colour, that comes and goes. Blushing is often a sign of a hardened offender. Do you know any thing of a casket?

MISS FLYN Here is one which a friend has just delivered to my keeping.

OFFICER And which I must beg leave to secure, together with your ladyship's person. "Garnets, pearls, diamond-bracelet,"--here they are, sure enough.

MISS FLYN Indeed, I am innocent.

OFFICER Every man is presumed so till he is found otherwise.

MISS FLYN Police wit! Have you a warrant?

OFFICER Tolerably cool that! Here it is, signed by Justice Golding, at the requisition of Reuben Flint, who deposes that you have robbed him.

MISS FLYN How lucky this turns out! _(aside.)_--Can I be indulged with a coach?

OFFICER To Marlborough Street? certainly--an old offender--_(aside.)_ The thing shall be conducted with as much delicacy as is consistent with security.

MISS FLYN Police manners! I will trust myself to your protection then. _[Exeunt.]_

SCENE.--_Police-Office._

JUSTICE, FLINT, OFFICERS, &c.

JUSTICE Before we proceed to extremities, Mr. Flint, let me entreat you to consider the consequences. What will the world say to your exposing your own child?

FLINT The world is not my friend. I belong to a profession which has long brought me acquainted with its injustice. I return scorn for scorn, and desire its censure above its plaudits.

JUSTICE But in this case delicacy must make you pause.

FLINT Delicacy--ha! ha!--pawnbroker--how fitly these words suit. Delicate pawnbroker--delicate devil--let the law take its course.

JUSTICE Consider, the jewels are found.

FLINT 'Tis not the silly baubles I regard. Are you a man? are you a father? and think you I could stoop so low, vile as I stand here, as to make money--filthy money--of the stuff which a daughter's touch has desecrated? Deep in some pit first I would bury them.

JUSTICE Yet pause a little. Consider. An only child.

FLINT Only, only,--there, it is that stings me, makes me mad. She was the only thing I had to love me--to bear me up against the nipping injuries of the world. I prate when I should act. Bring in your prisoner.

_(The Justice makes signs to an Officer, who goes out, and returns with Miss Flyn.)_

FLINT What mockery of my sight is here? This is no daughter.

OFFICER Daughter, or no daughter, she has confessed to this casket.

FLINT _(Handling it.)_ The very same. Was it in the power of these pale splendours to dazzle the sight of honesty--to put out the regardful eye of piety and daughter-love? Why, a poor glow-worm shews more brightly. Bear witness how I valued them--_(tramples on them)_.--Fair lady, know you aught of my child?

MISS FLYN I shall here answer no questions.

JUSTICE You must explain how you came by the jewels, madam.

MISS FLYN _(Aside.)_ Now confidence assist me!----A gentleman in the neighbourhood will answer for me----

JUSTICE His name----

MISS FLYN Pendulous----

JUSTICE That lives in the next street?

MISS FLYN The same----now I have him sure.

JUSTICE Let him be sent for. I believe the gentleman to be respectable, and will accept his security.

FLINT Why do I waste my time, where I have no business? None--I have none any more in the world--none.

_Enter Pendulous._

PENDULOUS What is the meaning of this extraordinary summons?--Maria here?

FLINT Know you any thing of my daughter, Sir?

PENDULOUS Sir, I neither know her nor yourself, nor why I am brought hither; but for this lady, if you have any thing against her, I will answer it with my life and fortunes.

JUSTICE Make out the bail-bond.

OFFICER (_Surveying Pendulous_.) Please, your worship, before you take that gentleman's bond, may I have leave to put in a word?

PENDULOUS (_Agitated._) I guess what is coming.

OFFICER I have seen that gentleman hold up his hand at a criminal bar.

JUSTICE Ha!

MISS FLYN (_Aside._) Better and better.

OFFICER My eyes cannot deceive me. His lips quivered about, while he was being tried, just as they do now. His name is not Pendulous.

MISS FLYN Excellent!

OFFICER He pleaded to the name of Thomson at York assizes.

JUSTICE Can this be true?

MISS FLYN I could kiss the fellow!

OFFICER He was had up for a footpad.

MISS FLYN A dainty fellow!

PENDULOUS My iniquitous fate pursues me everywhere.

JUSTICE You confess, then.

PENDULOUS I am steeped in infamy.

MISS FLYN I am as deep in the mire as yourself.

PENDULOUS My reproach can never be washed out.

MISS FLYN Nor mine.

PENDULOUS I am doomed to everlasting shame.

MISS FLYN We are both in a predicament.

JUSTICE I am in a maze where all this will end.

MISS FLYN But here comes one who, if I mistake not, will guide us out of all our difficulties.

_Enter Marian and Davenport._

MARIAN _(Kneeling.)_ My dear father!

FLINT Do I dream?

MARIAN I am your Marian.

JUSTICE Wonders thicken!

FLINT The casket--

MISS FLYN Let me clear up the rest.

FLINT The casket--

MISS FLYN Was inadvertently in your daughter's hand, when, by an artifice of her maid Lucy,--set on, as she confesses, by this gentleman here,--

DAVENPORT I plead guilty.

MISS FLYN She was persuaded, that you were in a hurry going to marry her to an object of her dislike; nay, that he was actually in the house for the purpose. The speed of her flight admitted not of her depositing the jewels; but to me, who have been her inseparable companion since she quitted your roof, she intrusted the return of them; which the precipitate measures of this gentleman _(pointing to the Officer)_ alone prevented. Mr. Cutlet, whom I see coming, can witness this to be true.

_Enter Cutlet, in haste._

CUTLET Aye, poor lamb! poor lamb! I can witness. I have run in such a haste, hearing how affairs stood, that I have left my shambles without a protector. If your worship had seen how she cried _(pointing to Marian),_ and trembled, and insisted upon being brought to her father. Mr. Davenport here could not stay her.

FLINT I can forbear no longer. Marian, will you play once again, to please your old father?

MARIAN I have a good mind to make you buy me a new grand piano for your naughty suspicions of me.

DAVENPORT What is to become of me?

FLINT I will do more than that. The poor lady shall have her jewels again.

MARIAN Shall she?

FLINT Upon reasonable terms _(smiling)._ And now, I suppose, the court may adjourn.

DAVENPORT Marian!

FLINT I guess what is passing in your mind, Mr. Davenport; but you have behaved upon the whole so like a man of honour, that it will give me pleasure, if you will visit at my house for the future; but _(smiling)_ not clandestinely, Marian.

MARIAN Hush, father.

FLINT I own I had prejudices against gentry. But I have met with so much candour and kindness among my betters this day--from this gentleman in particular--_(turning to the Justice)_--that I begin to think of leaving off business, and setting up for a gentleman myself.

JUSTICE You have the feelings of one.

FLINT Marian will not object to it.

JUSTICE But _(turning to Miss Flyn)_ what motive could induce this lady to take so much disgrace upon herself, when a word's explanation might have relieved her?

MISS FLYN This gentleman _(turning to Pendulous)_ can explain.

PENDULOUS The devil!

MISS FLYN This gentleman, I repeat it, whose backwardness in concluding a long and honourable suit from a mistaken delicacy--

PENDULOUS How!

MISS FLYN Drove me upon the expedient of involving myself in the same disagreeable embarrassments with himself, in the hope that a more perfect sympathy might subsist between us for the future.

PENDULOUS I see it--I see it all.

JUSTICE (_To Pendulous._) You were then tried at York?

PENDULOUS I was--CAST--

JUSTICE Condemned--

PENDULOUS EXECUTED.

JUSTICE How?

PENDULOUS CUT DOWN and CAME TO LIFE AGAIN. False delicacy, adieu! The true sort, which this lady has manifested--by an expedient which at first sight might seem a little unpromising, has cured me of the other. We are now on even terms.

MISS FLYN And may--

PENDULOUS Marry,--I know it was your word.

MISS FLYN And make a very quiet--

PENDULOUS Exemplary--

MISS FLYN Agreeing pair of--

PENDULOUS ACQUITTED FELONS.

FLINT And let the prejudiced against our profession acknowledge, that a money-lender may have the heart of a father; and that in the casket, whose loss grieved him so sorely, he valued nothing so dear as _(turning to Marian)_ one poor domestic jewel.

* * * * *

THE WIFE'S TRIAL; OR, THE INTRUDING WIDOW

A DRAMATIC POEM

_Founded on Mr. Crabbe's Tale of "The Confidant."_

(1827)

* * * * *

CHARACTERS

MR. SELBY,--a Wiltshire Gentleman_. KATHERINE, _Wife to Selby_. LUCY, _Sister to Selby_. MRS. FRAMPTON, _a Widow_. SERVANTS.

SCENE.--_At Mr. Selby's house, or in the grounds adjacent_.

* * * * *

SCENE--_A Library_.

MR. SELBY, KATHERINE.

SELBY Do not too far mistake me, gentlest wife; I meant to chide your virtues, not yourself, And those too with allowance. I have not Been blest by thy fair side with five white years Of smooth and even wedlock, now to touch With any strain of harshness on a string Hath yielded me such music. 'Twas the quality Of a too grateful nature in my Katherine, That to the lame performance of some vows, And common courtesies of man to wife, Attributing too much, hath sometimes seem'd To esteem in favours, what in that blest union Are but reciprocal and trivial dues, As fairly yours as mine: 'twas this I thought Gently to reprehend.

KATHERINE In friendship's barter The riches we exchange should hold some level, And corresponding worth. Jewels for toys Demand some thanks thrown in. You took me, sir, To that blest haven of my peace, your bosom, An orphan founder'd in the world's black storm. Poor, you have made me rich; from lonely maiden, Your cherish'd and your full-accompanied wife.

SELBY But to divert the subject: Kate too fond, I would not wrest your meanings; else that word Accompanied, and full-accompanied too, Might raise a doubt in some men, that their wives Haply did think their company too long; And over-company, we know by proof, Is worse than no attendance.

KATHERINE I must guess, You speak this of the Widow--

SELBY 'Twas a bolt At random shot; but if it hit, believe me, I am most sorry to have wounded you Through a friend's side. I know not how we have swerved From our first talk. I was to caution you Against this fault of a too grateful nature: Which, for some girlish obligations past, In that relenting season of the heart, When slightest favours pass for benefits Of endless binding, would entail upon you An iron slavery of obsequious duty To the proud will of an imperious woman.

KATHERINE The favours are not slight to her I owe.

SELBY Slight or not slight, the tribute she exacts Cancels all dues--_[A voice within.]_ even now I hear her call you In such a tone, as lordliest mistresses Expect a slave's attendance. Prithee, Kate, Let her expect a brace of minutes or so. Say, you are busy. Use her by degrees To some less hard exactions.

KATHERINE I conjure you, Detain me not. I will return--

SELBY Sweet wife Use thy own pleasure--_[Exit Katherine.]_ but it troubles me. A visit of three days, as was pretended, Spun to ten tedious weeks, and no hint given When she will go! I would this buxom Widow Were a thought handsomer! I'd fairly try My Katherine's constancy; make desperate love In seeming earnest; and raise up such broils, That she, not I, should be the first to warn The insidious guest depart.

_Re-enter Katherine._

So soon return'd! What was our Widow's will?

KATHERINE A trifle, Sir.

SELBY Some toilet service-to adjust her head, Or help to stick a pin in the right place--

KATHERINE Indeed 'twas none of these.

SELBY or new vamp up The tarnish'd cloak she came in. I have seen her Demand such service from thee, as her maid, Twice told to do it, would blush angry-red, And pack her few clothes up. Poor fool! fond slave! And yet my dearest Kate!--This day at least (It is our wedding-day) we spend in freedom, And will forget our Widow.--Philip, our coach-- Why weeps my wife? You know, I promised you An airing o'er the pleasant Hampshire downs To the blest cottage on the green hill side, Where first I told my love. I wonder much, If the crimson parlour hath exchanged its hue For colours not so welcome. Faded though it be, It will not shew less lovely than the tinge Of this faint red, contending with the pale, Where once the full-flush'd health gave to this cheek An apt resemblance to the fruit's warm side, That bears my Katherine's name.--

Our carriage, Philip.

_Enter a Servant_.

Now, Robin, what make you here?

SERVANT May it please you, The coachman has driven out with Mrs. Frampton.

SELBY He had no orders--

SERVANT None, Sir, that I know of, But from the lady, who expects some letter At the next Post Town.

SELBY Go, Robin.

[_Exit Servant_.]

How is this?

KATHERINE I came to tell you so, but fear'd your anger--

SELBY It was ill done though of this Mistress Frampton, This forward Widow. But a ride's poor loss Imports not much. In to your chamber, love, Where you with music may beguile the hour, While I am tossing over dusty tomes, Till our most reasonable friend returns.

KATHERINE I am all obedience. [_Exit Katherine_]

SELBY Too obedient, Kate, And to too many masters. I can hardly On such a day as this refrain to speak My sense of this injurious friend, this pest, This household evil, this close-clinging fiend, In rough terms to my wife. 'Death! my own servants Controll'd above me! orders countermanded!' What next? _[Servant enters and announces the Sister]

_Enter Lucy._

Sister! I know you are come to welcome This day's return. 'Twas well done.

LUCY You seem ruffled. In years gone by this day was used to be The smoothest of the year. Your honey turn'd So soon to gall?

SELBY Gall'd am I, and with cause, And rid to death, yet cannot get a riddance, Nay, scarce a ride, by this proud Widow's leave.

LUCY Something you wrote me of a Mistress Frampton.

SELBY She came at first a meek admitted guest, Pretending a short stay; her whole deportment Seem'd as of one obliged. A slender trunk, The wardrobe of her scant and ancient clothing, Bespoke no more. But in a few days her dress, Her looks, were proudly changed. And now she flaunts it In jewels stolen or borrow'd from my wife; Who owes her some strange service, of what nature I must be kept in ignorance. Katherine's meek And gentle spirit cowers beneath her eye, As spell-bound by some witch.

LUCY Some mystery hangs on it. How bears she in her carriage towards yourself?

SELBY As one who fears, and yet not greatly cares For my displeasure. Sometimes I have thought, A secret glance would tell me she could love, If I but gave encouragement. Before me She keeps some moderation; but is never Closeted with my wife, but in the end I find my Katherine in briny tears. From the small chamber, where she first was lodged, The gradual fiend by specious wriggling arts Has now ensconced herself in the best part Of this large mansion; calls the left wing her own; Commands my servants, equipage.--I hear Her hated tread. What makes she back so soon?

_Enter Mrs. Frampton._

MRS. FRAMPTON O, I am jolter'd, bruised, and shook to death, With your vile Wiltshire roads. The villain Philip Chose, on my conscience, the perversest tracks, And stoniest hard lanes in all the county, Till I was fain get out, and so walk back, My errand unperform'd at Andover.

LUCY And I shall love the knave for ever after. [_Aside_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON A friend with you!

SELBY My eldest sister, Lucy, Come to congratulate this returning morn.-- Sister, my wife's friend, Mistress Frampton.

MRS. FRAMPTON Pray Be seated. For your brother's sake, you are welcome. I had thought this day to have spent in homely fashion With the good couple, to whose hospitality I stand so far indebted. But your coming Makes it a feast.

LUCY

She does the honours naturally--[_Aside_.]

SELBY

As if she were the mistress of the house--[_Aside_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON I love to be at home with loving friends. To stand on ceremony with obligations, Is to restrain the obliger. That old coach, though, Of yours jumbles one strangely.

SELBY I shall order An equipage soon, more easy to you, madam--

LUCY To drive her and her pride to Lucifer, I hope he means. [_Aside_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON I must go trim myself; this humbled garb Would shame a wedding feast. I have your leave For a short absence?--and your Katherine--

SELBY You'll find her in her closet--

MRS. FRAMPTON Fare you well, then. [_Exit_.]

SELBY How like you her assurance?

LUCY Even so well, That if this Widow were my guest, not yours, She should have coach enough, and scope to ride. My merry groom should in a trice convey her To Sarum Plain, and set her down at Stonehenge, To pick her path through those antiques at leisure; She should take sample of our Wiltshire flints. O, be not lightly jealous! nor surmise, That to a wanton bold-faced thing like this Your modest shrinking Katherine could impart Secrets of any worth, especially Secrets that touch'd your peace. If there be aught, My life upon't, 'tis but some girlish story Of a First Love; which even the boldest wife Might modestly deny to a husband's ear, Much more your timid and too sensitive Katherine.

SELBY I think it is no more; and will dismiss My further fears, if ever I have had such.

LUCY Shall we go walk? I'd see your gardens, brother; And how the new trees thrive, I recommended. Your Katherine is engaged now--

SELBY I'll attend you. [_Exeunt._]

SCENE.--Servants' Hall.

HOUSEKEEPER, PHILIP, _and_ OTHERS, _laughing_.

HOUSEKEEPER Our Lady's guest, since her short ride, seems ruffled, And somewhat in disorder. Philip, Philip, I do suspect some roguery. Your mad tricks Will some day cost you a good place, I warrant.

PHILIP Good Mistress Jane, our serious housekeeper, And sage Duenna to the maids and scullions, We must have leave to laugh; our brains are younger, And undisturb'd with care of keys and pantries. We are wild things.

BUTLER Good Philip, tell us all.

ALL Ay, as you live, tell, tell--

PHILIP Mad fellows, you shall have it. The Widow's bell rang lustily and loud--

BUTLER I think that no one can mistake her ringing.

WAITING-MAID Our Lady's ring is soft sweet music to it, More of entreaty hath it than command.

PHILIP I lose my story, if you interrupt me thus. The bell, I say, rang fiercely; and a voice, More shrill than bell, call'd out for "Coachman Philip." I straight obey'd, as 'tis my name and office. "Drive me," quoth she, "to the next market town, Where I have hope of letters." I made haste. Put to the horses, saw her safely coach'd, And drove her--

WAITING-MAID --By the straight high-road to Andover, I guess--

PHILIP Pray, warrant things within your knowledge, Good Mistress Abigail; look to your dressings, And leave the skill in horses to the coachman.

BUTLER He'll have his humour; best not interrupt him.

PHILIP 'Tis market-day, thought I; and the poor beasts, Meeting such droves of cattle and of people, May take a fright; so down the lane I trundled, Where Goodman Dobson's crazy mare was founder'd, And where the flints were biggest, and ruts widest, By ups and downs, and such bone-cracking motions, We flounder'd on a furlong, till my madam, In policy, to save the few joints left her, Betook her to her feet, and there we parted.

ALL Ha! ha! ha!

BUTLER Hang her! 'tis pity such as she should ride.

WAITING-MAID I think she is a witch; I have tired myself out With sticking pins in her pillow; still she 'scapes them--

BUTLER And I with helping her to mum for claret, But never yet could cheat her dainty palate.

HOUSEKEEPER Well, well, she is the guest of our good Mistress, And so should be respected. Though I think Our Master cares not for her company, He would ill brook we should express so much, By rude discourtesies, and short attendance, Being but servants. (_A bell rings furiously._) 'Tis her bell speaks now; Good, good, bestir yourselves: who knows who's wanted?

BUTLER But 'twas a merry trick of Philip coachman. [_Exeunt._]

SCENE.--_Mrs. Selby's Chamber._

MRS. FRAMPTON, KATHERINE, working.

MRS. FRAMPTON I am thinking, child, how contrary our fates Have traced our lots through life. Another needle, This works untowardly. An heiress born To splendid prospects, at our common school I was as one above you all, not of you; Had my distinct prerogatives; my freedoms, Denied to you. Pray, listen--

KATHERINE I must hear What you are pleased to speak!--How my heart sinks here! [_Aside._]

MRS. FRAMPTON My chamber to myself, my separate maid, My coach, and so forth.--Not that needle, simple one, With the great staring eye fit for a Cyclops! Mine own are not so blinded with their griefs But I could make a shift to thread a smaller. A cable or a camel might go through this, And never strain for the passage.

KATHERINE

I will fit you.-- Intolerable tyranny! [_Aside._]

MRS. FRAMPTON Quick, quick; You were not once so slack.--As I was saying, Not a young thing among ye, but observed me Above the mistress. Who but I was sought to In all your dangers, all your little difficulties, Your girlish scrapes? I was the scape-goat still, To fetch you off; kept all your secrets, some, Perhaps, since then--

KATHERINE No more of that, for mercy, If you'd not have me, sinking at your feet, Cleave the cold earth for comfort. [_Kneels._]

MRS. FRAMPTON This to me? This posture to your friend had better suited The orphan Katherine in her humble school-days To the _then_ rich heiress, than the wife of Selby, Of wealthy Mr. Selby, To the poor widow Frampton, sunk as she is. Come, come, 'Twas something, or 'twas nothing, that I said; I did not mean to fright you, sweetest bed-fellow! You once were so, but Selby now engrosses you. I'll make him give you up a night or so; In faith I will: that we may lie, and talk Old tricks of school-days over.

KATHERINE Hear me, madam--

MRS. FRAMPTON Not by that name. Your friend--

KATHERINE My truest friend, And saviour of my honour!

MRS. FRAMPTON This sounds better; You still shall find me such.

KATHERINE That you have graced Our poor house with your presence hitherto, Has been my greatest comfort, the sole solace Of my forlorn and hardly guess'd estate. You have been pleased To accept some trivial hospitalities, In part of payment of a long arrear I owe to you, no less than for my life.

MRS. FRAMPTON You speak my services too large.

KATHERINE Nay, less; For what an abject thing were life to me Without your silence on my dreadful secret! And I would wish the league we have renew'd Might be perpetual--

MRS. FRAMPTON Have a care, fine madam! [_Aside._]

KATHERINE That one house still might hold us. But my husband Has shown himself of late--

MRS. FRAMPTON How Mistress Selby?

KATHERINE Not, not impatient. You misconstrue him. He honours, and he loves, nay, he must love The friend of his wife's youth. But there are moods In which--

MRS. FRAMPTON I understand you;--in which husbands, And wives that love, may wish to be alone, To nurse the tender fits of new-born dalliance, After a five years' wedlock.

KATHERINE Was that well Or charitably put? do these pale cheeks Proclaim a wanton blood? this wasting form Seem a fit theatre for Levity To play his love-tricks on; and act such follies, As even in Affection's first bland Moon Have less of grace than pardon in best wedlocks? I was about to say, that there are times, When the most frank and sociable man May surfeit on most loved society, Preferring loneness rather--

MRS. FRAMPTON To my company--

KATHERINE Ay, your's, or mine, or any one's. Nay, take Not this unto yourself. Even in the newness Of our first married loves 'twas sometimes so. For solitude, I have heard my Selby say, Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions; And he would call it oft, the _day's soft sleep._

MRS. FRAMPTON What is your drift? and whereto tends this speech, Rhetorically labour'd?

KATHERINE That you would Abstain but from our house a month, a week; I make request but for a single day.

MRS. FRAMPTON A month, a week, a day! A single hour In every week, and month, and the long year, And all the years to come! My footing here, Slipt once, recovers never. From the state Of gilded roofs, attendance, luxuries, Parks, gardens, sauntering walks, or wholesome rides, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where I myself am servant to myself, Or only waited on by blackest thoughts-- I sink, if this be so. No; here I sit.

KATHERINE Then I am lost for ever! [_Sinks at her feet--curtain drops._]

SCENE.--_An Apartment, contiguous to the last_.

SELBY, _as if listening_.

SELBY The sounds have died away. What am I changed to? What do I here, list'ning like to an abject, Or heartless wittol, that must hear no good, If he hear aught? "This shall to the ear of your husband." It was the Widow's word. I guess'd some mystery, And the solution with a vengeance comes. What can my wife have left untold to me, That must be told by proxy? I begin To call in doubt the course of her life past Under my very eyes. She hath not been good, Not virtuous, not discreet; she hath not outrun My wishes still with prompt and meek observance. Perhaps she is not fair, sweet-voiced; her eyes Not like the dove's; all this as well may be, As that she should entreasure up a secret In the peculiar closet of her breast, And grudge it to my ear. It is my right To claim the halves in any truth she owns, As much as in the babe I have by her; Upon whose face henceforth I fear to look, Lest I should fancy in its innocent brow Some strange shame written.

_Enter Lucy_.

Sister, an anxious word with you. From out the chamber, where my wife but now Held talk with her encroaching friend, I heard (Not of set purpose heark'ning, but by chance) A voice of chiding, answer'd by a tone Of replication, such as the meek dove Makes, when the kite has clutch'd her. The high Widow Was loud and stormy. I distinctly heard One threat pronounced--"Your husband shall know all." I am no listener, sister; and I hold A secret, got by such unmanly shift, The pitiful'st of thefts; but what mine ear, I not intending it, receives perforce, I count my lawful prize. Some subtle meaning Lurks in this fiend's behaviour; which, by force, Or fraud, I must make mine.

LUCY The gentlest means Are still the wisest. What, if you should press Your wife to a disclosure?

SELBY I have tried All gentler means; thrown out low hints, which, though Merely suggestions still, have never fail'd To blanch her cheek with fears. Roughlier to insist, Would be to kill, where I but meant to heal.

LUCY Your own description gave that Widow out As one not much precise, nor over coy, And nice to listen to a suit of love. What if you feign'd a courtship, putting on, (To work the secret from her easy faith,) For honest ends, a most dishonest seeming?

SELBY I see your drift, and partly meet your counsel. But must it not in me appear prodigious, To say the least, unnatural, and suspicious, To move hot love, where I have shewn cool scorn, And undissembled looks of blank aversion?

LUCY Vain woman is the dupe of her own charms, And easily credits the resistless power, That in besieging Beauty lies, to cast down The slight-built fortress of a casual hate.

SELBY I am resolved--

LUCY Success attend your wooing!

SELBY And I'll about it roundly, my wise sister. [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE.--_The Library_.

MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.

SELBY A fortunate encounter, Mistress Frampton. My purpose was, if you could spare so much From your sweet leisure, a few words in private.

MRS. FRAMPTON What mean his alter'd tones? These looks to me, Whose glances yet he has repell'd with coolness? Is the wind changed? I'll veer about with it, And meet him in all fashions. [_Aside._] All my leisure, Feebly bestow'd upon my kind friends here, Would not express a tithe of the obligements I every hour incur.

SELBY No more of that.-- I know not why, my wife hath lost of late Much of her cheerful spirits.

MRS. FRAMPTON It was my topic To-day; and every day, and all day long, I still am chiding with her. "Child," I said, And said it pretty roundly--it may be I was too peremptory--we elder school-fellows, Presuming on the advantage of a year Or two, which, in that tender time, seem'd much, In after years, much like to elder sisters, Are prone to keep the authoritative style, When time has made the difference most ridiculous--

SELBY The observation's shrewd.

MRS. FRAMPTON "Child," I was saying, "If some wives had obtained a lot like yours," And then perhaps I sigh'd, "they would not sit In corners moping, like to sullen moppets That want their will, but dry their eyes, and look Their cheerful husbands in the face," perhaps I said, their Selby's, "with proportion'd looks Of honest joy."

SELBY You do suspect no jealousy?

MRS. FRAMPTON What is his import? Whereto tends his speech? [_Aside._] Of whom, of what, should she be jealous, sir?

SELBY I do not know, but women have their fancies; And underneath a cold indifference, Or show of some distaste, husbands have mask'd A growing fondness for a female friend, Which the wife's eye was sharp enough to see Before the friend had wit to find it out. You do not quit us soon?

MRS. FRAMPTON 'Tis as I find Your Katherine profits by my lessons, sir.-- Means this man honest? Is there no deceit? [_Aside_.]

SELBY She cannot chuse.--Well, well, I have been thinking, And if the matter were to do again--

MRS. FRAMPTON What matter, sir?

SELBY This idle bond of wedlock; These sour-sweet briars, fetters of harsh silk; I might have made, I do not say a better, But a more fit choice in a wife.

MRS. FRAMPTON The parch'd ground, In hottest Julys, drinks not in the showers More greedily than I his words! [_Aside_.]

SELBY My humour Is to be frank and jovial; and that man Affects me best, who most reflects me in My most free temper.

MRS. FRAMPTON Were you free to chuse, As jestingly I'll put the supposition, Without a thought reflecting on your Katherine, What sort of woman would you make your choice?

SELBY I like your humour, and will meet your jest. She should be one about my Katherine's age; But not so old, by some ten years, in gravity. One that would meet my mirth, sometimes outrun it; No puling, pining moppet, as you said, Nor moping maid, that I must still be teaching The freedoms of a wife all her life after: But one, that, having worn the chain before, (And worn it lightly, as report gave out,) Enfranchised from it by her poor fool's death, Took it not so to heart that I need dread To die myself, for fear a second time To wet a widow's eye.

MRS. FRAMPTON Some widows, sir, Hearing you talk so wildly, would be apt To put strange misconstruction on your words, As aiming at a Turkish liberty, Where the free husband hath his several mates, His Penseroso, his Allegro wife, To suit his sober, or his frolic fit.

SELBY How judge you of that latitude?

MRS. FRAMPTON As one, In European customs bred, must judge. Had I Been born a native of the liberal East, I might have thought as they do. Yet I knew A married man that took a second wife, And (the man's circumstances duly weigh'd, With all their bearings) the considerate world Nor much approved, nor much condemn'd the deed.

SELBY You move my wonder strangely. Pray, proceed.

MRS. FRAMPTON An eye of wanton liking he had placed Upon a Widow, who liked him again, But stood on terms of honourable love, And scrupled wronging his most virtuous wife--- When to their ears a lucky rumour ran, That this demure and saintly-seeming wife Had a first husband living; with the which Being question'd, she but faintly could deny. "A priest indeed there was; some words had passed, But scarce amounting to a marriage rite. Her friend was absent; she supposed him dead; And, seven years parted, both were free to chuse."

SELBY What did the indignant husband? Did he not With violent handlings stigmatize the cheek Of the deceiving wife, who had entail'd Shame on their innocent babe?

MRS. FRAMPTON He neither tore His wife's locks nor his own; but wisely weighing His own offence with her's in equal poise, And woman's weakness 'gainst the strength of man, Came to a calm and witty compromise. He coolly took his gay-faced widow home, Made her his second wife; and still the first Lost few or none of her prerogatives. The servants call'd her mistress still; she kept The keys, and had the total ordering Of the house affairs; and, some slight toys excepted, Was all a moderate wife would wish to be.

SELBY A tale full of dramatic incident!-- And if a man should put it in a play, How should he name the parties?

MRS. FRAMPTON The man's name Through time I have forgot--the widow's too;-- But his first wife's first name, her maiden one, Was--not unlike to that your Katherine bore, Before she took the honour'd style of Selby.

SELBY A dangerous meaning in your riddle lurks. One knot is yet unsolved; that told, this strange And most mysterious drama ends. The name Of that first husband---

_Enter Lucy._

MRS. FRAMPTON Sir, your pardon-- The allegory fits your private ear. Some half hour hence, in the garden's secret walk, We shall have leisure. [_Exit._]

SELBY Sister, whence come you?

LUCY From your poor Katherine's chamber, where she droops In sad presageful thoughts, and sighs, and weeps, And seems to pray by turns. At times she looks As she would pour her secret in my bosom--- Then starts, as I have seen her, at the mention Of some immodest act. At her request I left her on her knees.

SELBY The fittest posture; For great has been her fault to Heaven and me. She married me, with a first husband living, Or not known not to be so, which, in the judgment Of any but indifferent honesty, Must be esteem'd the same. The shallow Widow, Caught by my art, under a riddling veil Too thin to hide her meaning, hath confess'd all. Your coming in broke off the conference, When she was ripe to tell the fatal _name_, That seals my wedded doom.

LUCY Was she so forward To pour her hateful meanings in your ear At the first hint?

SELBY Her newly flatter'd hopes Array'd themselves at first in forms of doubt; And with a female caution she stood off Awhile, to read the meaning of my suit, Which with such honest seeming I enforced, That her cold scruples soon gave way; and now She rests prepared, as mistress, or as wife, To seize the place of her betrayed friend-- My much offending, but more suffering, Katherine.

LUCY Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes My simple project has conducted you-- Were but my wit as skilful to invent A clue to lead you forth!--I call to mind A letter, which your wife received from the Cape, Soon after you were married, with some circumstances Of mystery too.

SELBY I well remember it. That letter did confirm the truth (she said) Of a friend's death, which she had long fear'd true, But knew not for a fact. A youth of promise She gave him out--a hot adventurous spirit-- That had set sail in quest of golden dreams, And cities in the heart of Central Afric; But named no names, nor did I care to press My question further, in the passionate grief She shew'd at the receipt. Might this be he?

LUCY Tears were not all. When that first shower was past, With clasped hands she raised her eyes to Heav'n, As if in thankfulness for some escape, Or strange deliverance, in the news implied, Which sweeten'd that sad news.

SELBY Something of that I noted also--

LUCY In her closet once, Seeking some other trifle, I espied A ring, in mournful characters deciphering The death of "Robert Halford, aged two And twenty." Brother, I am not given To the confident use of wagers, which I hold Unseemly in a woman's argument; But I am strangely tempted now to risk A thousand pounds out of my patrimony, (And let my future husband look to it If it be lost,) that this immodest Widow Shall name the name that tallies with that ring.

SELBY That wager lost, I should be rich indeed-- Rich in my rescued Kate--rich in my honour, Which now was bankrupt. Sister, I accept Your merry wager, with an aching heart For very fear of winning. 'Tis the hour That I should meet my Widow in the walk, The south side of the garden. On some pretence Lure forth my Wife that way, that she may witness Our seeming courtship. Keep us still in sight, Yourselves unseen; and by some sign I'll give, (A finger held up, or a kerchief waved,) You'll know your wager won--then break upon us, As if by chance.

LUCY I apprehend your meaning--

SELBY And may you prove a true Cassandra here, Though my poor acres smart for't, wagering sister. [_Exeunt._]

SCENE.-_Mrs. Selby's Chamber._

MRS. FRAMPTON. KATHERINE.

MRS. FRAMPTON Did I express myself in terms so strong?

KATHERINE As nothing could have more affrighted me.

MRS. FRAMPTON Think it a hurt friend's jest, in retribution Of a suspected cooling hospitality. And, for my staying here, or going hence, (Now I remember something of our argument,) Selby and I can settle that between us. You look amazed. What if your husband, child, Himself has courted me to stay?

KATHERINE You move My wonder and my pleasure equally.

MRS. FRAMPTON Yes, courted me to stay, waiv'd all objections. Made it a favour to yourselves; not me, His troublesome guest, as you surmised. Child, child! When I recall his flattering welcome, I Begin to think the burden of my presence Was--

KATHERINE What, for Heaven--

MRS. FRAMPTON A little, little spice Of jealousy--that's all--an honest pretext, No wife need blush for. Say that you should see (As oftentimes we widows take such freedoms, Yet still on this side virtue,) in a jest Your husband pat me on the cheek, or steal A kiss, while you were by,--not else, for virtue's sake.

KATHERINE I could endure all this, thinking my husband Meant it in sport--

MRS. FRAMPTON But if in downright earnest (Putting myself out of the question here) Your Selby, as I partly do suspect, Own'd a divided heart--

KATHERINE My own would break--

MRS. FRAMPTON Why, what a blind and witless fool it is, That will not see its gains, its infinite gains--

KATHERINE Gain in a loss, Or mirth in utter desolation!

MRS. FRAMPTON He doting on a face--suppose it mine, Or any other's tolerably fair-- What need you care about a senseless secret?

KATHERINE Perplex'd and fearful woman! I in part Fathom your dangerous meaning. You have broke The worse than iron band, fretting the soul, By which you held me captive. Whether my husband _Is_ what you gave him out, or your fool'd fancy But dreams he is so, either way I am free.

MRS. FRAMPTON It talks it bravely, blazons out its shame; A very heroine while on its knees; Rowe's Penitent, an absolute Calista!

KATHERINE Not to thy wretched self these tears are falling; But to my husband, and offended heaven, Some drops are due--and then I sleep in peace, Reliev'd from frightful dreams, my dreams though sad. [_Exit_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON I have gone too far. Who knows but in this mood She may forestall my story, win on Selby By a frank confession?--and the time draws on For our appointed meeting. The game's desperate, For which I play. A moment's difference May make it hers or mine. I fly to meet him. [_Exit._]

SCENE.--_A Garden_.

MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.

SELBY I am not so ill a guesser, Mrs. Frampton, Not to conjecture, that some passages In your unfinished story, rightly interpreted, Glanced at my bosom's peace; You knew my wife?

MRS. FRAMPTON Even from her earliest school-days.--What of that? Or how is she concerned in my fine riddles, Framed for the hour's amusement?

SELBY By my _hopes_ Of my new interest conceived in you, And by the honest passion of my heart, Which not obliquely I to you did hint; Come from the clouds of misty allegory, And in plain language let me hear the worst. Stand I disgraced or no?

MRS. FRAMPTON Then, by _my_ hopes Of my new interest conceiv'd in you, And by the kindling passion in _my_ breast, Which through my riddles you had almost read, Adjured so strongly, I will tell you all. In her school years, then bordering on fifteen, Or haply not much past, she loved a youth--

SELBY My most ingenuous Widow--

MRS. FRAMPTON Met him oft By stealth, where I still of the party was--

SELBY Prime confidant to all the school, I warrant, And general go-between-- [_Aside_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON One morn he came In breathless haste. "The ship was under sail, Or in few hours would be, that must convey Him and his destinies to barbarous shores, Where, should he perish by inglorious hands, It would be consolation in his death To have call'd his Katherine _his_."

SELBY Thus far the story Tallies with what I hoped. [_Aside_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON Wavering between The doubt of doing wrong, and losing him; And my dissuasions not o'er hotly urged, Whom he had flatter'd with the bride-maid's part;--

SELBY I owe my subtle Widow, then, for this. [_Aside_.]

MRS. FRAMPTON Briefly, we went to church. The ceremony Scarcely was huddled over, and the ring Yet cold upon her finger, when they parted-- He to his ship; and we to school got back, Scarce miss'd, before the dinner-bell could ring.

SELBY And from that hour--

MRS. FRAMPTON Nor sight, nor news of him, For aught that I could hear, she e'er obtain'd.

SELBY Like to a man that hovers in suspense Over a letter just receiv'd, on which The black seal hath impress'd its ominous token, Whether to open it or no, so I Suspended stand, whether to press my fate Further, or check ill curiosity That tempts me to more loss.--The name, the name Of this fine youth?

MRS. FRAMPTON What boots it, if 'twere told?

SELBY Now, by our loves, And by my hopes of happier wedlocks, some day To be accomplish'd, give me his name!

MRS. FRAMPTON 'Tis no such serious matter. It was--Huntingdon.

SELBY How have three little syllables pluck'd from me A world of countless hopes!-- [_Aside_.] Evasive Widow.

MRS. FRAMPTON How, Sir! I like not this. [_Aside_.]

SELBY No, no, I meant Nothing but good to thee. That other woman, How shall I call her but evasive, false, And treacherous?--by the trust I place in thee, Tell me, and tell me truly, was the name As you pronounced it?

MRS. FRAMPTON Huntingdon--the name, Which his paternal grandfather assumed, Together with the estates, of a remote Kinsman; but our high-spirited youth--

SELBY Yes--

MRS. FRAMPTON Disdaining For sordid pelf to truck the family honours, At risk of the lost estates, resumed the old style, And answer'd only to the name of--

SELBY What?

MRS. FRAMPTON Of Halford--

SELBY A Huntingdon to Halford changed so soon! Why, then I see, a witch hath her good spells, As well as bad, and can by a backward charm Unruffle the foul storm she has just been raising. [_Aside_.] [_He makes the signal._]

My frank, fair spoken Widow! let this kiss, Which yet aspires no higher, speak my thanks, Till I can think on greater.

_Enter_ LUCY _and_ KATHERINE.

MRS. FRAMPTON Interrupted!

SELBY My sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [_He courts the Widow_.]

LUCY (_to Katherine_.)

This your free, And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me For ever to you; and it shall go hard, But it shall fetch you back your husband's heart, That now seems blindly straying; or at worst, In me you have still a sister.--Some wives, brother, Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus Alone with a trim widow; but your Katherine Is arm'd, I think, with patience.

KATHERINE I am fortified With knowledge of self-faults to endure worse wrongs, If they be wrongs, than he can lay upon me; Even to look on, and see him sue in earnest, As now I think he does it but in seeming, To that ill woman.

SELBY Good words, gentle Kate, And not a thought irreverent of our Widow. Why, 'twere unmannerly at any time, But most uncourteous on our wedding day, When we should shew most hospitable.--Some wine. [_Wine is brought_.]

I am for sports. And now I do remember, The old Egyptians at their banquets placed A charnel sight of dead men's skulls before them, With images of cold mortality, To temper their fierce joys when they grew rampant. I like the custom well: and ere we crown With freer mirth the day, I shall propose, In calmest recollection of our spirits, We drink the solemn "Memory of the dead."

MRS. FRAMPTON Or the supposed dead. [_Aside to him_.]

SELBY Pledge me, good wife. [_She fills_.] Nay, higher yet, till the brimm'd cup swell o'er.

KATHERINE I catch the awful import of your words; And, though I could accuse you of unkindness, Yet as your lawful and obedient wife, While that name lasts (as I perceive it fading, Nor I much longer may have leave to use it) I calmly take the office you impose; And on my knees, imploring their forgiveness, Whom I in heav'n or earth may have offended, Exempt from starting tears, and woman's weakness, I pledge you, Sir--the Memory of the Dead! [_She drinks kneeling_.]

SELBY 'Tis gently and discreetly said, and like My former loving Kate.

MRS. FRAMPTON Does he relent? [_Aside_.]

SELBY That ceremony past, we give the day To unabated sport. And, in requital Of certain stories, and quaint allegories, Which my rare Widow hath been telling to me To raise my morning mirth, if she will lend Her patient hearing, I will here recite A Parable; and, the more to suit her taste, The scene is laid in the East.

MRS. FRAMPTON I long to hear it. Some tale, to fit his wife. [_Aside_.]

KATHERINE Now, comes my TRIAL.

LUCY The hour of your deliverance is at hand, If I presage right. Bear up, gentlest sister.

SELBY "The Sultan Haroun"--Stay--O now I have it-- "The Caliph Haroun in his orchards had A fruit-tree, bearing such delicious fruits, That he reserved them for his proper gust; And through the Palace it was Death proclaim'd To any one that should purloin the same."

MRS. FRAMPTON A heavy penance for so light a fault--

SELBY Pray you, be silent, else you put me out. "A crafty page, that for advantage watch'd, Detected in the act a brother page, Of his own years, that was his bosom friend; And thenceforth he became that other's lord, And like a tyrant he demean'd himself, Laid forced exactions on his fellow's purse; And when that poor means fail'd, held o'er his head Threats of impending death in hideous forms; Till the small culprit on his nightly couch Dream'd of strange pains, and felt his body writhe In tortuous pangs around the impaling stake."

MRS. FRAMPTON I like not this beginning--

SELBY Pray you, attend. "The Secret, like a night-hag, rid his sleeps, And took the youthful pleasures from his days, And chased the youthful smoothness from his brow, That from a rose-cheek'd boy he waned and waned To a pale skeleton of what he was; And would have died, but for one lucky chance."

KATHERINE Oh!

MRS. FRAMPTON Your wife--she faints--some cordial--smell to this.

SELBY Stand off. My sister best will do that office.

MRS. FRAMPTON Are all his tempting speeches come to this? [_Aside_.]

SELBY What ail'd my wife?

KATHERINE A warning faintness, sir, Seized on my spirits, when you came to where You said "a lucky chance." I am better now, Please you go on.

SELBY The sequel shall be brief.

KATHERINE But brief or long, I feel my fate hangs on it. [_Aside_.]

SELBY "One morn the Caliph, in a covert hid, Close by an arbour where the two boys talk'd (As oft, we read, that Eastern sovereigns Would play the eaves-dropper, to learn the truth, Imperfectly received from mouths of slaves,) O'erheard their dialogue; and heard enough To judge aright the cause, and know his cue. The following day a Cadi was dispatched To summon both before the judgment-seat: The lickerish culprit, almost dead with fear, And the informing friend, who readily, Fired with fair promises of large reward, And Caliph's love, the hateful truth disclosed."

MRS. FRAMPTON What did the Caliph to the offending boy, That had so grossly err'd?

SELBY His sceptred hand He forth in token of forgiveness stretch'd, And clapp'd his cheeks, and courted him with gifts, And he became once more his favourite page.

MRS. FRAMPTON But for that other--

SELBY He dismiss'd him straight, From dreams of grandeur and of Caliph's love, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where friends, turn'd fiends, and hollow confidants, And widows, hide, who, in a husband's ear, Pour baneful truths, but tell not all the truth; And told him not that Robert Halford died Some moons before _his_ marriage-bells were rung. Too near dishonour hast thou trod, dear wife, And on a dangerous cast our fates were set; But Heav'n, that will'd our wedlock to be blest, Hath interposed to save it gracious too. Your penance is--to dress your cheek in smiles, And to be once again my merry Kate.--

Sister, your hand. Your wager won makes me a happy man, Though poorer, Heav'n knows, by a thousand pounds. The sky clears up after a dubious day. Widow, your hand. I read a penitence In this dejected brow; and in this shame Your fault is buried. You shall in with us, And, if it please you, taste our nuptial fare: For, till this moment, I can joyful say, Was never truly Selby's Wedding Day.

FINIS.

NOTES

Page 1. DEDICATION TO S.T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

In 1818, when Lamb wrote these words, he was forty-three and Coleridge forty-six. The _Works_, in the first volume of which this dedication appeared, were divided into two volumes, the second, containing prose, being dedicated to Martin Burney, in the sonnet which I have placed on page 45. The publishers of the _Works_ were Charles and James Ollier, who, starting business about 1816, had already published for Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Shelley.

For the allusion to the threefold cord, in the second paragraph, see the note on page 313.

The ****** Inn was the Salutation and Cat, in Newgate Street, since rebuilt, where Coleridge used to stay on his London visits when he was at Cambridge, and where the landlord is said to have asked him to continue as a free guest--if only he would talk and talk. Writing to Coleridge in 1796 Lamb recalls "the little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together through the winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with Poesy;" and again, "I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (associated circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and nights at the Salutation)." Later he added to these concomitants of a Salutation evening, "Egg-hot, Welsh-rabbit, and metaphysics," and gave as his highest idea of heaven, listening to Coleridge "repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets, in your sweet manner, while we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fire side at the Salutation."

The line--

Of summer days and of delightful years

is from Bowles--"Sonnet written at Ostend."

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Page 3. Lamb's Earliest Poem. _Mille Vice Mortis._

In a MS. book that had belonged to James Boyer of Christ's Hospital, in which his best scholars inscribed compositions, are these lines signed Charles Lamb, 1789. All Lamb's Grecians are there too. The book was described by the late Dykes Campbell, Lamb's most accomplished and enthusiastic student, in the _Illustrated London News_, December 26, 1891.

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Page 4. POEMS IN COLERIDGE'S _POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS_, 1796.

This book was published by Cottle, of Bristol, in 1796. Lamb contributed four poems, which were thus referred to by Coleridge in the Preface: "The Effusions signed C.L. were written by Mr. CHARLES LAMB, of the India House--independently of the signature their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them." Lamb reprinted the first only once, in 1797, in the second edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, the remaining three again in his _Works_ in 1818. I have followed in the body of this volume the text of these later appearances, the original form of the sonnets being relegated to the notes.

Page 4. _As when a child on some long winter's night._

Some mystery attaches to the authorship of this sonnet. On December 1, 1794, Coleridge wrote to the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_ saying that he proposed to send a series of sonnets ("as it is the fashion to call them") addressed to eminent contemporaries; and he enclosed one to Mr. Erskine. The editor, with almost Chinese politeness, inserted beneath the sonnet this note: "Our elegant Correspondent will highly gratify every reader of taste by the continuance of his exquisitely beautiful productions." The series continued with Burke, Priestley, Lafayette, Kosciusko, Chatham, Bowles, and, on December 29, 1794, Mrs. Siddons--the sonnet here printed--all signed S.T.C.

But the next appearance of the sonnet was as an effusion by Lamb in Coleridge's _Poems on Various Subjects_, 1796, signed C.L.; and its next in the _Poems_, 1797, among Lamb's contributions. In 1803, however, we find it in Coleridge's _Poems_, third edition, with no reference to Lamb whatever. This probably means that Lamb and Coleridge had written it together, that Coleridge's original share had been the greater, and that Lamb and he had come to an arrangement by which Coleridge was to be considered the sole author; for Lamb did not reprint it in 1818 with his other early verse. Writing in 1796 to Coleridge concerning his treatment of other of Lamb's sonnets, Lamb says: "That to Mrs. Siddons, now, you were welcome to improve, if it had been worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, spare my ewe lambs." Such a distinction drawn between the sonnet to Mrs. Siddons and the others supports the belief that Lamb had not for it a deeply parental feeling.

This was not the only occasion on which Lamb and Coleridge wrote a sonnet in partnership. Writing to Southey in December, 1794, Coleridge says: "Of the following sonnet, the four _last_ lines were written by Lamb, a man of uncommon genius...."

SONNET

O gentle look, that didst my soul beguile, Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream Revisit my sad heart, auspicious smile! As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam; What time in sickly mood, at parting day I lay me down and think of happier years; Of joys, that glimmered in Hope's twilight ray, Then left me darkling in a vale of tears. O pleasant days of Hope--for ever flown! Could I recall one!--But that thought is vain, Availeth not Persuasion's sweetest tone To lure the fleet-winged travellers back again: Anon, they haste to everlasting night, Nor can a giant's arm arrest them in their flight.

Subsequently Coleridge rewrote the final couplet.

The same letter to Southey informs us that the sonnet to Mrs. Siddons was not Lamb's earliest poem, although it stands first in his poetical works; for Coleridge remarks: "Have you seen his [Lamb's] divine sonnet, 'O! I could laugh to hear the winter wind'?" (see page 5).

Lamb printed the sonnet to Mrs. Siddons twice--in 1796 and 1797.

Page 4. _Was it some sweet device of Faery._

This sonnet passed through various vicissitudes. Lamb had sent it to Coleridge for his _Poems on Various Subjects_ in 1796, and Coleridge proceeded to re-model it more in accordance with his own views. The following version, representing his modifications, was the one that found its way into print as Lamb's:--

Was it some sweet device of faery land That mock'd my steps with many a lonely glade, And fancied wand'rings with a fair-hair'd maid? Have these things been? Or did the wizard wand Of Merlin wave, impregning vacant air, And kindle up the vision of a smile In those blue eyes, that seem'd to speak the while Such tender things, as might enforce Despair To drop the murth'ring knife, and let go by His fell resolve? Ah me! the lonely glade Still courts the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid, Among whose locks the west-winds love to sigh; But I forlorn do wander, reckless where, And mid my wand'rings find no ANNA there! C.L.

Lamb naturally protested when the result came under his eyes. "I love my own feelings: they are dear to memory," he says in a letter in 1796, "though they now and then wake a sigh or a tear. 'Thinking on divers things foredone,' I charge you, Coleridge, spare my ewe lambs." Later, when Coleridge's second edition was in preparation, Lamb wrote again (January 10, 1797): "I need not repeat my wishes to have my little sonnets printed _verbatim_ my last way. In particular, I fear lest you should prefer printing my first sonnet [this one] as you have done more than once, 'Did the wand of Merlin wave?' It looks so like _Mr_. Merlin, the ingenious successor of the immortal Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and flourishing in magical reputation in Oxford Street." The phrase "more than once" in the foregoing passage needs explanation. It refers to the little pamphlet of sonnets, entitled _Sonnets from Various Authors_, which Coleridge issued privately in 1796, and of which only one copy is now known to exist--that preserved in the Dyce and Forster collection at South Kensington. The little pamphlet contains twenty-eight sonnets in all, of which three are by Bowles, four by Southey, four by Charles Lloyd, four by Coleridge, four by Lamb, and others by various writers: all of which were chosen for their suitability to be bound up with the sonnets of Bowles. Lamb's sonnets were: "We were two pretty babes" (see page 9), "Was it some sweet device" (printed with Coleridge's alterations), "When last I roved" (see page 8), and "O! I could laugh" (see page 5).

The present sonnet belongs to the series of four love sonnets which is completed by the one that follows, "Methinks, how dainty sweet it were," and those on page 8 beginning, "When last I roved" and "A timid grace." Anna is believed to have been Ann Simmons, who lived at Blenheims, a group of cottages near Blakesware, the house where Mrs. Field, Lamb's grandmother, was housekeeper. Mrs. Field died in 1792, after which time Lamb's long visits to that part of the country probably ceased. He was then seventeen. Nothing is known of Lamb's attachment beyond these sonnets, the fact that when he lost his reason for a short time in 1795-1796 he attributed the cause to some person unmentioned who is conjectured to have been Anna, and the occasional references in the Ella essays to "Alice W----" and to his old passion for her (see "Dream Children" in particular, in Vol. II). The death of Mrs. Lamb in September, 1796, and the duty of caring for and nursing his sister Mary, which then devolved upon Charles, put an end to any dreams of private happiness that he may have been indulging; and his little romance was over. How deep his passion was we are not likely ever to know; but Lamb thenceforward made very light of it, except in the pensive recollections in the essays twenty-five years later. In November, 1796, when sending Coleridge poems for his second edition, he says: "Do not entitle any of my _things_ Love Sonnets, as I told you to call 'em; 'twill only make me look little in my own eyes; for it is a passion of which I retain nothing.... Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me...." Again, in November, 1796, in another letter to Coleridge, about his poems in the 1797 edition, Lamb says: "Oh, my friend! I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, which among them should I choose? not those 'merrier days,' not the 'pleasant days of hope,' not 'those wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _school-boy_." Lamb printed this sonnet three times--in 1796, 1797 and 1818.

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Page 5. _Methinks how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd._

When this sonnet was printed by Coleridge in 1796 the sestet was made to run thus:--

But ah! sweet scenes of fancied bliss, adieu! On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers I all too long have lost the dreamy hours! Beseems it now the sterner Muse to woo, If haply she her golden meed impart, To realise the vision of the heart.

Lamb remonstrated: "I had rather have seen what I wrote myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines--

"On rose-leaf'd beds, amid your faery bowers, etc.

I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my Own feelings at different times." This sonnet was printed by Lamb three times--in 1796, 1797 and 1798.

Page 5. _O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind,_

This sonnet, written probably at Margate, was entitled, in 1796, "Written at Midnight, by the Seaside, after a Voyage." The last lines then ran:--

And almost wish'd it were no crime to die! How Reason reel'd! What gloomy transports rose! Till the rude dashings rock'd them to repose.

The couplet was Coleridge's, and Lamb protested (June 10, 1796), describing them as good lines, but adding that they "must spoil the whole with me who know it is only a fiction of yours and that the rude dashings did in fact not rock me to repose."

When reprinted in 1797, the final couplet was omitted, asterisks standing instead. The present sonnet was probably the earliest of Lamb's printed poems. In the Elia essay "The Old Margate Hoy," Lamb states that the first time he saw the sea was on a visit to Margate as a boy, by water--probably the voyage that suggested this sonnet. Lamb printed the sonnet three times--in 1796, 1797 and 1818.

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Page 6. LLOYD'S _POEMS ON THE DEATH OF PRISCILLA FARMER_, 1796.

Charles Lloyd (1775-1839), the son of Charles Lloyd, of Birmingham (a cultured and philanthropical Quaker banker), joined Coleridge at Bristol late in 1796 as his private pupil, and moved with the family to Nether Stowey. Priscilla Farmer was Lloyd's maternal grandmother, to whom he was much attached, and on her death he composed the sonnets that form this costly quarto, published for Lloyd by Coleridge's friend, Joseph Cottle, of Bristol, in the winter of 1796.

Page 6. _The Grandame._

Lamb sent these lines in their first state to Coleridge in June, 1796, at, which time they were, I conjecture, part of a long blank-verse poem which he was then meditating, and of which "Childhood," "Fancy Employed on Divine Subjects," and "The Sabbath Bells" (see pages 9 and 10) were probably other portions. The poem was never finished. On June 13, 1796, he writes to Coleridge:--

"Of the blank verses I spoke of, the following lines are the only tolerably complete ones I have writ out of not more than one hundred and fifty. That I get on slowly you may fairly impute to want of practice in composition, when I declare to you that (the few verses which you have seen excepted) I have not writ fifty lines since I left school. It may not be amiss to remark that my grandmother (on whom the verses are written) lived housekeeper in a family the fifty or sixty last years of her life--that she was a woman of exemplary piety and goodness--and for many years before her death was terribly afflicted with a cancer in her breast, which she bore with true Christian patience. You may think that I have not kept enough apart the ideas of her heavenly and her earthly master; but recollect I have designedly given into her own way of feeling; and if she had a failing 'twas that she respected her master's family too much, not reverenced her Maker too little. The lines begin imperfectly, as I may probably connect 'em if I finish at all: and if I do, Biggs shall print 'em (in a more economical way than you yours), for, Sonnets and all, they won't make a thousand lines as I propose completing 'em, and the substance must be wire-drawn."

When Charles Lloyd joined Coleridge later in the year, and was preparing his _Poems in Memory of Priscilla Farmer_, Coleridge obtained Lamb's permission for "The Grandame" to be included with them. The lines were introduced by Lloyd in these words: "The following beautiful fragment was written by CHARLES LAMB, of the India-House.--Its subject being the same with that of my Poems, I was solicitous to have it printed with them: and I am indebted to a Friend of the Author's for the permission."

The poem differed then very slightly from its present form. When the book was sent to Lamb he remarked (in December, 1796) on "the odd coincidence of two young men, in one age, carolling their grandmothers.... I cannot but smile to see my Granny so gayly deck'd forth [the book was expensively produced by Lloyd], tho', I think, whoever altered 'thy' praises to 'her' praises--'thy' honoured memory to 'her' honoured memory [lines 27 and 28], did wrong--they best exprest my feelings. There is a pensive state of recollection, in which the mind is disposed to apostrophise the departed objects of its attachment; and, breaking loose from grammatical precision, changes from the 1st to the 3rd, and from the 3rd to the 1st person, just as the random fancy or feeling directs."

Mrs. Mary Field, _née_ Bruton, Lamb's maternal grandmother, was housekeeper at Blakesware house, near Widford, the seat of the Plumer family for very many years, during the latter part of her life being left in sole charge, for William Plumer had moved to his other seat, Gilston, a few miles distant (see "Blakesmoor in H---- shire," and notes, Vol. II). Lamb and his brother and sister visited their grandmother at Blakesware as though in her own house. Mrs. Field died of cancer in the breast, July 31, 1792, aged seventy-nine, and was buried in Widford churchyard.

Approached from the east the churchyard seems to be anything but on the hilltop, for one descends to it; but it stands on a ridge, and seen from the north, or, as at the old Blakesware house, from the west, it appears to crown an eminence. The present spire, though slender and tapering, is not that which Lamb used to see. Mrs. Field's plain stone, whose legibility was not long since threatened by overhanging branches, has now been saved from danger and may still be read. It merely records the name "Mary Feild" (a mistake of the stone-cutter) and the bare dates.

This poem was printed by Lamb three times--in 1796 (in Lloyd's book), in 1797 (with Coleridge) and in 1818.

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Page 8. COLERIDGE'S _POEMS_, 1797.

Coleridge's _Poems on Various Subjects_, 1796, went into a second edition in 1797 under the title, _Poems by S.T. Coleridge, Second Edition, to which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd_. Coleridge invented a motto from Groscollius for the title-page, bearing upon this poetical partnership: "Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium junctarumque Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas!" "Double is the bond which binds us--friendship, and a kindred taste in poetry. Would that neither death nor lapse of time could dissolve it!"

Lamb's contributions were thus referred to by Coleridge in the Preface: "There were inserted in my former Edition, a few Sonnets of my Friend and old School-fellow, CHARLES LAMB. He has now communicated to me a complete Collection of all his Poems; quae qui non prorsus amet, illum omnes et Virtutes et Veneres odore." (Which things, whoever is not unreservedly in love with, is detested by all the Virtues and the Graces.) Lamb's poems came last in the book, an arrangement insisted upon in a letter from him to Coleridge in November, 1796:--"Do you publish with Lloyd, or without him? In either case my little portion may come last; and after the fashion of orders to a country correspondent, I will give directions how I should like to have 'em done. The title-page to stand thus:--

POEMS

BY

CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA HOUSE

Under this leaf the following motto, which, for want of room, I put over leaf, I desire you to insert, whether you like it or no. May not a gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the Herald will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the _Saracen's Head_, even though his undiscerning neighbour should prefer, as more genteel, the _Cat and Gridiron_?

"[MOTTO]

"This Beauty, in the blossom of my Youth, When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, In the best language my true tongue could tell me, And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, I sued and served. Long did I love this Lady.

"Massinger."

"THE DEDICATION _THE FEW FOLLOWING POEMS_, CREATURES OF THE FANCY AND THE FEELING IN LIFE'S MORE _VACANT_ HOURS, PRODUCED, FOR THE MOST PART, BY LOVE IN IDLENESS; ARE, WITH ALL A BROTHER'S FONDNESS, INSCRIBED TO MARY ANN LAMB, THE AUTHOR'S BEST FRIEND AND SISTER"

The dedication was printed as Lamb wished, in the form I have followed above, and the book appeared.

Page 8. _When last I roved these winding wood-walks green,_

This was sent to Coleridge on June 1, 1796, in a letter containing also the sonnets, "The Lord of Life," page 16; "A timid grace," page 8; and "We were two pretty babes," page 9. It was written, said Lamb, "on revisiting a spot, where the scene was laid of my 1st sonnet"--"Was it some sweet device," page 4. Lamb printed this sonnet twice--in 1797 and 1818. Page 8. _A timid grace sits trembling in her eye._

This, the last of the four love sonnets (see note on page 310), seems to be a survival of a discarded effort, for Lamb tells Coleridge, in the letter referred to in the preceding note, that it "retains a few lines from a sonnet of mine, which you once remarked had no 'body of thought' in it." Lamb printed this sonnet twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 9. _If from my lips some angry accents fell,_

Lamb sent this sonnet, which is addressed to his sister, to Coleridge in May, 1796. "The Sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry, but you will be curious to read it when I tell you it was written in my prison-house [an asylum] in one of my lucid Intervals." It is dated 1795 in Coleridge's _Poems_. Lamb printed the sonnet twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 9. _We were two pretty babes, the youngest she._

First printed in the _Monthly Magazine_, July, 1796. "The next and last [wrote Lamb in the letter to Coleridge referred to in the notes on page 310] I value most of all. 'Twas composed close upon the heels of the last ['A timid grace,' page 8], in that very wood I had in mind when I wrote 'Methinks how dainty sweet' [page 5]." It is dated 1795 in Coleridge's _Poems_. In the same letter Lamb adds:--"Since writing it, I have found in a poem by Hamilton of Bangour [William Hamilton, 1704-1754, the Scotch poet, of Bangour, Linlithgowshire] these 2 lines to happiness:--

"Nun sober and devout, where art thou fled, To hide in shades thy meek contented head.

Lines eminently beautiful, but I do not remember having re'd 'em previously, for the credit of my 10th and 11th lines. Parnell [Thomas Parnell, 1679-1718] has 2 lines (which probably suggested the _above_) to Contentment

"Whither ah whither art Thou fled, To hide thy meek contented head.

"Cowley's exquisite Elegy on the death of his friend Harvey suggested the phrase of 'we two'

"Was there a tree [about] that did not know The love betwixt us two?--"

When Coleridge printed the sonnet in the pamphlet described on page 310, he appended to the eleventh line the following note:--

Innocence, which, while we possess it, is playful as a babe, becomes AWFUL when it has departed from us. This is the sentiment of the line --a fine sentiment and nobly expressed.

Lamb printed this sonnet twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 9. _Childhood._

See note to "The Grandame," page 312. The "turf-clad slope" in line 4 was probably at Blakesware. It is difficult to re-create the scene, for the new house stands a quarter of a mile west of the old one, the site of which is hidden by grass and trees. Where once were gardens is now meadow land.

Lamb printed this poem twice--in 1797 and 1818.

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Page 10. _The Sabbath Bells_.

Lamb printed this poem twice--in 1797 and 1818. Church bells seem always to have had charms for him (see the reference in _John Woodvil_, page 197, and in Susan Yates' story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ in Vol. III.). See note to "The Grandame."

Page 10. _Fancy Employed on Divine Subjects._

In the letter of December 5, 1796, quoted below, Lamb remarks concerning this poem: "I beg you to alter the words 'pain and want,' to 'pain and grief' (line 10), this last being a more familiar and ear-satisfying combination. Do it, I beg of you." But the alteration either was not made, or was cancelled later. The reference in lines 6, 7 and 8 is to Revelation xxii. 1, 2. See note to "The Grandame." Lamb printed this poem twice--in 1797 and 1818.

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Page 11. _The Tomb of Douglas._

The play on which this poem was founded was the tragedy of "Douglas" by John Home (1722-1808), produced in 1756. Young Norval, or Douglas, the hero, after killing the false Glenalvon, is slain by his stepfather, Lord Randolph, unknowing who he is. On hearing of Norval's death his mother, Lady Randolph, throws herself from a precipice. In the letter to Coleridge of December 5, 1796, quoted above, Lamb also copied out "The Tomb of Douglas," prefixing these remarks:--"I would also wish to retain the following if only to perpetuate the memory of so exquisite a pleasure as I have often received at the performance of the tragedy of Douglas, when Mrs. Siddons has been the Lady Randolph.... To understand the following, if you are not acquainted with the play, you should know that on the death of Douglas his mother threw herself down a rock; and that at that time Scotland was busy in repelling the Danes."

Coleridge told Southey that Lamb during his derangement at the end of 1795 and beginning of 1796 believed himself at one time to be Young Norval.

Lamb printed this poem, which differs curiously in character from all his other poetical works, only once--in 1797.

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Page 12. _To Charles Lloyd._

Lamb copied these lines in a letter to Coleridge on January 18, 1797, remarking:--"You have learned by this time, with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so unlooked for are not ill expressed in what follows, and what if you do not object to them as too personal, and to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in worth I should wish to make a part of our little volume."

It must be remembered, in reading the poem, that Lamb was still in the shadow of the tragedy in which he lost his mother, and, for a while, his sister, and which had ruined his home. For other lines to Charles Lloyd see page 21. This poem was printed by Lamb twice--in 1797 and 1818.

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Page 13. _A Vision of Repentance_.

Writing to Coleridge on June 13, 1797, Lamb says of this Spenserian exercise:--"You speak slightingly. Surely the longer stanzas were pretty tolerable; at least there was one good line in it [line 5]:

"Thick-shaded trees, with dark green leaf rich clad.

To adopt your own expression, I call this a 'rich' line, a fine full line. And some others I thought even beautiful." Lamb printed the poem twice--in 1797 and 1818.

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Page 16. POEMS WRITTEN IN THE YEARS 1795-1798, AND NOT REPRINTED BY LAMB.

Page 16. _Sonnet: The Lord of Life shakes off his drowsihed_.

The _Monthly Magazine_, December, 1797. Signed Charles Lamb.

Lamb sent the first draft of this sonnet to Coleridge in 1796, saying that it was composed "during a walk down into Hertfordshire early in last Summer." "The last line," he adds, "is a copy of Bowles's 'to the green hamlet in the peaceful plain.' Your ears are not so very fastidious--many people would not like words so prosaic and familiar in a sonnet as Islington and Hertfordshire." We must take Lamb's word for it; but the late W.J. Craig found for the last line a nearer parallel than Bowles'. In William Vallans' "Tale of the Two Swannes" (1590), which is quoted in Leland's Itinerary, Hearne's edition, is the phrase: "The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfordshire." Lamb quotes his own line in the _Elia_ essay "My Relations."

This sonnet is perhaps the only occasion on which Lamb, even in play, wrote anything against his beloved city.

It may be noted here that this was Lamb's last contribution to the _Monthly Magazine_, which had printed in the preceding number, November, 1797, Coleridge's satirical sonnets, signed Nehemiah Higginbottom, in which Lamb and Lloyd were ridiculed, and which had perhaps some bearing on the coolness that for a while was to subsist between Coleridge and Lamb (see _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, 1898, pages 44-47).

Page 16. _To the Poet Cowper_.

The _Monthly Magazine_, December, 1796. Signed C. Lamb.

Lamb wrote these lines certainly as early as July, 1796, for he sends them to Coleridge on the 6th of that month, adding:--

"I fear you will not accord entirely with my sentiments of Cowper, as _exprest_ above, (perhaps scarcely just), but the poor Gentleman has just recovered from his Lunacies, and that begets pity, and pity love, and love admiration, and then it goes hard with People but they lie!"

Lamb admired Cowper greatly in those days--particularly his "Crazy Kate" ("Task," Book I., 534-556). "I have been reading 'The Task' with fresh delight," he says on December 5, 1796. "I am glad you love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would not call that man my friend, who should be offended with the 'divine chit-chat of Cowper.'" And again a little later, "I do so love him."

Page 17. _Lines addressed, from London, to Sara and S.T.C. at Bristol, in the Summer of 1796._

_The Monthly Magazine,_ January, 1797. Signed Charles Lamb.

Lamb sent the lines in their original state to Coleridge in the letter of July 5, 1796, immediately before the words "_Let us prose,_" at the head of that document as it is now preserved.

"Another minstrel" was Coleridge. Chatterton was the mysterious youth of line 16. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was baptised at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; he was the nephew of the sexton; he brooded for many hours a day in the church; he copied his antique writing from the parchment in its muniment room; one of his later dreams was to be able to build a new spire; and a cenotaph to his memory was erected by public subscription in 1840 near the north-east angle of the churchyard. Chatterton went to London on April 24, 1770, aged seventeen and a half, and died there by his own hand on August 25 of the same year.

The poem originated in an invitation to Lamb from the Coleridges at Bristol, which he hoped to be able to accept; but to his request for the necessary holiday from the India House came refusal. Lamb went to Nether Stowey, however, in the following summer and met Wordsworth there.

Lamb at one time wished these lines to be included among his poems in the second edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797. Writing on January 18, 1797, Lamb says: "I shall be sorry if that volume comes out, as it necessarily must do, unless you print those very school boyish verses I sent you on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last summer." At the end of the letter he adds: "Yet I should feel ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better. But they are too personal, almost trifling and obscure withal."

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Page 18. _Sonnet to a Friend._

The _Monthly Magazine,_ October, 1797. Signed Charles Lamb.

Lamb sent this sonnet to Coleridge on January 2, 1797, remarking: "If the fraternal sentiment conveyed in the following lines will atone for the total want of any thing like merit or genius in it, I desire you will print it next after my other Sonnet to my Sister." The other sonnet was, "If from my lips some peevish accents fall," printed with Coleridge's _Poems_ in 1797 (see page 9), concerning which book Lamb was writing in the above letter. Coleridge apparently decided against the present sonnet, for it was not printed in that book.

Writing to Coleridge again a week later concerning the present poem, Lamb said:--

"I am aware of the unpoetical caste of the 6 last lines of my last sonnet, and think myself unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book; only the sentiments of those 6 lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to poor Mary."

It has to be borne in mind that only three months had elapsed since the death of Mrs. Lamb, and Mary was still in confinement.

Page 18. _To a Young Lady_. Signed C.L.

_Monthly Magazine_, March, 1797, afterwards copied into the _Poetical Register_ for 1803, signed C.L. in both cases. We know these to be Lamb's from a letter to Coleridge of December 5, 1796. The identity of the young lady is not now known.

* * * * *

Page 19. _Living without God in the World._

The _Annual Anthology,_ Vol. I., 1799.

Vol. I. of the _Annual Anthology_, edited by Southey for Joseph Cottle, was issued in September, 1799; and that was, I believe, this poem's first appearance as a whole. Early in 1799, however, Charles Lloyd had issued a pamphlet entitled _Lines suggested by the Fast appointed on Wednesday, February 27, 1799_ (Birmingham, 1799), in which, in a note, he quotes a passage from Lamb's poem, beginning, "some braver spirits" (line 23), and ending, "prey on carcasses" (line 36), with the prefatory remark: "I am happy in the opportunity afforded me of introducing the following striking extract from some lines, intended as a satire on the Godwinian jargon."

Writing to Southey concerning this poem, Lamb says:-"I can have no objection to you printing 'Mystery of God' [afterwards called 'Living without God in the World'] with my name, and all due acknowledgments for the honour and favour of the communication: indeed, 'tis a poem that can dishonour no name. Now, that is in the true strain of modern modesto vanitas."

* * * * *

Page 21. _BLANK VERSE_, BY CHARLES LLOYD AND CHARLES LAMB, 1798.

Charles Lloyd left Coleridge early in 1797, and was in the winter 1797-1798 living in London, sharing lodgings with James White (Lamb's friend and the author of _Original Letters, etc., of Sir John Falstaff_, 1796). It was then that the joint production of this volume was entered upon. Of the seven poems contributed by Lamb only "The Old Familiar Faces" (shorn of one stanza) and the lines "Composed at Midnight" were reprinted by him: on account, it may be assumed, of his wish not to revive in his sister, who would naturally read all that he published, any painful recollections. Not that she refused in after years to speak of her mother, but Lamb was, I think, sensitive for her and for himself and the family too. As a matter of fact the circumstances of Mrs. Lamb's death were known only to a very few of the Lambs' friends until after Charles' death. It must be remembered that when _Blank Verse_ was originally published, in 1798, Mary Lamb was still living apart, nor was it known that she, would ever be herself again.

It was this little volume which gave Gillray an opportunity for introducing Lamb and Lloyd into his cartoon "The New Morality," published in the first number of _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_ (which succeeded Canning's _Anti-Jacobin_), August 1, 1798. Canning's lines, "The New Morality," had been published in _The Anti-Jacobin_ on July 9, 1798, containing the couplets:--

And ye five other wandering Bards that move In sweet accord of harmony and love, C----dge and S--th--y, L----d, and L----be and Co., Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux!

In the picture Gillray introduced "Coleridge" as a donkey offering a volume of "Dactylics," and Southey as another donkey, flourishing a volume of "Saphics." Behind them, seated side by side, poring over a manuscript entitled "Blank Verse, by Toad and Frog," are a toad and frog which the Key states to be Lloyd and Lamb. It was in reference to this picture that Godwin, on first meeting Lamb, asked him, "Pray, Mr. Lamb, are you toad or frog?"

Page 21. _To Charles Lloyd._

_The Monthly Magazine_, October, 1797. Signed.

Lamb sent these lines to Coleridge in September, 1797, remarking: "The following I wrote when I had returned from Charles Lloyd, leaving him behind at Burton, with Southey. To understand some of it you must remember that at that time he was very much perplexed in mind." Lloyd throughout his life was given to religious speculations which now and then disturbed his mind to an alarming extent, affecting him not unlike the gloomy forebodings and fears that beset Cowper. On this particular occasion he was in difficulty also as to his engagement with Sophia Pemberton, with whom he was meditating elopement and a Scotch marriage.

Page 21. _Written on the Day of my Aunt's Funeral._

"This afternoon," Lamb wrote to Coleridge on February 13, 1797, "I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the 'cherisher of infancy.' ..." Lamb's Aunt Hetty was his father's sister. Her real name was Sarah Lamb. All that we know of her is found in this poem, in the _Letters_, in the passages in "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago," and "My Relations;" in the story of "The Witch Aunt," in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, and in a reference in one of Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart, where, writing of her aunt and her mother,--"the best creatures in the world,"--she speaks of Miss Lamb as being "as unlike a gentlewoman as you can possibly imagine a good old woman to be;" contrasting her with Mrs. Lamb, "a perfect gentlewoman." The description in "The Witch Aunt" bears out Mary Lamb's letter.

After the tragedy of September, 1796, Aunt Hetty was taken into the house of a rich relative. This lady, however, seems to have been of too selfish and jealous a disposition (see Lamb's letter to Coleridge, December 9, 1796) to exert any real effort to make her guest comfortable or happy. Hence Aunt Hetty returned to her nephew.

"My poor old aunt [Lamb wrote to Coleridge on January 5, 1797], whom you have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to me when I was at school; who used to toddle there to bring me fag [food], when I, school-boy like, only despised her for it, and used to be ashamed to see her come and sit herself down on the old coal-hole steps as you went into the old grammar-school, opend her apron, and bring out her bason with some nice thing she had caused to be saved for me--the good old creature is now lying on her death bed.... She says, poor thing, she is glad to come home to die with me. I was always her favourite."

Line 24. _One parent yet is left_. John Lamb, who is described as he was in his prime, as Lovel, in the _Elia_ essay on _"The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,"_ died in 1799.

Line 27. _A semblance most forlorn of what he was_. Lamb uses this line as a quotation, slightly altered, in his account of Lovel.

* * * * *

Page 22. _Written a Year after the Events_.

Lamb sent this poem to Coleridge in September, 1797, entitling it "Written a Twelvemonth after the Events," and adding, "Friday next, Coleridge, is the day on which my Mother died." Mrs. Lamb's death, at the hands of her daughter in a moment of frenzy, occurred on September 22, 1796. Lamb added that he wrote the poem at the office with "unusual celerity." "I expect you to like it better than anything of mine; Lloyd does, and I do myself." The version sent to Coleridge differs only in minor and unimportant points from that in _Blank Verse_.

The second paragraph of the poem is very similar to a passage which Lamb had written in a letter to Coleridge on November 14, 1796:--

"Oh, my friend! I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, which among them should I choose? not those 'merrier days,' not the 'pleasant days of hope,' not 'those wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _school-boy_. What would I give to call her back to earth for _one_ day!--on my knees to ask her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which, from time to time, have given her gentle spirit pain!--and the day, my friend, I trust, will come. There will be 'time enough' for kind offices of love, if 'Heaven's eternal year' be ours. Here-after, her meek spirit shall not reproach me."

In the last paragraph of the poem is a hint of "The Old Familiar Faces," that was to follow it in the course of a few months.

Lines 52, 53. _And one, above the rest_. Probably Coleridge is meant.

Page 24. _Written soon after the Preceding Poem_.

The poem is addressed to Lamb's mother. Lamb seems to have sent a copy to Southey, although the letter containing it has not been perserved, for we find Southey passing it on to his friend C.W.W. Wynn on November 29, 1797, with a commendation: "I know that our tastes differ much in poetry, and yet I think you must like these lines by Charles Lamb."

The following passage in Rosamund Gray, which Lamb was writing at this time, is curiously like these poems in tone. It occurs in one of the letters from Elinor Clare to her friend--letters in which Lamb seems to describe sometimes his own feelings, and sometimes those of his sister, on their great sorrow:--

"Maria! shall not the meeting of blessed spirits, think you, be something like this?--I think, I could even now behold my mother without dread--I would ask pardon of her for all my past omissions of duty, for all the little asperities in my temper, which have so often grieved her gentle spirit when living. Maria! I think she would not turn away from me.

"Oftentimes a feeling, more vivid than memory, brings her before me--I see her sit in her old elbow chair--her arms folded upon her lap--a tear upon her cheek, that seems to upbraid her unkind daughter for some inattention--I wipe it away and kiss her honored lips.

"Maria! when I have been fancying all this, Allan will come in, with his poor eyes red with weeping, and taking me by the hand, destroy the vision in a moment.

"I am prating to you, my sweet cousin, but it is the prattle of the heart, which Maria loves. Besides, whom have I to talk to of these things but you--you have been my counsellor in times past, my companion, and sweet familiar friend. Bear with me a little--I mourn the 'cherishers of my infancy.'"

* * * * *

Page 25. _Written on Christmas Day, 1797_.

Mary Lamb, to whom these lines were addressed, after seeming to be on the road to perfect recovery, had suddenly had a relapse necessitating a return to confinement from the lodging in which her brother had placed her.

Page 25. _The Old Familiar Faces_.

This, the best known of all Lamb's poems, was written in January, 1798, following, it is suggested, upon a fit of resentment against Charles Lloyd. Writing to Coleridge in that month Lamb tells of that little difference, adding, "but he has forgiven me." Mr. J.A. Rutter, who, through Canon Ainger, enunciated this theory, thinks that Lloyd may be the "friend" of the fourth stanza, and Coleridge the "friend" of the sixth. The old--but untenable--supposition was that it was Coleridge whom Lamb had left abruptly. On the other hand it might possibly have been James White, especially as he was of a resolutely high-spirited disposition.

In its 1798 form the poem began with this stanza:--

Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? I had a mother, but she died, and left me, Died prematurely in a day of horrors-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

And the last stanza began with the word "For," and italicised the words

_And some are taken from me_.

I am inclined to think from this italicisation that it was Mary Lamb's new seizure that was the real impulse of the poem.

The poem was dated January, 1798. Lamb printed it twice--in 1798 and 1818.

* * * * *

Page 26. _Composed at Midnight_.

On the appearance of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, Leigh Hunt printed in _The Examiner_ (February 7 and 8, 1819) the passage beginning with line 32, entitling it "A HINT to the GREATER CRIMINALS who are so fond of declaiming against the crimes of the poor and uneducated, and in favour of the torments of prisons and prison-ships in this world, and worse in the next. Such a one, says the poet,

'on his couch Lolling, &c.'"

* * * * *

Page 28. POEMS AT THE END OF JOHN WOODVIL, 1802.

The volume containing _John Woodvil_, 1802, which is placed in the present edition among Lamb's plays, on page 149, included also the "Fragments of Burton" (see Vol. I.) and two lyrics.

Page 28. _Helen_.

Lamb sent this poem to Coleridge on August 26, 1800, remarking:--"How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that it is almost or quite a first attempt."

The author was, of course, Mary Lamb. In his _Elia_ essay "Blakesmoor in H----shire" in the _London Magazine_, September, 1824, Lamb quoted the poem, stating that "Bridget took the hint" of her "pretty whimsical lines" from a portrait of one of the Plumers' ancestors. The portrait was the cool pastoral beauty with a lamb, and it was partly to make fun of her brother's passion for the picture that Mary wrote the lines.

The poem was reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

* * * * *

Page 29. _Ballad from the German_.

This poem was written for Coleridge's translation of "The Piccolimini," the first part of Schiller's "Wallenstein," in 1800--Coleridge supplying a prose paraphrase (for Lamb knew no German) for the purpose. The original is Thekla's song in Act II., Scene 6:--

Der Eichwald brauset, die Wolken ziehn, Das Mägdlein wandelt an Ufers Grün, Es bricht sich die Welle mit Macht, mit Macht, Und sie singt hinaus in die finstre Nacht, Das Auge von Weinen getrübet. Das Herz ist gestorben, die Welt ist leer, Und welter giebt sie dem Wunsche nichts mehr. Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück, Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück, Ich habe gelebt und geliebet.

Coleridge's own translation of Thekla's song, which was printed alone in later editions of the play, ran thus:--

The cloud doth gather, the greenwood roar, The damsel paces along the shore; The billows they tumble with might, with might; And she flings out her voice to the darksome night; Her bosom is swelling with sorrow; The world it is empty, the heart will die, There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky: Thou Holy One, call thy child away! I've lived and loved, and that was to-day-- Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow.

Barry Cornwall, in his memoir of Lamb, says: "Lamb used to boast that he supplied one line to his friend in the fourth scene [Act IV., Scene i] of that tragedy, where the description of the Pagan deities occurs. In speaking of Saturn, he is figured as 'an old man melancholy.' 'That was my line,' Lamb would say, exultingly." The line did not reach print in this form.

Lamb printed his translation twice--in 1802 and 1818.

Page 29. _Hypochondriacus_.

* * * * *

Page 30. _A Ballad Noting the Difference of Rich and Poor_.

These two poems formed, in the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, portions of the "Fragments of Burton," which will be found in Vol. I. Lamb afterwards took out these poems and printed them separately in the Works, 1818, in the form here given. Originally "Hypochondriacus" formed Extract III. of the "Fragments," under the title "A Conceipt of Diabolical Possession." The body of the verses differed very slightly from the present state; but at the end the prayer ran: "_Jesu Mariae! libera nos ab his tentationibus, oral, implorat, R.B. Peccator_"--R.B. standing for Robert Burton, the anatomist of melancholy, the professed author of the poem.

"The Old and Young Courtier" may be found in the _Percy Reliques_. Lamb copied it into one of his Commonplace Books.

* * * * *

Page 32. THE _WORKS_ OF CHARLES LAMB, 1818.

This book, in two volumes, was published by C. & J. Ollier in 1818: the first volume containing the dedication to Coleridge that is here printed on page 1, all of Lamb's poetry that he then wished to preserve, "John Woodvil," "The Witch," the "Fragments of Burton," "Rosamund Gray" and "Recollections of Christ's Hospital;" the second volume, dedicated to Martin Charles Burney in the sonnet on page 45, containing criticisms, essays and "Mr. H."

The scheme of the present volume makes it impossible to keep together the poetical portion of Lamb's _Works_. In order, however, to present clearly to the reader Lamb's mature selection, in 1818, of the poetry by which he wished to be known, I have indicated the position in his _Works_ of those poems that have already been printed on earlier pages.

Page 32. _Hester_.

Lamb sent this poem to Manning in March, 1803--"I send you some verses I have made on the death of a young Quaker you may have heard me speak of as being in love with for some years while I lived at Pentonville, though I had never spoken to her in my life. She died about a month since."

Hester Savory was the daughter of Joseph Savory, a goldsmith in the Strand. She was born in 1777 and was thus by two years Lamb's junior. She married, in July, 1802, Charles Stoke Dudley, a merchant, and she died in February of the following year, and was buried at Bunhill Fields. Lamb was living in Pentonville from the end of 1796 until 1799.

* * * * *

Page 33. _Dialogue between a Mother and Child._ By Mary Lamb.

Charles Lamb, writing to Dorothy Wordsworth on June 2, 1804, says: "I send you two little copies of verses by Mary L--b." Then follow this "Dialogue" and the "Lady Blanch" verses on page 41. Lamb adds at the end: "I wish they may please you: we in these parts are not a little proud of them."

* * * * *

Page 34. _A Farewell to Tobacco._

First printed in _The Reflector_, No. IV., 1811.

Lamb had begun to think poetically of tobacco as early as 1803. Writing to Coleridge in April 13 of that year, he says:--"What do you think of smoking? I want your sober, _average, noon opinion_ of it. I generally am eating my dinner about the time I should determine it. Morning is a girl, and can't smoke--she's no evidence one way or the other; and Night is so [? evidently] _bought over_, that he can't be a very upright judge. May be the truth is, that _one_ pipe is wholesome; _two_ pipes toothsome; _three_ pipes noisome; _four_ pipes fulsome; _five_ pipes quarrelsome; and that's the _sum_ on't. But that is deciding rather upon rhyme than reason."

Writing to William and Dorothy Wordsworth on September 28, 1805, Lamb remarked regarding his literary plans:--"Sometimes I think of a farce--but hitherto all schemes have gone off,--an idle brag or two of an evening vaporing out of a pipe, and going off in the morning--but now I have bid farewell to my 'Sweet Enemy' Tobacco, as you will see in my next page, I perhaps shall set soberly to work. Hang work!"

On the next page Lamb copied the "Farewell to Tobacco," adding:--"I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my 'Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years: and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips even when it has become a habit. This Poem is the only one which I have finished since so long as when I wrote 'Hester Savory' [in March, 1803].... The 'Tobacco,' being a little in the way of Withers (whom Southey so much likes), perhaps you will somehow convey it to him with my kind remembrances."

Mr. Bertram Dobell has a MS. copy of the poem, in Lamb's hand, inscribed thus: "To his _quondam_ Brethren of the Pipe, Capt. B[urney], and J[ohn] R[ickman], Esq., the Author dedicates this his last Farewell to Tobacco." At the end is a rude drawing of a pipe broken--"My Emblem."

It is perhaps hardly needful to say that Lamb's farewell was not final. He did not give up smoking for many years. When asked (Talfourd's version of the story says by Dr. Parr) how he was able to emit such volumes of smoke, he replied, "I toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after virtue;" and Macready records having heard Lamb express the wish to draw his last breath through a pipe and exhale it in a pun. Talfourd says that in late life Lamb ceased to smoke except very occasionally. But the late Mrs. Coe, who knew Lamb at Widford when she was a child, told me that she remembered Lamb's black pipe and his devotion to it, about 1830.

In his character sketch of the late Elia (see Vol. II.), written in 1822, Lamb describes the effect of tobacco upon himself. "He took it, he would say, as a solvent of speech. Marry--as the friendly vapour ascended, how his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a statist!"

* * * * *

Page 38. _To T.L.H_.

First printed in _The Examiner_, January 1, 1815.

The lines are to Thornton Leigh Hunt, Leigh Hunt's little boy, who was born in 1810, and, during his father's imprisonment for a libel on the Regent from February, 1813, to February, 1815, was much in the Surrey gaol. Lamb, who was among Hunt's constant visitors, probably first saw him there. Lamb mentions him again in his _Elia_ essay "Witches and other Night Fears." See also note to the "Letter to Southey," Vol. I. Thornton Leigh Hunt became a journalist, and held an important post on the _Daily Telegraph_. He died in 1873.

When printed in Leigh Hunt's _Examiner_, signed C.L., the poem had these prefatory words by the editor:--

The following piece perhaps we had some personal reasons for not admitting, but we found more for the contrary; and could not resist the pleasure of contemplating together the author and the object of his address,--to one of whom the Editor is owing for some of the lightest hours of his captivity, and to the other for a main part of its continual solace.

* * * * *

Page 41. _Lines Suggested by a Picture of Two Females by Lionardo da Vinci_. By Mary Lamb.

This was the "Lady Blanch" poem which Lamb sent to Dorothy Wordsworth in the letter of June 2, 1804 (see page 325). There it was entitled "Suggested by a Print of 2 Females, after Lionardo da Vinci, called Prudence and Beauty, which hangs up in our room." The usual title is "Modesty and Vanity."

Page 41. _Lines on the Same Picture being Removed to make Place for a Portrait of a Lady by Titian_. By Mary Lamb.

Writing to Dorothy Wordsworth on June 14, 1805, Lamb says: "You had her [Mary's] Lines about the 'Lady Blanch.' You have not had some which she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung, in our room. 'Tis light and pretty."

* * * * *

Page 42. _Lines on the Celebrated Picture by Lionardo da Vinci, called The Virgin of the Rocks_.

This was the picture, one version of which hangs in the National Gallery, that was known to Lamb's friends as his "Beauty," and which led to the Scotchman's mistake in the _Elia_ essay "Imperfect Sympathies."

Page 42. _On the Same_. By Mary Lamb.

In the letter to Dorothy Wordsworth of June 14, 1805, quoted just above, Lamb says: "I cannot resist transcribing three or four Lines which poor Mary [she was at this time away from home in one of her enforced absences] made upon a Picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an Auction only one week before she left home.... They are sweet Lines, and upon a sweet Picture."

Mary Lamb wrote little verse besides the _Poetry for Children_ (see Vol. III. of this edition). To the pieces that are printed in the present volume I would add the lines suggested by the death of Captain John Wordsworth, the poet's brother, in the foundering of the _Abergavenny_ in February, 1805, when Coleridge was in Malta, which were sent by Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth, May 7, 1805:--

Why is he wandering on the sea? Coleridge should now with Wordsworth be. By slow degrees he'd steal away Their woe, and gently bring a ray (So happily he'd time relief) Of comfort from their very grief. He'd tell them that their brother dead, When years have passed o'er their head, Will be remember'd with such holy, True, and perfect melancholy, That ever this lost brother John Will be their hearts' companion. His voice they'll always hear, his face they'll always see; There's nought in life so sweet as such a memory.

* * * * *

SONNETS

Page 43. _To Miss Kelly_.

Frances Maria Kelly (1790-1882)--or Fanny Kelly, as she was usually called--was Lamb's favourite actress of his middle and later life and a personal friend of himself and his sister: so close that Lamb proposed marriage to her. See Lamb's criticisms of Miss Kelly's acting in Vol. I., and notes. Another sonnet addressed by Lamb to Miss Kelly will be found on page 59 of the present volume.

Page 43. _On the Sight of Swans in Kensington Garden_. This is, I think, Lamb's only poem the inspiration of which was drawn from nature.

* * * * *

Page 44. _The Family Name_.

John Lamb, Charles's father, came from Lincoln. A recollection of his boyhood there is given in the _Elia_ essay "Poor Relations." The "stream" seems completely to have ended with Charles Lamb and his sister Mary: at least, research has yielded no descendants.

Crabb Robinson visited Goethe in the summer of 1829. The _Diary_ has this entry: "I inquired whether he knew the name of Lamb. 'Oh, yes! Did he not write a pretty sonnet on his own name?' Charles Lamb, though he always affected contempt for Goethe, yet was manifestly pleased that his name was known to him."

In the little memoir of Lamb prefixed by M. Amédée Pichot to a French edition of the _Tales from Shakespeare_ in 1842 the following translation of this sonnet is given:--

MON NOM DE FAMILLE

Dis-moi, d'où nous viens-tu, nom pacifique et doux, Nom transmis sans reproche?... A qui te devons-nous, Nom qui meurs avec moi? mon glason de poëte A l'aïeul de mon père obscurément s'arrête. --Peut-être nous viens-tu d'un timide pasteur, Doux comme ses agneaux, raillé pour sa douceur. Mais peut-être qu'aussi, moins commune origine, Nous viens-tu d'un héros, d'un pieux paladin, Qui croyant honorer ainsi l'Agneau divin, Te prit en revenant des champs de Palestine. Mais qu'importe après tout ... qu'il soit illustre ou non, Je ne ferai jamais une tache à ce nom.

Page 44. _To John Lamb, Esq._

John Lamb, Charles's brother, was born in 1763 and was thus by twelve years his senior. At the time this poem appeared, in 1818, he was accountant of the South-Sea House. He died on October 26, 1821 (see the _Elia_ essays "My Relations" and "Dream Children").

* * * * *

Page 45. _To Martin Charles Burney, Esq._

Lamb prefixed this sonnet to Vol. II. of his _Works_, 1818. In Vol. I. he had placed the dedication to Coleridge which we have already seen. Martin Charles Burney was the son of Rear-Admiral James Burney, Lamb's old friend, and nephew of Madame d'Arblay. He was a barrister by profession; dabbled a little in authorship; was very quaint in some of his ways and given to curiously intense and sudden enthusiasms; and was devoted to Mary Lamb and her brother. When these two were at work on their _Tales from Shakespear_ Martin Burney would sit with them and attempt to write for children too. Lamb's letter of May 24, 1830, to Sarah Hazlitt has some amusing stories of his friend, at whom (like George Dyer) he could laugh as well as love. Lamb speaks of him on one occasion as on the top round of his ladder of friendship. Writing to Sarah Hazlitt, Lamb says:--"Martin Burney is as good, and as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word 'heir,' which I contended was pronounced 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 pronounced 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-favouredly, 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, harassing 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."

Martin Burney, of whom another glimpse is caught in the _Elia_ essay "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading," died in 1860. At Mary Lamb's funeral he was inconsolable.

* * * * *

Page 46. CHARLES LAMB'S _ALBUM VERSES_, 1830.

The publication of this volume, in 1830, was due more to Lamb's kindness of heart than to any desire to come before the world again as a poet. But Edward Moxon, Lamb's young friend, was just starting his publishing business, with Samuel Rogers as a financial patron; and Lamb, who had long been his chief literary adviser, could not well refuse the request to help him with a new book. _Album Verses_ became thus the first of the many notable books of poetry which Moxon was to issue between 1830 and 1858, the year of his death. Among them Tennyson's _Poems_, 1833 and 1842; _The Princess_, 1847; _In Memoriam_, 1850; _Maud_, 1855; and Browning's _Sordello_, 1840, and _Bells and Pomegranates_, 1843-1846.

The dedication of _Album Verses_ tells the story of its being:--

"DEDICATION

"TO THE PUBLISHER

"DEAR MOXON,

"I do not know to whom a Dedication of these Trifles is more properly due than to yourself. You suggested the printing of them. You were desirous of exhibiting a specimen of the _manner_ in which Publications, entrusted to your future care, would appear. With more propriety, perhaps, the 'Christmas,' or some other of your own simple, unpretending Compositions, might have served this purpose. But I forget--you have bid a long adieu to the Muses. I had on my hands sundry Copies of Verses written for _Albums_--

"Those Books kept by modern young Ladies for show, Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know--

"or otherwise floating about in Periodicals; which you have chosen in this manner to embody. I feel little interest in their publication. They are simply--_Advertisement Verses_.

"It is not for me, nor you, to allude in public to the kindness of our honoured Friend, under whose auspices you are become a Bookseller. May that fine-minded Veteran in Verse enjoy life long enough to see his patronage justified! I venture to predict that your habits of industry, and your cheerful spirit, will carry you through the world.

"I am, Dear Moxon,

"Your Friend and sincere Well-wisher, CHARLES LAMB.

"ENFIELD, _1st June, 1830_."

The reference to "Christmas" is to Moxon's poem of that name, published in 1829, and dedicated to Lamb.--The couplet concerning Albums is from one of Lamb's own pieces (see page 104).--The Veteran in Verse was Samuel Rogers, who, then sixty-seven, lived yet another twenty-five years. Moxon published the superb editions of his _Italy_ and his _Poems_ illustrated by Turner and Stothard.

Lamb's motives in issuing _Album Verses_ were cruelly misunderstood by the _Literary Gazette_ (edited by William Jerdan). In the number for July 10, 1830, was printed a contemptuous review beginning with this passage:--

If any thing could prevent our laughing at the present collection of absurdities, it would be a lamentable conviction of the blinding and engrossing nature of vanity. We could forgive the folly of the original composition, but cannot but marvel at the egotism which has preserved, and the conceit which has published.

Lamb himself probably was not much disturbed by Jerdan's venom, but Southey took it much to heart, and a few weeks later sent to _The Times_ (of August 6, 1830) the following lines in praise of his friend:--

TO CHARLES LAMB

On the Reviewal of his _Album Verses_ in the _Literary Gazette_.

Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear, For rarest genius, and for sterling worth, Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere, And wit that never gave an ill thought birth, Nor ever in its sport infix'd a sting; To us who have admired and loved thee long, It is a proud as well as pleasant thing To hear thy good report, now borne along Upon the honest breath of public praise: We know that with the elder sons of song, In honouring whom thou hast delighted still, Thy name shall keep its course to after days. The empty pertness, and the vulgar wrong, The flippant folly, the malicious will, Which have assailed thee, now, or heretofore, Find, soon or late, their proper meed of shame; The more thy triumph, and our pride the more, When witling critics to the world proclaim, In lead, their own dolt incapacity. Matter it is of mirthful memory To think, when thou wert early in the field, How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield. And now, a veteran in the lists of fame, I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim, Dulness hath thrown a _jerdan_ at thy head.

SOUTHEY.

This was, I think, Southey's first public utterance concerning Lamb since Lamb's famous open letter to him of October, 1823 (see Vol. I.).

Lamb wrote to Bernard Barton in the same month: "How noble ... in R.S. to come forward for an old friend who had treated him so unworthily," For the critics, Lamb said in the same letter, he did not care the "five hundred thousandth part of a half-farthing;" and we can believe him. On page 123 will be found, however, an epigram on the _Literary Gazette_.

* * * * *

ALBUM VERSES

Page 46. _In the Album of a Clergyman's Lady._

This lady was probably Mrs. Williams, of Fornham, in Suffolk, in whose house Lamb's adopted daughter, Emma Isola, lived as a governess in 1829-1830. The epitaph on page 65 and the acrostic on page 107 were written for the same lady.

Page 46. _In the Autograph Book of Mrs. Sergeant W----._

Mrs. Sergeant Wilde, _née_ Wileman, was the first wife of Thomas Wilde, afterwards Lord Truro (1782-1855), for whose election at Newark in 1831 Lamb is said to have written facetious verses (see my large edition). The Wildes were Lamb's neighbours at Enfield.

* * * * *

Page 47. _In the Album of Lucy Barton._

These lines were sent by Lamb to Lucy Barton's father, Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, in the letter of September 30, 1824. Lucy Barton, who afterwards became the wife of Edward FitzGerald, the translator of Omar Khayyam, lived until November 27, 1898. She retained her faculties almost to the end, and in 1892 kindly wrote out for me her memory of a visit paid with her father to the Lambs at Colebrook Row about 1825--a little reminiscence first printed in _Bernard Barton and His Friends,_ 1893.

* * * * *

Page 48. _In the Album of Miss----._

This poem was first printed in _Blackwood's Magazine_, May, 1829, entitled "For a Young Lady's Album." The identity of the young lady is not now discoverable: probably a school friend of Emma Isola's.

Page 48. _In the Album of a very young Lady._

Josepha was a daughter of Mrs. Williams, of Fornham.

* * * * *

Page 49. _In the Album of a French Teacher._

First printed in _Blackwood's Magazine,_ June, 1829, entitled "For the Album of: Miss----, French Teacher at Mrs. Gisborn's School, Enfield." Page 49. _In the Album of Miss Daubeny._

Miss Daubeny was a schoolfellow of Emma Isola's, at Dulwich.

* * * * *

Page 50. _In the Album of Mrs. Jane Towers._

Charles Clarke--in line 7--was Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-1877), a friend of the Lambs not only for his own sake, but for that of his wife, Mary Victoria Novello, whom he married in 1828 and who died as recently as 1898. Their _Recollections of Writers,_ 1878, have many interesting reminiscences of Charles and Mary Lamb. Writing to Cowden Clarke on February 25, 1828, Lamb says:--"I had a pleasant letter from your sister, greatly over acknowledging my poor sonnet.... Alas for sonnetting,'tis as the nerves are; all the summer I was dawdling among green lanes, and verses came as thick as fancies. I am sunk winterly below prose and zero."

Mrs. Towers lived at Standerwick, in Somersetshire, and was fairly well known in her day as a writer of books for children, _The Children's Fireside,_ etc.

* * * * *

Page 50. _In my own Album._

This poem was first printed in _The Bijou,_ 1828, edited by William Fraser, under the title "Verses for an Album."

* * * * *

MISCELLANEOUS

Page 51. _Angel Help._

This poem was first printed in the _New Monthly Magazine,_ 1827, with trifling differences, and the addition, at the end, of this couplet:--

Virtuous Poor Ones, sleep, sleep on, And, waking, find your labours done.

I am afraid that the "Nonsense Verses" on page 123 represent an attempt to make fun of this beautiful poem.

Aders' house in Euston Square was hung with engravings principally of the German school (see the poem on page 94 addressed to him).

* * * * *

Page 52. _The Christening._

These lines were first printed in _Blackwood's Magazine,_ May, 1829.

* * * * *

Page 53. _On an Infant Dying as soon as Born._

This poem was first printed in _The Gem,_ 1829. _The Gem_ was then edited by Thomas Hood, whose child--his firstborn--it was thatinspired the poem. Lamb sent the verses to Hood in May, 1827.

This is, I think, in many ways Lamb's most remarkable poem.

Hood's own poem on the same event, printed in _Memorials of Thomas Hood_, by his daughter, 1860, has some of the grace and tenderness of the Greek Anthology:--

Little eyes that scarce did see, Little lips that never smiled; Alas! my little dear dead child, Death is thy father, and not me, I but embraced thee, soon as he!

* * * * *

Page 55. _To Bernard Barton._

These lines were sent to Barton in 1827, together with the picture. On June 11, Lamb wrote again:--

"DEAR B.B.,

"One word more of the picture verses, and that for good and all; pray, with a neat pen alter one line--

"His learning seems to lay small stress on--

"to

"His learning lays no mighty stress on,

"to avoid the unseemly recurrence (ungrammatical also) of 'seems' in the next line, besides the nonsense of 'but' there, as it now stands. And I request you, as a personal favor to me, to erase the last line of all, which I should never have written from myself. The fact is, it was a silly joke of Hood's, who gave me the frame, (you judg'd rightly it was not its own,) with the remark that you would like it because it was b-----d b-----d [the last line in question was 'And broad brimmed, as the owner's calling'] and I lugg'd it in: but I shall be quite hurt if it stands, because tho' you and yours have too good sense to object to it, I would not have a sentence of mine seen that to any foolish ear might sound unrespectful to thee. Let it end at 'appalling.'"

Line 1. _Woodbridge_. Barton lived at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, where he was a clerk in the old Quaker bank of Dykes & Alexander.

Line 15. _Ann Knight_. Ann Knight was a Quaker lady, also resident at Woodbridge, who kept a small school there, and who had visited the Lambs in London and greatly charmed them.

Line 16. _Classic Mitford_. The Rev. John Mitford (1781-1859) was rector of Benhall, in Suffolk, near Woodbridge, and a friend of Barton's, through whom Lamb's acquaintance with him was carried on. Mitford edited many poets, among them Vincent Bourne. He was editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ from 1834 to 1850.

Footnote. _Carrington Bowles_. Carington Bowles, 69 St. Paul's Churchyard, was the publisher of this print, which was the work of the elder Morland, and was engraved by Philip Dawe, father of Lamb's George Dawe (see the essay "Recollections of a late Royal Academician," Vol. I.).

Lines 26, 27, 28. _Obstinate ... Banyan_. It was not Obstinate, but Christian, who put his fingers in his ears (see the first pages of _The Pilgrim's Progress_). Lamb had the same slip of memory in his paper "On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatre" (Vol. I.).

* * * * *

Page 56. _The Young Catechist_. Lamb sent this poem to Barton in a letter in 1827, wherein he tells the story of its inception:--"An artist who painted me lately, had painted a Blackamoor praying, and not filling his canvas, stuff'd in his little girl aside of Blacky, gaping at him unmeaningly; and then didn't know what to call it. Now for a picture to be promoted to the Exhibition (Suffolk Street) as Historical, a subject is requisite. What does me. I but christen it the 'Young Catechist,' and furbishd it with Dialogue following, which dubb'd it an Historical Painting. Nothing to a friend at need.... When I'd done it the Artist (who had clapt in Miss merely as a fill-space) swore I exprest his full meaning, and the damsel bridled up into a Missionary's vanity. I like verses to explain Pictures: seldom Pictures to illustrate Poems."

The artist was Henry Meyer (1782?-1847), one of the foundation members of the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, to the exhibition of which in 1826 he sent his portrait of Lamb, now in the India Office. This picture was in a shop in the Charing Cross Road in 1910.

* * * * *

Page 57. _She is Going_.

These lines were written for I know not what occasion, but the artist Henry Meyer engraved a picture of G.J.L. Noble in 1837 and Lamb's lines were placed below.

Page 57. _To a Young Friend_.

The young friend was Emma Isola, who lived with the Lambs for some years as their adopted daughter. Emma Isola was the daughter of Charles Isola, Esquire Bedell of the University of Cambridge, who died in 1823, leaving her unprovided for. His father, and Emma Isola's grandfather, was Agostino Isola, who settled at Cambridge and taught Italian there. Wordsworth was among his pupils. He edited a collection of _Pieces selected from the Italian Poets_, 1778; also editions of _Gerusalemme Liberata_ and _Orlando Furioso_, and a book of _Italian Dialogues_. Emma Isola is first mentioned by Lamb in an unpublished letter written to her aunt, Miss Humphreys, in January, 1821, arranging for the little girl's return to Trumpington Street, Cambridge, from London, where she had been spending her holidays with the Lambs. The Lambs had met her at Cambridge in the summer of 1820. The exact date of her adoption by the Lambs cannot be ascertained now. Emma Isola married Edward Moxon in 1833, and lived until 1891.

* * * * *

Page 58. _To the Same_.

Writing to Procter in January, 1829, Lamb calls Miss Isola "a silent brown girl," and in his letter of November, 1833, to Mr. and Mrs. Moxon, he says: "I hope you [Moxon] and Emma will have many a quarrel and many a make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation!) ..." See the poem "To a Friend on His Marriage," page 80, for a further description of Emma Isola's character.

* * * * *

SONNETS

Page 58. _Harmony in Unlikeness_.

The two lovely damsels were Emma Isola and her friend Maria.

* * * * *

Page 59. _Written at Cambridge_.

This sonnet was first printed in _The Examiner_, August 29 and 30, 1819, and was dated August 15. Lamb, we now know, from a letter recently discovered, was in Cambridge in August, 1819, just after being refused by Miss Kelly. Hazlitt in his essay "On the Conversation of Authors" in the _London Magazine_ for September, 1820, referred to Lamb's visit to him some years before, and his want of ease among rural surroundings, adding: "But when we cross the country to Oxford, then he spoke a little. He and the old collegers were hail-fellow-well-met: and in the quadrangle he 'walked gowned.'"

Page 59. _To a Celebrated Female Performer in the "Blind Boy."_

First printed in the _Morning Chronicle_, 1819. "The Blind Boy," "attributed," says Genest, "to Hewetson," was produced in 1807. It was revived from time to time. Miss Kelly used to play Edmond, the title _rôle_.

Page 59. _Work_.

First printed in _The Examiner_, June 20 and 21, 1819, under the title "Sonnet."

Many years earlier we see the germ of this sonnet in Lamb's mind, as indeed we see the germ of so many ideas that were not fully expressed till later, for he always kept his thoughts at call. Writing to Wordsworth in September, 1805, he says:--"Hang work! I wish that all the year were holyday. I am sure that Indolence indefeasible Indolence is the true state of man, and business the invention of the Old Teazer who persuaded Adam's Master to give him an apron and set him a-houghing. Pen and Ink and Clerks, and desks, were the refinements of this old torturer a thousand years after...."

Lamb probably was as fond of this sonnet as of anything he wrote in what might be called his second poetical period. He copied it into his first letter to Bernard Barton, in September, 1822, and he drew attention to it in his _Elia_ essay "The Superannuated Man."

* * * * *

Page 60. _Leisure_.

First printed in the _London Magazine_ for April, 1821, probably, I think, as a protest against the objection taken by some persons to the opinions expressed by Lamb in his essay on "New Year's Eve" in that magazine for January (see Vol. II., and notes). Lamb had therein said, speaking of death:--"I am not content to pass away 'like a weaver's shuttle.' Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my friends. To be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by age; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave."

Such sentiments probably called forth some private as well as public protests; and it was, as I imagine, in a whimsical wish to emphasise the sincerity of his regard for life that Lamb reiterated that devotion in the emphatic words of "Leisure" in the April number. This sonnet was a special favourite with Edward FitzGerald.

It is sad to think that Lamb, when his leisure came, had too much of it. Writing to Barton on July 25, 1829, during one of his sister's illnesses, he says: "I bragg'd formerly that I could not have too much time. I have a surfeit.... I am a sanguinary murderer of time, that would kill him inchmeal just now."

Page 60. _To Samuel Rogers, Esq_.

Daniel Rogers, the poet's elder brother, died in 1829. In acknowledging Lamb's sonnet, Samuel Rogers wrote the following letter, which Lamb described to Barton (July 3, 1829) as the prettiest he ever read.

Many, many thanks. The verses are beautiful. I need not say with what feelings they were read. Pray accept the grateful acknowledgements of us all, and believe me when I say that nothing could have been a greater cordial to us in our affliction than such a testimony from such a quarter. He was--for none knew him so well--we were born within a year or two of each other--a man of a very high mind, and with less disguise than perhaps any that ever lived. Whatever he was, _that_ we saw. He stood before his fellow beings (if I may be forgiven for saying so) almost as before his Maker: and God grant that we may all bear as severe an examination. He was an admirable scholar. His Dante and his Homer were as familiar to him as his Alphabets: and he had the tenderest heart. When a flock of turkies was stolen from his farm, the indignation of the poor far and wide was great and loud. To me he is the greatest loss, for we were nearly of an age; and there is now no human being alive in whose eyes I have always been young.

Yours most gratefully,

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Another sonnet to Rogers will be found on p. 100.

* * * * *

Page 61. _The Gipsy's Malison_.

First printed in _Blackwood's Magazine_, January, 1829. Lamb had sent it to _The Gem_, but, as he told Procter in a letter on January 22, 1829: "The editors declined it, on the plea that it would _shock all mothers;_ so they published the 'Widow' [Hood's parody of Lamb] instead. I am born out of time. I have no conecture about what the present world calls delicacy. I thought _Rosamund Gray_ was a pretty modest thing. Hessey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow into an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed, 'Hang[27] the age, I will write for Antiquity!'"

In another letter to Procter, Lamb tells the sonnet's history:--

"_January_ 29, 1829.

"When Miss Ouldcroft (who is now Mrs. Beddam [Badams], and Bed-dam'd to her!) was at Enfield, which she was in summer-time, and owed her health to its suns and genial influences, she visited (with young lady-like impertinence) a poor man's cottage that had a pretty baby (O the yearnling!), gave it fine caps and sweetmeats. On a day, broke into the parlour our two maids uproarious. 'O ma'am, who do you think Miss Ouldcroft (they pronounce it Holcroft) has been working a cap for?' 'A child," answered Mary, in true Shandean female simplicity.' 'Tis the man's child as was taken up for sheep-stealing.' Miss Ouldcroft was staggered, and would have cut the connection; but by main force I made her go and take her leave of her protégée. I thought, if she went no more, the Abactor or the Abactor's wife (_vide_ Ainsworth) would suppose she had heard something; and I have delicacy for a sheep-stealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mutton-pie at the baker's (his first, last, and only hope of mutton pie), which he never came to eat, and thence inferred his guilt. _Per occasionem cujus_, I framed the sonnet; observe its elaborate construction. I was four days about it. [Here came the sonnet.] Barry, study that sonnet. It is curiously and perversely elaborate. 'Tis a choking subject, and therefore the reader is directed to the structure of it. See you? and was this a fourteener to be rejected by a trumpery annual? forsooth,'twould shock all mothers; and may all mothers, who would so be shocked, be damned! as if mothers were such sort of logicians as to infer the future hanging of _their_ child from the theoretical hangibility (or capacity of being hanged, if the judge pleases) of every infant born with a neck on. Oh B.C.! my whole heart is faint, and my whole head is sick (how is it?) at this damned canting unmasculine age!"

[Footnote 27: Talfourd. Canon Ainger gives "Damn"]

* * * * *

COMMENDATORY VERSES

Page 61. _To the Author of Poems, published under the name of Barry Cornwall_.

Printed in the _London Magazine_, September, 1820.

Barry Cornwall was the pen-name of Bryan Waller Procter, 1787-1874, whose impulse to write poetry came largely from Lamb himself. In his _Dramatic Scenes_, 1819, was the beginning of a blank-verse treatment or adaptation of Lamb's "Rosamund Gray." Procter addressed to Lamb some excellent lines "Over a Flask of Sherris," which were printed in the _London Magazine_, 1825, and again in _English Songs_, 1832. His _Martian Colonna; an Italian Tale_, was published in 1820 and his _Sicilian Story_ later in the same year. The "Dream" was printed in _Dramatic Scenes_. Procter in his old age wrote a charming memoir of Lamb.

* * * * *

Page 62. _To R.S. Knowles, Esq_.

First printed in the _London Magazine_, September, 1820. By a curious oversight the error in Knowles's initials was repeated in the _Album Verses_, 1830, Knowles's first name being, of course, James. James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) had been a doctor, a schoolmaster, an actor, and a travelling elocutionist, before he took seriously to writing for the stage. His first really successful play was "Virginius," written for Edmund Kean, transferred to Macready, and produced in 1820. His greatest triumph was "The Hunchback," 1832. Lamb, who met Knowles through William Hazlitt, of Wem, the essayist's father, wrote both the prologue and epilogue for Knowles's play "The Wife," 1833 (see pages 146-7).

* * * * *

Page 63. _Quatrains to the Editor of the "Every-Day Book_."

First printed in the _London Magazine_, May, 1825, and copied by Hone into the _Every-Day Book_ for July 9 of the same year. William Hone (see Vol. I. notes), 1780-1842, was a bookseller, pamphleteer and antiquary, who, before he took to editing his _Every-Day Book_ in 1825, had passed through a stormy career on account of his critical outspokenness and want of ordinary political caution; and Lamb did by no means a fashionable thing when he commended Hone thus publicly. The _Every-Day Book_, begun in 1825, was, when published in 1826, dedicated by Hone to Charles Lamb and his sister. "Your daring to publish me your 'friend,' with your 'proper name' annexed," Hone wrote, "I shall never forget."

Page 63. Acrostics.

In his more leisurely years, at Islington and Enfield, Lamb wrote a great number of acrostics--many more probably than have been preserved--of which these, printed in _Album Verses_, are all that he cared to see in print. Probably he found his chief impulse in Emma Isola's schoolfellows and friends, who must have been very eager to obtain in their albums a contribution from so distinguished a gentleman as Elia, and who passed on their requests through his adopted daughter. I have not been able to trace the identity of several of them. The lady who desired her epitaph was Mrs. Williams in whose house Emma Isola was governess. While there Emma was seriously ill, and Lamb travelled down to Fornham, in Suffolk, in 1830, to bring her home. On returning he wrote Mrs. Williams several letters, in one of which, dated Good Friday, he said:--"I beg you to have inserted in your county paper something like this advertisement; 'To the nobility, gentry, and others, about Bury,--C. Lamb respectfully informs his friends and the public in general, that he is leaving off business in the acrostic line, as he is going into an entirely new line. Rebuses and Charades done as usual, and upon the old terms. Also, Epitaphs to suit the memory of any person deceased.'"

Mrs. Williams probably then suggested that Lamb should write her epitaph, for in his next letter he says:--"I have ventured upon some lines, which combine my old acrostic talent (which you first found out) with my new profession of epitaphmonger. As you did not please to say, when you would die, I have left a blank space for the date. May kind heaven be a long time in filling it up."

On page 48 will be found some lines to one of Mrs. Williams' daughters. The acrostic on page 65 is to another. These would both be Emma Isola's pupils.

* * * * *

TRANSLATIONS

Page 66. _Translations from Vincent Bourne_.

Vincent Bourne (1695-1747), the English Latin poet, entered Westminster School on the foundation in 1710, and, on leaving Cambridge, returned to Westminster as a master. He was so indolent a teacher and disciplinarian that Cowper, one of his pupils, says: "He seemed determined, as he was the best, so to be the last, Latin poet of the Westminster line." Bourne's _Poemata_ appeared in 1734. It is mainly owing to Cowper's translations (particularly "The Jackdaw") that he is known, except to Latinists. Lamb first read Bourne in 1815. Writing to Wordsworth in April of that year he says:--"Since I saw you I have had a treat in the reading way which comes not every day. The Latin Poems of V. Bourne which were quite new to me. What a heart that man had, all laid out upon town and scenes, a proper counterpoise to _some people's_ rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him is that your Power of Music reminded me of his poem of the ballad singer in the Seven Dials. Do you remember his epigram on the old woman who taught Newton the A B C, which after all he says he hesitates not to call Newton's _Principia_? I was lately fatiguing myself with going through a volume of fine words by L'd Thurlow, excellent words, and if the heart could live by words alone, it could desire no better regale, but what an aching vacuum of matter--I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a consequence of shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of the old Elisabeth poets--from thence I turned to V. Bourne--what a sweet unpretending pretty-mannered _matter-ful_ creature, sucking from every flower, making a flower of every thing--his diction all Latin, and his thoughts all English. Bless him, Latin wasn't good enough for him--why wasn't he content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in."

On the publication of _Album Verses_, wherein these nine poems from Vincent Bourne were printed, Lamb reviewed the book in Moxon's _Englishman's Magazine_ for September, 1831, under the title "The Latin Poems of Vincent Bourne" (see Vol. I.). There he quoted "The Ballad Singers," and the "Epitaph on an Infant Sleeping"--remarking of Bourne:--"He is 'so Latin,' and yet 'so English' all the while. In diction worthy of the Augustan age, he presents us with no images that are not familiar to his countrymen. His topics are even closelier drawn; they are not so properly English, as _Londonish_. From the streets, and from the alleys, of his beloved metropolis, he culled his objects, which he has invested with an Hogarthian richness of colouring. No town picture by that artist can go beyond his BALLAD-SINGERS; Gay's TRIVIA alone, in verse, comes up to the life and humour of it."

* * * * *

Page 72. _Pindaric Ode to the Tread Mill_.

First printed in _The New Times_, October 24, 1825. The version there given differed considerably from that preserved by Lamb. It had no divisions. At the end of what is now the first strophe qame these lines:--

Now, by Saint Hilary, (A Saint I love to swear by, Though I should forfeit thereby Five ill-spared shillings to your well-warm'd seat, Worshipful Justices of Worship-street; Or pay my crown At great Sir Richard's still more awful mandate down:) They raise my gorge-- Those Ministers of Ann, or the First George, (Which was it? For history is silent, and my closet-- Reading affords no clue; I have the story, Pope, alone from you;) In such a place, &c.

Lamb offered the Ode to his friend Walter Wilson, for his work on Defoe, to which Lamb contributed prose criticisms (see Vol. I.), but Wilson did not use it. The letter making this offer, together with the poem, differing very slightly in one or two places, is preserved in the Bodleian.

* * * * *

Page 75. _Going or Gone_.

First printed in Hone's _Table Book_, 1827, signed Elia, under the title "Gone or Going." It was there longer, after stanza 6 coming the following:--

Had he mended in right time, He need not in night time, (That black hour, and fright-time,) Till sexton interr'd him, Have groan'd in his coffin, While demons stood scoffing-- You'd ha' thought him a-coughing-- My own father[28] heard him!

Could gain so importune, With occasion opportune, That for a poor Fortune, That should have been ours[29], In soul he should venture To pierce the dim center, Where will-forgers enter Amid the dark Powers?--

And in the _Table Book_ the last stanza ended thus:--

And flaunting Miss Waller-- _That_ soon must befal her, Which makes folks seem taller[30],-- Though proud, once, as Juno!

[Footnote 28: Who sat up with him.]

[Footnote 29: I have this fact from Parental tradition only.]

[Footnote 30: Death lengthens people to the eye.]

To annotate this curious tale of old friendships, dating back, as I suppose, in some cases to Lamb's earliest memories, both of London and Hertfordshire, is a task that is probably beyond completion. The day is too distant. But a search in the Widford register and churchyard reveals a little information and oral tradition a little more.

Stanza 2. _Rich Kitty Wheatley_. The Rev. Joseph Whately, vicar of Widford in the latter half of the eighteenth century, married Jane Plumer, sister of William Plumer, of Blakesware, the employer of Mrs. Field, Lamb's grandmother. Archbishop Whately was their son. Kitty Wheatley may have been a relative.

Stanza 2. _Polly Perkin_. On June 1, 1770, according to the Widford register, Samuel Perkins married Mary Lanham. This may have been Polly.

Stanza 3. _Carter ... Lily_. The late Mrs. Tween, a daughter of Randal Norris, Lamb's friend, and a resident in Widford, told Canon Ainger that Carter and Lily were servants at Blakesware. Lily had noticeably red cheeks. Lamb would have seen them often when he stayed there as a boy. In Cussan's _Hertfordshire_ is an entertaining account of William Plumer's widow's adhesion to the old custom of taking the air. She rode out always--from Gilston, only a few miles from Widford and Blakesware--in the family chariot, with outriders and postilion (a successor to Lily), and so vast was the equipage that "turn outs" had to be cut in the hedges (visible to this day), like sidings on a single-line railway, to permit others to pass. The Widford register gives John Lilley, died October 18, 1812, aged 85, and Johanna Lilley, died January 1, 1823, aged 90. It also gives Benjamin Carter's marriage, in 1781, but not his death.

Stanza 4. _Clemitson's widow_. Mrs. Tween told Canon Ainger that Clemitson was the farmer of Blakesware farm. I do not find the name in the Widford register. An Elizabeth Clemenson is there.

Stanza 4. _Good Master Clapton_. There are several Claptons in Widford churchyard. Thirty years from 1827, the date of the poem, takes us to 1797: the Clapton whose death occurred nearest that time is John Game Clapton, May 5, 1802.

Stanza 5. _Tom Dockwra_. I cannot find definite information either concerning this Dockwra or the William Dockwray, of Ware, of whom Lamb wrote in his "Table Talk" in _The Athenaeum_, 1834 (see Vol. I.). There was, however, a Joseph Docwray, of Ware, a Quaker maltster; and the late Mrs. Coe, _née_ Hunt, the daughter of the tenant of the water-mill at Widford in Lamb's day, where Lamb often spent a night, told me that a poor family named Docwray lived in the neighbourhood.

Stanza 6. _Worral ... Dorrell_. I find neither Worral nor Dorrell in the Widford archives, but Morrils and Morrells in plenty, and one Horrel. Lamb alludes to old Dorrell again in the _Elia_ essay "New Year's Eve," where he is accused of swindling the family out of money. Particulars of his fraud have perished with him, but I have no doubt it is the same William Dorrell who witnessed John Lamb's will in 1761. In the _Table Book_ this stanza ended thus:--

With cuckoldy Worral, And wicked old Dorrel, 'Gainst whom I've a quarrel-- His end might affright us.

Stanzas 8 and 9. _Fanny Hutton ... Betsy Chambers ... Miss Wither ... Miss Waller_. Fanny Hutton, Betsy Chambers, Miss Wither and Miss Waller elude one altogether. Lamb's schoolmistress, Mrs. Reynolds, was a Miss Chambers.

* * * * *

Page 78. NEW POEMS IN LAMB'S _POETICAL WORKS_, 1836.

In 1836 Moxon issued a new edition of Lamb's poems, consisting of those in the _Works_, 1818, and those in _Album Verses_--with a few exceptions and several additions--under the embracive title _The Poetical Works of Charles Lamb_. Whether Moxon himself made up this volume, or whether Mary Lamb or Talfourd assisted, I do not know. The dedication to Coleridge stood at the beginning, and that to Moxon half way through.

Page 78. _In the Album of Edith S----_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, March 9, 1833, under the title "Christian Names of Women." Edith S---- was Edith May Southey, the poet's daughter, who married the Rev. John Wood Warter.

Page 78. _To Dora W----_.

Dora, _i.e._, Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's daughter, who married Edward Quillinan, and thus became stepmother of Rotha Q---- of the next sonnet.

* * * * *

Page 79. _In the Album of Rotha Q----_.

Rotha Quillinan, younger daughter of Edward Quillinan (1791-1851), Wordsworth's friend and, afterwards, son-in-law. His first wife, a daughter of Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, was burned to death in 1822 under the most distressing circumstances. Rotha Quillinan, who was Wordsworth's god-daughter, was so called from the Rotha which flows through Rydal, close to Quillinan's house.

* * * * *

Page 80. _To T. Stothard, Esq_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, December 21, 1833. In a letter to Rogers in December, 1833, Lamb alludes to his sonnet to the poet (see page 100), adding that for fear it might not altogether please Stothard he has "ventured at an antagonist copy of verses, in _The Athenaeum_, to _him_, in which he is as every thing, and you [Rogers] as nothing." Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) was at that time seventy-eight. He had long been the friend of Rogers, having helped in the decoration of his house in 1803 and illustrated the _Pleasures of Memory_ as far back as 1793. Lamb's sonnet refers particularly to the edition of Rogers' _Poems_ that is dated 1834, which Stothard and Turner embellished. Stothard illustrated very many of the standard novels for Harrison's _Novelists' Magazine_ towards the end of the eighteenth century, among these being Richardson's, Fielding's, Smollett's and Sterne's. In Robert Paltock's _Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins_, 1751, a flying people are described, among whom the males were "Glums" and the females "Gawries."--Titian lived to be ninety-nine.

Page 80. _To a Friend on His Marriage_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, December 7, 1833. The friend was Edward Moxon, whose marriage to Emma Isola, Lamb's adopted daughter, was solemnised on July 30, 1833. Lamb mentions more than once the absence of any dowry with Miss Isola. His own wedding present to them was the portrait of Milton which his brother, John Lamb, had left to him.

* * * * *

Page 81. _The Self-Enchanted_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, January 7, 1832.

* * * * *

Page 82. _To Louisa M---, whom I used to call "Monkey."_

First printed in Hone's _Year Book_ for December 30, 1831, under the title "The Change." (See the verses "The Ape," on page 89, and note, the forerunner of the present poem, addressed also to Louisa Martin.)

Page 82. _Cheap Gifts: a Sonnet_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, February 15, 1834.

* * * * *

Page 83. _Free Thoughts on Several Eminent Composers_. Lamb was very fond of these lines, which he sent to more than one of his friends. The text varies in some of the copies, but I have not thought it necessary to indicate the differences. Its inspiration was attributed by him both to William Ayrton (1777-1858), the musical critic, and to Vincent Novello (1781-1861), the organist, composer and close friend of Lamb. In a letter to Sarah Hazlitt in 1830 Lamb copies the poem, remarking--"Having read Hawkins and Burney recently, I was enabled to talk [to Ayrton] of Names, and show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he begg'd me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he was gone, and sent him."

So Lamb wrote to Mrs. Hazlitt. But to Ayrton, when he sent the verses, he said:--"[Novello] desiring me to give him my real opinion respecting the distinct grades of excellence in all the eminent Composers of the Italian, German and English schools, I have done it, rather to oblige him than from any overweening opinion I have of my own judgment in that science."

Both these statements are manifestations of what Lamb called his "matter-of-lie" disposition. To Mrs. Hazlitt he thought that Ayrton's name would be more important; to Ayrton, Novello's.

The verses, whatever their origin, were written by Lamb in Novello's Album, with this postscript, signed by Mary Lamb, added:--

The reason why my brother's so severe, Vincentio, is--my brother has no _ear_; And Caradori, his mellifluous throat Might stretch in vain to make him learn a note. Of common tunes he knows not anything, Nor "Rule Britannia" from "God 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.

* * * * *

UNCOLLECTED PIECES

Page 85. _Dramatic Fragment_.

_London Magazine_, January, 1822. An excerpt from Lamb's play, "Pride's Cure" (_John Woodvil_). See note below.

* * * * *

Page 86. _Dick Strype_.

Writing to John Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says, "My editor [Dan Stuart of the _Morning Post_] uniformly rejects all that I do, considerable in length. I shall only do paragraphs with now and then a slight poem, such as Dick Strype, if you read it, which was but a long epigram." The verses, which appeared on January 6, 1802, may be compared with the story of Ephraim Wagstaff, on page 432 of Vol. I., written twenty-five years later. It has been pointed out that _Points of Misery_, 1823, by Charles Molloy Westmacott (Bernard Blackmantle of the _English Spy_), contains the poem with slight alterations. But Westmacott reaped where he could, and his book is confessedly not wholly original. Lamb seems to me to admit authorship by implication fairly completely. Westmacott was only thirteen when it was first printed.

* * * * *

Page 88. _Two Epitaphs on a young Lady, etc_.

_Morning Post_, February 7, 1804. Signed C.L. Lamb sends the poem both to Wordsworth and Manning in 1803. He says to Manning:--"Did I send you an epitaph I scribbled upon a poor girl who died at nineteen?--a good girl, and a pretty girl, and a clever girl, but strangely neglected by all her friends and kin.... Brief, and pretty, and tender, is it not? I send you this, being the only piece of poetry I have _done_ since the Muses all went with T.M. [Thomas Manning] to Paris."

The young lady was Mary Druitt of Wimborne who died of consumption in 1801. The verses are not on her tombstone. A letter from Lamb to his friend Rickman (see Canon Ainger's edition), shows that it was for Rickman that the lines were written. Lamb did not know Mary Druitt. Writing to Rickman in February, 1802, Lamb sends the second epitaph:--"Your own prose, or nakedly the letter which you sent me, which was in some sort an epitaph, would do better on her gravestone than the cold lines of a stranger."

* * * * *

Page 89. _The Ape_.

Printed in the _London Magazine_, October, 1820, where it was preceded by these words:--

"To THE EDITOR

"Mr. Editor,--The riddling lines which I send you, were written upon a young lady, who, from her diverting sportiveness in childhood, was named by her friends The Ape. When the verses were written, L.M. had outgrown the title--but not the memory of it--being in her teens, and consequently past child-tricks. They are an endeavour to express that perplexity, which one feels at any alteration, even supposed for the better, in a beloved object; with a little oblique grudging at Time, who cannot bestow new graces without taking away some portion of the older ones, which we can ill miss.

"*****."

L.M. was Louisa Martin, who is now and then referred to in Lamb's letter as Monkey, and to whom he addressed the lines on page 82, which come as a sequel to the present ones. In a letter to Wordsworth, many years later, dated February 22, 1834, Lamb asks a favour for this lady:--"The oldest and best friends I have left are in trouble. A branch of them (and they of the best stock of God's creatures, I believe) is establishing a school at Carlisle; Her name is Louisa Martin ... her qualities ... are the most amiable, most upright. For thirty years she has been tried by me, and on her behaviour I would stake my soul."

* * * * *

Page 90. _In Tabulam Eximii...._

These Latin verses were printed in _The Champion_, May 6 and 7, 1820, signed Carlagnulus, accompanied by this notice: "We insert, with great pleasure, the following beautiful Latin Verses on HAYDON'S fine Picture, and shall be obliged to any of our correspondents for a spirited translation for our next." The following week brought one translation--Lamb's own--signed C.L. Both were reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion"_ in 1822, and again in Tom Taylor's _Life of Haydon_, 1853.

Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) was for six years at work upon this picture--"Christ's Entry into Jerusalem"--which was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in 1820. The story goes that Mrs. Siddons established the picture's reputation in society. While the private-view company were assembled in doubt the great actress entered and walked across the room. "It is completely successful," she was heard to say to Sir George Beaumont; and then, to Haydon, "The paleness of your Christ gives it a supernatural look." A stream of 30,000 persons followed this verdict. The picture is now in Philadelphia.

Line 4. _Palma_. There were two Palmas, both painters of the Venetian school. Giacomo Palma the Elder, who is referred to here, was born about 1480. Both painted many scenes in the life of Christ.

Lines 7 and 8. _Flaccus' sentence_.

Valeat res ludicra si me Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum. Horace, _Epist., II_., I, 180-181.

(Farewell to performances, if the palm, denied, sends one home lean, but, granted, flourishing.)

Lamb has not quite represented the poet's meaning, which is a profession of independence in regard to popular applause.

* * * * *

Page 91. _Sonnet to Miss Burney...._

First printed in the _Morning Chronicle_, July 13, 1820. The Burney family began to be famous with Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814), the musician, the author of the _History of Music_, and the friend of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Among his children were the Rev. Charles Burney (1757-1817), the classical scholar and owner of the Burney Library, now in the British Museum; Rear-Admiral James Burney (1750-1821), who sailed with Cook, wrote the _Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean_, and became a friend of Lamb; Frances Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay (1752-1840), the novelist, author of _Evelina, Camilla_ and _Cecilia_; and Sarah Harriet Burney (1770?-1844), a daughter of Dr. Burney's second wife, also a novelist, and the author, among other stories, of _Geraldine Fauconberg_. "Country Neighbours; or, The Secret," the tale that inspired Lamb's sonnet, formed Vols. II. and III. of Sarah Burney's _Tales of Fancy_. Blanch is the heroine.

The good old man in Madame d'Arblay's _Camilla_ is Sir Hugh Tyrold, who adopted the heroine.

Page 91. _To my Friend The Indicator_.

Printed in _The Indicator_, September 27, 1820, signed ****, preceded by these words by Leigh Hunt, the editor:--

Every pleasure we could experience in a friend's approbation, we have felt in receiving the following verses. They are from a writer, who of all other men, knows how to extricate a common thing from commonness, and to give it an underlook of pleasant consciousness and wisdom. ...The receipt of these verses has set us upon thinking of the good-natured countenance, which men of genius, in all ages, have for the most part shewn to contemporary writers.

* * * * *

Page 92. _On seeing Mrs. K---- B----_.

The late Mr. Dykes Campbell thought it very likely that these charming verses were Lamb's. I think they may be, although it is odd that he should not have reprinted anything so pretty. Mr. Thomas Hutchinson's belief that they are Lamb's, added to that of their discoverer, leads me to include them confidently here. Here and there it seems impossible that the poem could come from any other hand: line 11 for example, and the idea in lines 13 to 16, and the statement in lines 27 and 28. None the less it must be borne in mind that one does but conjecture. The lines are in _The Tickler Magazine_ for 1821.

* * * * *

Page 93. _To Emma, Learning Latin, and Desponding_.

First printed in _Blackwood's Magazine_, June, 1829.

Mary Lamb had other pupils in her time, among them Miss Kelly, the actress, Mary Victoria Novello (afterwards Mrs. Cowden Clarke), and William Hazlitt, the essayist's son. Emma was, of course, Emma Isola. Sara Coleridge's translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer's _Historia de Abiponibus_ under the title _Account of the Abipones_ was published in 1822, when she was only twenty.

"To think [Lamb wrote to Barton, on February 17, 1823, of Sara Coleridge] that she should have had to toil thro' five octavos of that cursed (I forget I write to a Quaker) Abbey pony History, and then to abridge them to 3, and all for £113. At her years, to be doing stupid Jesuits' Latin into English, when she should be reading or writing Romances." Sara Coleridge's romance-writing came later, in 1837, when her fairy tale, _Phantasmion_, appeared.

In its original form this sonnet in its fifth line ran thus:--

(In new tasks hardest still the first appears).

Derwent Coleridge read the sonnet in 1853 in Mrs. Moxon's album, and copying it out, sent it to his wife, saying that he wished Sissy (his daughter Christabel) to get it by heart. He added this note: "Charles Lamb having discovered that this Sonnet consisted but of thirteen lines, Miss Lamb inserted the 5th, which interrupts the flow and repeats a rhime." Derwent Coleridge goes on to suggest two alternative lines:--

And hope may surely chase desponding fears

or

Let hope encouraged chase desponding fears.

Lamb, however, had already amended the fifth line (as in _Blackwood's Magazine_) to--

To young beginnings natural are these fears.

Page 93. _Lines addressed to Lieut. R.W.H. Hardy, R.N._

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, January 10, 1846, contributed by an anonymous correspondent (probably Thomas Westwood the Younger) who sent also "The First Leaf of Spring" (page 105). _Travels in the Interior of Mexico in_ 1825 ... 1828, by Robert William Hale Hardy, was published in 1829. Lamb made an exception in favour of Hardy's book. Writing to Dilke for something to read from _The Athenaum_ office, in 1833, he particularly desired that "no natural history or useful learning, such as Pyramids, Catacombs, Giraffes, or Adventures in Southern Africa" might be sent.

* * * * *

Page 94. _Lines for a Monument_....

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, November 5, 1831, and again in _The Tatler_, Hunt's paper, December 31, 1831. In August, 1830, four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg, of York, were drowned in the Ouse. Several literary persons were asked for inscriptions for the monument, erected at York in 1831, and that by James Montgomery, of Sheffield, was chosen. Lamb sent his verses to Vincent Novello, through whom he seems to have been approached in the matter, on November 8, 1830, adding: "Will these lines do? I despair of better. Poor Mary is in a deplorable state here at Enfield."

Page 94. _To C. Aders, Esq_.

First printed in Hone's _Year Book_ (March 19), 1831 (see note to "Angel Help," above).

* * * * *

Page 95. _Hercules Pacificatus_.

First printed in the _Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831. Suidas is supposed to have lived in the tenth or eleventh century, and to have compiled a _Lexicon_--a blend of biographical dictionary.

* * * * *

Page 98. _The Parting Speech of the Celestial Messenger to the Poet_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, February 25, 1832.

Palingenius was an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, whose real name was Pietro Angelo Mazolli, but who wrote in Latin under the name of Marcellus Palingenius Stollatus. His _Zodiacus Vitae_, a philosophical poem, was published in 1536.

* * * * *

Page 99. _Existence, considered in itself, no Blessing_. First printed in _The Athenaeum_, July 7, 1832.

* * * * *

Page 100. _To Samuel Rogers, Esq., on the New Edition of his "Pleasures of Memory."_

First printed in _The Times_, December 13, 1833. Signed C. Lamb. This is the sonnet mentioned in the letter which is quoted on page 344, in the note to the sonnet to Stothard. The new edition of _Pleasures of Memory_ was published by Moxon in 1833, dated 1834.

* * * * *

Page 101. _To Clara N---- _.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, July 26, 1834. Clara N---- was, of course, Clara Anastasia Novello, daughter of Lamb's friend, Vincent Novello (1781-1861), the organist, and herself a fine soprano singer (see also the poem "The Sisters," on the same page). Miss Novello, who was born on June 10, 1818, became the Countess Gigliucci, and survived until March 12, 1908. _Clara Novella's Reminiscences_, compiled by her daughter, the Contessa Valeria Gigliucci, with a memoir by Arthur Duke Coleridge, were published in 1910. In them is this charming passage:--

How I loved dear Charles Lamb! I once hid--to avoid the ignominy of going to bed--in the upright (cabinet) pianoforte, which in its lowest part had a sort of tiny cupboard. In this I fell asleep, awakening only when the party was supping. My appearance from beneath the pianoforte was hailed with surprise by all, and with anger from my mother; but Charles Lamb not only took me under his protection, but obtained that henceforth I should never again be sent to bed _when he came_, but--glory and delight!--always sit up to supper. Later, in Frith Street days, my Father made me sing to him one day; but [Lamb] stopped me, saying, "Clara, don't make that d--d noise!" for which, I think, I loved him as much as for all the rest. Some verses he sent me were addressed to "St. Clara."

In spite of Lamb's declaration about himself and want of musical sense, both Crabb Robinson and Barron Field tell us that he was capable of humming tunes.

Page 101. _The Sisters_.

These verses, printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900, were addressed:--

"_For_ SAINT CECILIA, At Sign'r Vincenzo Novello's Music Repository, No. 67 Frith Street. Soho."

They were signed C. Lamb. One might imagine Emma, the nut-brown maid, to be Emma Isola, as that was a phrase Lamb was fond of applying to her--assuming the title "The Sisters" to be a pleasantry; but the late Miss Mary Sabilia Novello assured me that the sisters were herself, Emma Aloysia Novello and Clara Anastasia Novello (see above).

* * * * *

Page 102. _Love will Come_.

"Love will Come" was included by Lamb in a letter to Miss Fryer, a school-fellow of Emma Isola. Lamb writes:--"By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but _with_ the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and _we_ have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As _you_ may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence--Drums of Tartars, who use _none_, and Tulip trees ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams, &c.,--than _we_ are, so you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little sense, tho' I like LITTLE SENSE less than his vagarying younger sister NO SENSE--so I send them.--The 4th line of 1st stanza is from an old Ballad."

The old ballad is, I imagine, "Waly, Waly," of which Lamb was very fond.

Page 102. _To Margaret W----_.

This poem, believed to be the last that Lamb wrote, was printed in _The Athenaeum_ for March 14, 1835. I have not been able to ascertain who Margaret W---- was.

* * * * *

ALBUM VERSES AND ACROSTICS

Page 104. _What is an Album?_

These lines were probably written for Emma Isola's Album, which must not be confounded with her Extract Book. The Album was the volume for which Lamb, in his letters, occasionally solicited contributions. It was sold some years ago to Mr. Quaritch, and is now, I believe, in a private collection, although in a mutilated state, several of the poems having been cut out. These particular lines of Lamb's were probably written by him also in other albums, for John Mathew Gutch, his old school-fellow, discovered them on the fly-leaf of a copy of _John Woodvil_, and sent them to _Notes and Queries_, Oct. 11, 1856. In that version the twenty-first line ran:--

There you have, Madelina, an album complete.

Lamb quoted from the lines in his review of his _Album Verses_, under the title "The Latin Poems of Vincent Bourne," in the _Englishman's Magazine_ (see Vol. I.). Two versions of the lines are copied by Lamb into one of his Commonplace Books.

Line 6. _Sweet L.E.L.'s_. L.E.L. was, of course, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, afterwards Mrs. Maclean (1802-1838), famous as an Album-and Annual-poetess. Lamb, if an entry in P.G. Patmore's diary is correct, did not admire her, or indeed any female author. He said, "If she belonged to me I would lock her up and feed her on bread and water till she left off writing poetry."

* * * * *

Page 105. _The First Leaf of Spring_.

Printed in _The Athenaeum_, January 10, 1846, contributed probably by Thomas Westwood. In a note prefacing the three poems which he was sending, this correspondent stated that "The First Leaf of Spring" had been printed before, but very obscurely. I have not discovered where.

Page 105. _To Mrs. F---- on Her Return from Gibraltar_.

This would probably be Mrs. Jane Field, _née_ Carncroft, the wife of Lamb's friend, Barron Field, who inspired the _Elia_ essay on "Distant Correspondents." Field held the Chief Justiceship of Gibraltar for some years.

* * * * *

Page 106. _To M. L---- F----_.

M.L. Field, the second daughter of Henry Field, and Barron Field's sister. This lady, who lived to a great age, gave Canon Ainger the copy of the prologue to "Richard II." written by Lamb for an amateur performance at her home.

Page 106. _To Esther Field_.

Another of Barron Field's sisters.

The text of these three poems has been corrected by the Thomas Hutchinson's Oxford edition.

* * * * *

Page 107. _To Mrs. Williams_.

See note above. In writing to Mrs. Williams on April 2, 1830, to tell of Emma Isola's safe journey after her illness, Lamb says:--"How I employed myself between Epping and Enfield the poor verses in the front of my paper may inform you, which you may please to christen an Acrostic in a Cross Road."

Mrs. Williams replied with the following acrostic upon Lamb's name, which Mr. Cecil Turner, a descendant, has sent me and which I give according to his copy:--

TO CHARLES LAMB

_Answer to Acrostics on the Names of Two Friends._

Charmed with the lines thy hand has sent, Honour I feel thy compliment, Amongst thy products that have won the ear Ranged in thy verse two friends most dear. Lay not thy winning pen away, Each line thou writest we bid thee stay. Still ask to charm us with another lay.

Long-linked, long-lived by public fame, A friend to misery whate'er its claim, Marvel I must if e'er we find Bestowed by Heaven a kindlier mind.

The two friends were Cecilia Catherine Lawton (see page 64) and Edward Hogg (see page 109). In reply Lamb says (Good Friday, 1830):--"I do assure you that your verses gratified me very much, and my sister is quite _proud_ of them. For the first time in my life I congratulated myself upon the shortness and meanness of my name. Had it been Schwartzenberg or Esterhazy it would have put you to some puzzle."

Later in the same letter, referring to the present acrostic, he said speaking of Harriet Isola, Emma's sister, she "blames my last verses as being more written on _Mr._ Williams than on yourself; but how should I have parted whom a Superior Power has brought together?"

Page 107. _To the Book_.

Written for the Album of Sophia Elizabeth Frend, afterwards the wife of Augustus De Morgan, the mathematician (1806-1871), and mother of the novelist Mr. William De Morgan. Her father was William Frend (1757-1841), the reformer and a friend of Crabb Robinson and George Dyer. The lines were printed in Mrs. De Morgan's _Three Score Years and Ten_, as are also those that follow--"To S.F."

* * * * *

Page 108. _To R Q._

From the Album of Rotha Quillinan.

* * * * *

Page 109. _To S.L.... To M.L._

I have not been able to identify the Lockes. The J.F. of the last line might be Jane Field. Copies of these poems are preserved at South Kensington.

Page 109. _An Acrostic against Acrostics_.

Edward Hogg was a friend of Mr. Williams (see above). These verses were first printed in _The Lambs_ by Mr. W.C. Hazlitt.

* * * * *

Page 110. _On being Asked to Write in Miss Westwood's Album._

Frances Westwood was the daughter of the Westwoods, with whom the Lambs were domiciled at Enfield Chase in 1829-1832. See letters to Gillman and Wordsworth (November 30, 1829, and January 22, 1830) for description of the Westwoods. The only son, Thomas Westwood, who died in 1888, and was an authority on the literature of angling, contributed to _Notes and Queries_ some very interesting reminiscences of the Lambs in those days. This poem and that which follows it were sent to _Notes and Queries_ by Thomas Westwood (June 4, 1870).

It is concerning these lines that Lamb writes to Barton, in 1827:-- "Adieu to Albums--for a great while--I said when I came here, and had not been fixed two days, but my Landlord's daughter (not at the Pot-house) requested me to write in her female friend's, and in her own. If I go to ---- thou art there also, O all pervading Album! All over the Leeward Islands, in Newfoundland, and the Back Settlements, I understand there is no other reading. They haunt me. I die of Albo-phobia!"

Page 111. _Un Solitaire._

E.I., who made the drawing in question, would be Emma Isola. The verses were copied by Lamb into his Album, which is now in the possession of Mrs. Alfred Morrison.

Page 111. _To S[arah] T[homas]_.

From Lamb's Album. I have not been able to trace this lady.

Page 111. _To Mrs. Sarah Robinson._

From the copy preserved among Henry Crabb Robinson's papers at Dr. Williams' Library. Sarah Robinson was the niece of H.C.R., who was the pilgrim in Rome. The stranger to thy land was Emma Isola, Fornham, in Suffolk, where she was living, being near to Bury St. Edmunds, the home of the Robinsons.

* * * * *

Page 112. _To Sarah._

From the Album of Sarah Apsey. Lamb seems to have known very many Sarahs.

Page 112. _To Joseph Vale Asbury._

From Lamb's Album. Jacob (not Joseph, as Lamb supposed) Vale Asbury was the Lambs' doctor at Enfield. There are extant two amusing letters from Lamb to Asbury.

* * * * *

Page 113. _To D.A._

From Lamb's Album. Dorothy Asbury, the wife of the doctor.

Page 113. _To Louisa Morgan._

From Lamb's Album. Louisa Morgan was probably the daughter of Coleridge's friend, John Morgan, of Calne, in Wiltshire, with whom the Lambs stayed in 1817--the same Morgan--"Morgan demigorgon"--who ate walnuts better than any man Lamb knew, and munched cos-lettuce like a rabbit (see letters to Coleridge in August, 1814). Southey and Lamb each allowed John Morgan £10 a year in his old age and adversity, beginning with 1819.

Page 113. _To Sarah James of Beguildy._

Sarah James was Mary Lamb's nurse, and the sister of the Mrs. Parsons with whom she lived during the last years of her life. Miss James was the daughter of the rector of Beguildy, in Shropshire. The verses are reprinted from _My Lifetime_ by the late John Hollingshead, who was the great-nephew of Miss James and Mrs. Parsons.

* * * * *

Page 114. _To Emma Button._

Included in a letter from Lamb to John Aitken, editor of _The Cabinet_, July 5, 1825.

Page 114. _Written upon the cover of a blotting book. The Mirror,_ May 7, 1836.

Identified by Mr. Walter Jerrold. First collected by Mr. Thomas Hutchinson.

* * * * *

Page 115. POLITICAL AND OTHER EPIGRAMS.

Lamb was not a politician, but he had strong--almost passionate--prejudices against certain statesmen and higher persons, which impelled him now and then to sarcastic verse. The earliest examples in this vein that can be identified are two quatrains from the _Morning Post_ in January, 1802, printed on page 115, and the epigram on Sir James Mackintosh in _The Albion_, printed on the same page, to which Lamb refers in the _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago" (see Vol. II.). Until a file of _The Albion_ turns up we shall never know how active Lamb's pen was at that time. The next belong to the year 1812--in _The Examiner_ (see page 116)--and we then leap another seven years or so until 1819-1820, Lamb's busiest period as a caustic critic of affairs--in _The Examiner_, possibly the _Morning Chronicle_, and principally in _The Champion_. After 1820, however, he returned to this vein very seldom, and then with less bitterness and depth of feeling. "The Royal Wonders," in _The Times_ for August 10, 1830 (see page 122), and "Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross," in the _Englishman's Magazine_, September, 1831 (written, however, some years earlier), on page 121, being his latest efforts that we know of. Of course there must be many other similar productions to which we have no clue--the old _Morning Post_ days doubtless saw many an epigram that cannot now be definitely claimed for Lamb--but those that are preserved here sufficiently show how feelingly Lamb could hate and how trenchantly he could chastise. Others that seem to me likely to be Lamb's I could have included; but it is well to dispense as much as possible with the problematic. For example, I suspect Lamb of the authorship of several of the epigrams quoted in _The Examiner_ in 1819 and 1820 from the _Morning Chronicle_. He used to send verses to the _Morning Chronicle_ at that time, and Leigh Hunt, the editor of _The Examiner_, would naturally be pleased to give anything of his friend's an additional publicity.

The majority of the epigrams printed in this section might have remained unidentified were it not that in 1822 John Thelwall, who owned and edited _The Champion_ in 1818-1820, issued a little volume entitled _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ wherein Lamb's contributions were signed R. et R. This signature being appended to certain poems of which we know Lamb to have been the author--as "The Three Graves," which he sent also to the _London Magazine_ (in 1825), and which he was in the habit of reading or reciting to his friends--enables us to ascertain the authorship of the others. A note placed by Thelwall above the index of the book states, "it is much to be regretted that, by mere oversight, or rather mistake, several of the printed epigrams of R. et R. have been omitted;" but a search through the files of _The Champion_ has failed to bring to light any others with Lamb's adopted signature.

The origin of the signature R. et R. is unknown. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald suggests that it might stand for Romulus and Remus, but offers no supporting theory. He might have added that so unfamiliar a countenance is in these epigrams shown by their author, that the suggestion of a wolf rather than a Lamb might have been intended. Lamb's principal political epigrams were drawn from him by his intense contempt for the character of George IV., then Prince of Wales. His treatment of Caroline of Brunswick, as we see, moved Lamb to utterances of almost sulphurous indignation not only for the prince himself, but for all who were on his side, particularly Canning. Lamb, we must suppose, was wholly on the side of the queen, thus differing from Coleridge, who when asked how his sympathies were placed would admit only to being anti-Prince.

John Thelwall (1764-1834)--Citizen Thelwall--was one of the most popular and uncompromising of the Radicals of the seventeen-nineties. He belonged to the Society of the Friends of the People and other Jacobin confederacies. In May, 1794, he was even sent to the Tower (with Home Tooke and Thomas Hardy) for sedition; moved to Newgate in October; and tried and acquitted in December. Lamb first met him, I fancy, in 1797, when Thelwall was intimate with Coleridge. After 1798 Thelwall's political activities were changed for those of a lecturer on more pacific subjects, and later he opened an institution in London where he taught elocution and corrected the effects of malformation of the organs of speech. He bought _The Champion_ in 1818, and held it for two or three years, but it did not succeed. Thelwall died in 1834. Among his friends were Coleridge, Haydon, Hazlitt, Southey, Crabb Robinson and Lamb, all of whom, although they laughed at his excesses and excitements as a reformer, saw in him an invincible honesty and sincerity.

Before leaving this subject I should like to quote the following lines from _The Champion_ of November 4 and 5, 1820:--

A LADY'S SAPPHIC

Now the calm evening hastily approaches, Not a sound stirring thro' the gentle woodlands, Save that soft Zephyr with his downy pinions Scatters fresh fragrance.

Now the pale sun-beams in the west declining Gild the dew rising as the twilight deepens, Beauty and splendour decorate the landscape; Night is approaching.

By the cool stream's side pensively and sadly Sit I, while birds sing on the branches sweetly, And my sad thoughts all with their carols soothing, Lull to oblivion. M.L.

A correspondence on English sapphics was carried on in _The Champion_ for some weeks at this time, various efforts being printed. On November 4 appeared the "Lady's Sapphic," just quoted, signed M.S. On the following day--for _The Champion_, like _The Examiner_, had a Saturday and Sunday edition--this signature was changed to M.L., and was thus given when the verses were reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations_ of _"The Champion"_ in 1822. There is no evidence that Mary Lamb wrote it; but she played with verse, and presumably read _The Champion_, since her brother was writing for it, and the poem might easily be hers. Personally I like to think it is, and that Lamb, on seeing the mistake in the initials in the Saturday edition, hurried down to the office to have it put right in that of Sunday. The same number of _The Champion_ (November 4 and 5, 1820) contains another poem in the same measure signed C., which not improbably was Lamb's contribution to the pastime. It runs as follows:--

DANAE EXPOSED WITH HER INFANT

_An English Sapphic_

Dim were the stars, and clouded was the azure, Silence in darkness brooded on the ocean, Save when the wave upon the pebbled sea-beach Faintly resounded.

Then, O forsaken daughter of Acrisius! Seiz'd in the hour of woe and tribulation, Thou, with the guiltless victim of thy love, didst Rock on the surges.

Sad o'er the silent bosom of the billow, Borne on the breeze and modulated sweetly, Plaintive as music, rose the mother's tones of Comfortless anguish.

"Sad is thy birth, and stormy is thy cradle, Offspring of sorrow! nursling of the ocean! Waves rise around to pillow thee, and night winds Lull thee to slumber!"

Page 115. _To Sir James Mackintosh._

In a letter to Manning in August, 1801, Lamb quotes this epigram as having been printed in _The Albion_ and caused that paper's death the previous week. In his _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers," written thirty years later, he stated that the epigram was written at the time of Mackintosh's departure for India to reap the fruits of his apostasy; but here Lamb's memory deceived him, for Mackintosh was not appointed Recorder of Bombay until 1803 and did not sail until 1804, whereas there is reason to believe the date of Lamb's letter to Manning of August, 1801, to be accurate. The epigram must then have referred to a rumour of some earlier appointment, for Mackintosh had been hoping for something for several years.

Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), the lawyer and philosopher, had in 1791 issued his _Vindicia Galliae_, a reply to Burke's _Reflections on the French Revolution_. Later, however, he became one of Burke's friends and an opponent of the Revolution, and in 1798 he issued his Introductory Discourse to his lectures on "The Law of Nature and Nations," in which the doctrines of his _Vindiciae Gallicae_ were repudiated. Hence his "apostasy." Mackintosh applied unsuccessfully for a judgeship in Trinidad, and for the post of Advocate-General in Bengal, and Lord Wellesley had invited him to become the head of a college in Calcutta. Rumour may have credited him with any of these posts and thus have suggested Lamb's epigram. In 1803 he was appointed Recorder of Bombay. Lamb's dislike of Mackintosh may have been due in some measure to Coleridge, between whom and Mackintosh a mild feud subsisted. It had been Mackintosh, however, brother-in-law of Daniel Stuart of the _Morning Post_, who introduced Coleridge to that paper. (See notes to Vol. II., where further particulars of _The Albion_, edited by Lamb's friend, John Fenwick, will be found.)

Lamb may or may not have invented the sarcasm in this epigram; but it was not new. In Mrs. Montagu's letters, some years before, we find something of the kind concerning Charles James Fox: "His rapid journeys to England, on the news of the king's illness, have brought on him a violent complaint in the bowels, which will, it is imagined, prove mortal. However, if it should, it will vindicate his character from the general report that he has no bowels, as has been most strenuously asserted by his creditors."

Page 115. _Twelfth Night Characters_....

_Morning Post_, January 8, 1802.

These epigrams were identified by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell from a letter of Lamb's to John Rickman, dated Jan. 14, 1802, printed in Ainger's edition.

A---- is, of course, Henry Addington (1757-1844), afterwards Viscount Sidmouth. After being Speaker for eleven years, he became suddenly Prime Minister in 1801, at the wish of George III., who was rendered uneasy by Pitt's project for Catholic relief.

C---- and F---- were George Canning (1770-1827) and John Hookham Frere (1769-1846) of _The Anti-Jacobin_, against whom Lamb had a grudge on account of the _Anti-Jacobin's_ treatment of himself and Lloyd (see note to _Blank Verse_, page 320). Lamb returned to the attack on Canning again and again, as the epigrams that follow will show.

The epigram on Count Rumford was not included. We know that it was sent, from the Rickman letter. The same missive tells us that that on Dr. Solomon was also written in 1802, but it was not printed till _The Champion_ took it on July 15 and 16, 1820. Solomon was alive in 1802 and was therefore a present Empiric. He was a notorious quack doctor, author of the _Guide to Health_ and the purveyor of a nostrum called Balm of Gilead. One of Southey's letters (October 14, 1801) contains a diverting account of this Empiric. I copy one of Solomon's advertisements from a provincial paper:--

DR. SOLOMON'S CORDIAL BALM OF GILEAD

To the young it will afford lasting health, strength and spirits, in place of lassitude and debility; and to the aged and infirm it will assuredly furnish great relief and comfort by gently and safely invigorating the system; it will not give immortality; but if it be in the power of medicine to gild the autumn of declining years, and calmly and serenely protract the close of life beyond its narrow span, this restorative is capable of effecting that grand desideratum.

The price was 10s. 6d. a bottle.

Lamb's epigrams were only a few among many printed in the _Morning Post_ for January 7 and 8, 1802. Whether he wrote also the following I do not know, but these are not inconceivably from his hand:--

LORD NELSON

Off with BRIAREUS, and his HUNDRED HANDS, OUR NELSON, with _one arm_, unconquer'd stands!

MR. P[IT]T

By crooked arts, and actions sinister, I came at first to be a Minister; And now I am no longer Minister, I still retain my actions sinister.

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Page 116. _Two Epigrams_. _The Examiner_, March 22, 1812.

These epigrams have no signature, but the second of them was reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion"_ (1822) with Lamb's signature, R. et R., appended, and a note saying that it was written in the last reign, together with an announcement that it had not appeared in _The Champion_, but was inserted in that collection at the author's request. By Princeps and the heir-apparent is meant, of course, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., who had just entered upon office as Regent. The epigrams refer to his transfer of confidence, if so it may be called, from the Whig party to the Marquis Wellesley, Perceval and the Tory party. The circumstance that the Prince of Wales was also Duke of Cornwall is referred to in the first epigram. The second of the epigrams is copied into one of Lamb's Commonplace Books with the title "On the Prince breaking with his Party."

Page 116. _The Triumph of the Whale_.

_The Examiner_, March 15, 1812. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ signed R. et R., with a note stating that it had not appeared in _The Champion_, but was collected with the other pieces by the author's request.

The subject of the verses was, of course, the first gentleman in Europe. _The Examiner_ was never over-nice in its treatment of the prince, and it was in the same year, 1812, that Leigh Hunt, the editor, and his brother, the printer, of the paper were prosecuted for the article styling him a "libertine" and the "companion of gamblers and demireps" (which appeared the week following Lamb's poem), and were condemned to imprisonment for it. Lamb's lines came very little short of expressing equally objectionable criticisms; but verse is often privileged. Thelwall--and Lamb--showed some courage in reprinting the lines in 1822, when the prince had become king. Talfourd relates that Lamb was in the habit of checking harsh comments on the prince by others with the smiling remark, "_I_ love my Regent."

In Galignani's 1828 edition of Byron this piece was attributed to his lordship.

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Page 118. _St. Crispin to Mr. Gifford._

_The Examiner_, October 3 and 4, 1819. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

William Gifford (1756-1826), editor of the _Quarterly Review_, had been apprenticed to a cobbler. Lamb had an old score against him on account of his editorial treatment of Lamb's review of Wordsworth's _Excursion_, in 1814, and other matters (see note to "Letter to Southey," Vol. I.). Writing to the Olliers, on the publication of his _Works_, June 18, 1818, Lamb says, in reference to this sonnet: "I meditate an attack upon that Cobler Gifford, which shall appear immediately after any favourable mention which S. [Southey] may make in the Quarterly. It can't in decent _gratitude_ appear _before_." When the sonnet was printed in the _Examiner_ it purported to have reference to the _Quarterly's_ treatment of Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_, which treatment Leigh Hunt was then exposing in a series of articles.

Page 118. _The Godlike._

_The Champion_, March 18 and 19, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

Another contribution to the character of George IV., who had just succeeded to the throne, and was at that moment engaged upon the task of divorcing his wife, Caroline of Brunswick. The eighth line must be read probably with a medical eye. The concluding three lines refer to George III.'s insanity. As a political satirist Lamb disdained half measures.

Page 119. _The Three Graves._

_The Champion_, May 13 and 14, 1820. Signed Dante. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822, signed Dante and R. et R. Reprinted in the _London Magazine_, May, 1825, unsigned, with the names in the last line printed only with initials and dashes, and the sub-title, "Written during the time, now happily almost forgotten, of the spy system."

Lamb probably found a certain mischievous pleasure in giving these lines the title of one of Coleridge's early poems.

The spy system was a protective movement undertaken by Lord Sidmouth (1757-1844) as Home Secretary in 1817--after the Luddite riots, the general disaffection in the country, Thistlewood's Spa Fields uprising and the break-down of the prosecution. Curious reading on the subject is to be found in the memoirs of Richmond the Spy, and Peter Mackenzie's remarks on that book and its author, in _Tait's Magazine_. The spy system culminated with the failure of the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820, which cost Thistlewood his life. That plot to murder ministers was revealed by George Edwards, one of the spies named by Lamb in the last line of this poem. Castles and Oliver were other government spies mentioned by Richmond.

Line 2. _Bedloe, Oates_ ... William Bedloe (1650-1680) and Titus Oates (1649-1705) were associated as lying informers of the proceedings of the imaginary Popish Plot against Charles II.

Page 119. _Sonnet to Mathew Wood, Esq_.

_The Champion_, May 13 and 14, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

Matthew Wood, afterwards Sir Matthew (1768-1843), was twice Lord Mayor of London, 1815-1817, and M.P. for the city. He was one of the principal friends and advisers of Caroline of Brunswick, George IV.'s repudiated wife. Hence his particular merit in Lamb's eyes. Later he administered the affairs of the Duke of Kent, whose trustee he was, and his baronetcy was the first bestowed by Queen Victoria. The sonnet contains another of Lamb's attacks on Canning. This statesman's mother, after the death of George Canning, her first husband, in 1771, took to the stage, where she remained for thirty years. Canning was at school at Eton. The course on which Wood was adjured to hold was the defence of Queen Caroline; but Canning's opposition to her cause was not so absolute as Lamb seemed to think. The ministry, of which Canning was a member, had prepared a bill by which the queen was to receive £50,000 annually so long as she remained abroad. The king insisted on divorce or nothing, and it was his own repugnance to this measure that caused Canning to tender his resignation. The king refused it, and Canning went abroad and did not return until it was abandoned.

Line 11. _Pickpocket Peer_. This would be Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville (1742-1811), Pitt's lieutenant, who was impeached for embezzling money as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was acquitted, but that was a circumstance that would hardly concern Lamb when in this mood.

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Page 120. _On a Projected Journey_.

_The Champion_, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822. George IV.'s visit to Hanover did not, however, occur till October, 1821. This is entitled in Ayrton's MS. book (see below) "Upon the King's embarcation at Ramsgate for Hanover, 1821."

Page 120. _Song for the C----n_.

_The Champion_, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

A song for the Coronation, which was fixed for 1821. Queen Caroline returned to England in June, 1820, staying with Alderman Wood (see page 361) in order to be on the spot against that event. Meanwhile the divorce proceedings began, but were eventually withdrawn. Caroline made a forcible effort to be present at the Coronation, on July 29, 1821, but was repulsed at the Abbey door. She was taken ill the next day and died on August 7. "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch" is the Scotch song by Anne Grant.

Page 120. _The Unbeloved_.

_The Champion_, September 23 and 24, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822. In _The Champion_ the last line was preceded by

Place-and-heiress-hunting elf,

the reference to heiress-hunting touching upon Canning's marriage to Miss Joan Scott, a sister of the Duchess of Portland, who brought him £100,000.

Line 4. _C----gh_. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and second Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), Foreign Secretary from 1812 until his death. He committed suicide in a state of unsound mind.

Line 6. _The Doctor_. This was the nickname commonly given to Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth.

Line 8. _Their chatty, childish Chancellor_. John Scott, afterwards Earl of Eldon (1751-1838), the Lord Chancellor.

Line 9. _In Liverpool some virtues strike_. Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828), Prime Minister at the time, and therefore principal scapegoat for the Divorce Bill.

Line 10. _And little Van's beneath dislike_. Nicholas Vansittart, afterwards Baron Bexley (1766-1851), Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Line 12. _H----t_. Thomas Taylour, first Marquis of Headfort (1757-1829), the principal figure in a crim. con. case in 1804 when he was sued by a clergyman named Massey and had to pay £10,000 damages.

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Page 121. _On the Arrival in England of Lord Byron's Remains_.

From a MS. book of William Ayrton's. In _The New Times_, October 24, 1825, the verses followed the "Ode to the Treadmill." The epigram, which was unsigned, then ran thus:--

THE POETICAL CASK

With change of climate manners alter not: Transport a drunkard--he'll return a sot. So lordly Juan, d----d to endless fame, Went out a _pickle_--and comes back the same.

Lord Byron's body had been brought home from Greece, for burial at Hucknall Torkard, in 1824, and the cause of the epigram was a paragraph in _The New Times_ of October 19, 1825, stating that the tub in which Byron's remains came home was exhibited by the captain of the _Rodney_ for 2s. 6d. a head; afterwards sold to a cooper in Whitechapel; resold to a museum; and finally sold again to a cooper in Middle New Street, who was at that time using it as an advertisement.

The third line recalls Pope's line--

See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame.

_Essay on Man_, IV., 284.

Page 121. _Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross._

First printed in the _Englishman's Magazine_, September, 1831. Lamb sent the epigram to Barton in a letter in November, 1827. The body of Caroline of Brunswick, the rejected wife of George IV., was conveyed through London only by force--involving a fatal affray between the people and the Life Guards at Hyde Park corner--on its way to burial at Brunswick.

Page 122. _For the "Table Book."_

This epigram accompanies a note to William Hone. It was marked "For the _Table Book_," but does not seem to have been printed there.

Page 122. _The Royal Wonders._

_The Times_, August 10, 1830. Signed Charles Lamb. The epigram refers to the Paris insurrection of July 26, 1830, which cost Charles X. his throne; and, at home, to William IV.'s extreme fraternal friendliness to his subjects.

Page 122. _Brevis Esse Laboro._ "One Dip."

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Page 123. _Suum Cuique._

These epigrams were written for the sons of James Augustus Hessey, the publisher, two Merchant Taylor boys. In _The Taylorian_ for March, 1884, the magazine of the Merchant Taylors' School, the late Archdeacon Hessey, one of the boys in question, told the story of their authorship. It was a custom many years ago for Election Day at Merchant Taylors' School to be marked by the recitation of original epigrams in Greek, Latin and English, which, although the boys themselves were usually the authors, might also be the work of other hands. Archdeacon Hessey and his brother, as the following passage explains, resorted to Charles Lamb for assistance:--

The subjects for 1830 were _Suum Cuique_ and _Brevis esse latoro_. After some three or four exercise nights I confess that I was literally "at my wits' end." But a brilliant idea struck me. I had frequently, boy as I was, seen Charles Lamb (Elia) at my father's house, and once, in 1825 or 1826, I had been taken to have tea with him and his sister, Mary Lamb, at their little house, Colebrook Cottage, a whitish-brown tenement, standing by itself, close to the New River, at Islington. He was very kind, as he always was to young people, and very quaint. I told him that I had devoured his "Roast Pig;" he congratulated me on possessing a thorough schoolboy's appetite. And he was pleased when I mentioned my having seen the boys at Christ's Hospital at their public suppers, which then took place on the Sunday evenings in Lent. "Could this good-natured and humorous old gentleman be prevailed upon to give me an Epigram?" "I don't know," said my father, to whom I put the question, "but I will ask him at any rate, and send him the mottoes." In a day or two there arrived from Enfield, to which Lamb had removed some time in 1827, not one, but two epigrams, one on each subject. That on _Suum Cuique_ was in Latin, and was suggested by the grim satisfaction which had recently been expressed by the public at the capture and execution of some notorious highwayman. That on _Brevis esse laboro_ was in English, and might have represented an adventure which had befallen Lamb himself, for he stammered frequently, though he was not so grievous a _Balbulus_ as his friend George Darley, whom I had also often seen. I need scarcely say that the two Epigrams were highly appreciated, and that my brother and myself, for I gave my brother one of them, were objects of envy to our schoolfellows.

The death of George IV., however, prevented their being recited on the occasion for which they were written.

"_Suum Cuique_," which was signed F. Hessey, was thus translated by its presumptive author:--

A thief, on dreary Bagshot's heath well known, Was fond of making others' goods his own; _Meum_ was never thought of, nor was _Tuum_, But everything with him was counted _Suum_. At length each gets his own, and no one grieves; The rope his neck, Jack Ketch his clothes receives: His body to dissecting knife has gone; Himself to Orcus: well--each gets his own.

The English epigram, which was signed J.A. Hessey, was a rhyming version of a story which Lamb was fond of telling. Three, at least, of his friends relate the story in their recollections of him: Mrs. Mathews in her life of her husband; Leigh Hunt in _The Companion_; and De Quincey in _Fraser's Magazine_. The incident possibly occurred to Lamb when as a boy--or little more--he stayed at Margate about 1790. Lamb must have written Merchant Taylors' epigrams before, for in 1803, in a letter to Godwin about writing to order, he speaks of having undertaken, three or four times, a schoolboy copy of verses for Merchant Taylors' boys at a guinea a copy, and refers to the trouble and vexation the work was to him.

Writing to Southey on May 10, 1830, Lamb said, at the end:--"Perhaps an epigram (not a very happy-gram) I did for a school-boy yesterday may amuse. I pray Jove he may not get a flogging for any false quantity; but 'tis, with one exception, the only Latin verses I have made for forty years, and I did it 'to order.'

"CUIQUE SUUM

"Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas Fur, rapiens, spolians quod mihi, quod-que tibi, Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, meum-que tuum-que Omne suum est: tandem Cui-que Suum tribuit. Dat resti collum; restes, vah! carnifici dat; Sese Diabolo, sic bene; Cuique Suum."

Page 123. _On "The Literary Gazette"_.

_The Examiner_, August 22, 1830. This epigram, consisting only of the first four lines, slightly altered, and headed "Rejected Epigrams, 6"-evidently torn from a paper containing a number of verses (the figure 7 is just visible underneath it)--is in the British Museum among the letters left by Vincent Novello. It is inscribed, "In handwriting of Mr. Charles Lamb." The same collection contains a copy, in Mrs. Cowden Clarke's handwriting, of the sonnet to Mrs. Jane Towers (see page 50). _The Literary Gazette_ was William Jerdan's paper, a poor thing, which Lamb had reason to dislike for the attack it made upon him when _Album Verses_ was published (see note on page 331).

_The Examiner_ began the attack on August 14, 1830. All the epigrams are signed T.A. This means that if Lamb wrote the above, he wrote all; which is not, I think, likely. I do not reproduce them, the humour of punning upon the name of the editor of the _Literary Gazette_ being a little outmoded.

T.A. may, of course, have been Lamb's pseudonymous signature. If so, he may have chosen it as a joke upon his friend Thomas Allsop. But since one of the epigrams is addressed to himself I doubt if Lamb was the author.

Page 123. _On the Fast-Day_.

John Payne Collier, in his privately printed reminiscences, _An Old Man's Diary_, quotes this epigram as being by Charles Lamb. It may have been written for the Fast-Day on October 19, 1803, for that on May 25, 1804, or for a later one. Lamb tells Hazlitt in February, 1806, that he meditates a stroll on the Fast-Day.

Page 123. _Nonsense Verses_.

Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in _Mary and Charles Lamb_, 1874, says: "I found these lines--a parody on the popular, or nursery, ditty, 'Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home'--officiating as a wrapper to some of Mr. Hazlitt's hair. There is no signature; but the handwriting is unmistakably Lamb's; nor are the lines themselves the worst of his playful effusions." The piece suggests that Lamb, in a wild mood, was turning his own "Angel Help" (see page 51) into ridicule--possibly to satisfy some one who dared him to do it, or vowed that such a feat could not be accomplished.

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Page 124. _On Wawd._

Wawd was a fellow-clerk. We have this _jeu d'esprit_ through Mr. Joseph H. Twichell, an American who had it from a fellow-clerk of Lamb's named Ogilvie. (See _Scribner's Magazine_, March, 1876.)

Page 124. _Six Epitaphs._

Writing to Southey on March 20, 1799, Lamb says:--"I the other day threw off an extempore epitaph on Ensign Peacock of the 3rd Regt. of the Royal East India Volunteers, who like other boys in this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing at soldiers, but dying in the first flash of his valour was at the particular instance of his relations buried with military honours! like any veteran scarr'd or chopt from Blenheim or Ramilies. (He was buried in sash and gorget.) Sed hae sunt lamentabilis nugae--But'tis as good as some epitaphs you and I have read together in Christ-Church-yard."

The last five Epigrams were sent to the _New York Tribune_, Feb. 22, 1879, by the late J.H. Siddons. They were found on scraps of paper in Lamb's desk in the India House. Wagstaff and Sturms were fellow-clerks. Dr. Drake was the medical officer of the establishment. Captain Dey was a putative son of George IV. The lines upon him were given to Siddons by Kenney's son.

Page 126. _Time and Eternity_ and _From the Latin_.

In _The Mirror_ for June 1, 1833, are the two poems, collected under the general heading "The Gatherer," indexed "Lamb, C., lines by." Mr. Thomas Hutchinson first printed the second poem; but I do not feel too happy about it.

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Page 127. SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE, 1831.

This ballad was published by Moxon, anonymously, in 1831, although the authorship was no secret In its volume form it was illustrated by George Cruikshank. Lamb probably did not value his ballad very highly. Writing to Moxon in 1833 he says, "I wish you would omit 'by the Author of Elia' now, in advertising that damn'd 'Devil's Wedding.'"

There is a reference to the poem, in Lamb's letter to Moxon of October 24, 1831, which needs explanation. Moxon's _Englishman's Magazine_, after running under his control for three months, was suddenly abandoned. Lamb, who seems to have been paid in advance for his work, wrote to Moxon on the subject, approving him for getting the weight off his mind and adding:--"I have one on mine. The cash in hand which as ***** less truly says, burns in my pocket. I feel queer at returning it (who does not?). You feel awkward at re-taking it (who ought not?) is there no middle way of adjusting this fine embarrassment. I think I have hit upon a medium to skin the sore place over, if not quite to heal it. You hinted that there might be something under £10 by and by accruing to me _Devil's Money_. You are sanguine--say £7 10s.--that I entirely renounce and abjure all future interest in, I insist upon it, and 'by Him I will not name' I won't touch a penny of it. That will split your loss one half--and leave me conscientious possessor of what I hold. Less than your assent to this, no proposal will I accept of."

A few months later, writing again to Moxon, he says:--"I am heartily sorry my Devil does not answer. We must try it a little longer; and, after all, I think I must insist on taking a portion of its loss upon myself. It is too much that you should lose by two adventures."

According to some reminiscences of Lamb by Mr. J. Fuller Russell, printed in _Notes and Queries_, April 1, 1882, Lamb suppressed "Satan in Search of a Wife," for the reason that the Vicar of Enfield, Dr. Cresswell, also had married a tailor's daughter, and might be hurt by the ballad. The correspondence quoted above does not, I think, bear out Mr. Russell's statement. If the book were still being advertised in 1833, we can hardly believe that any consideration for the Vicar of Enfield would cause its suppression. This gentleman had been at Enfield for several years, and Lamb would have either suppressed the book immediately or not at all; but possibly his wish to disassociate the name of Elia from the work was inspired by the coincidence.

The ballad does not call for much annotation. The legend mentioned in the dedication tells how Cecilia, by her music, drew an angel from heaven, who brought her roses of Paradise. The ballad of King Cophetua and the beggar maid may be read in the _Percy Reliques_. Hecate is a triple deity, known as Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpine in hell. In the reference to Milton I think Lamb must have been thinking of the lines, _Paradise Lost_, I., 27-28:--

Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell....

or, _Paradise Lost_, V., 542:--

And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell.

Alecto (Part I., Stanza II.) was one of the Furies.--Old Parr (Stanza IV.) lived to be 152; he died in 1635.--Semiramis (Stanza XVII.) was Queen of Assyria, under whom Babylon became the most wonderful city in the world; Helen was Helen of Troy, the cause of the war between the Greeks and Trojans; Medea was the cruel lover of Jason, who recovered the Golden Fleece.--Clytemnestra (Stanza XVIII.) was the wife and murderer of Agamemnon; Joan of Naples was Giovanna, the wife of Andrea of Hungary, who was accused of assassinating him. Landor wrote a play, "Giovanna of Naples," to "restore her fame" and "requite her wrongs;" Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt, and lover of Mark Antony; Jocasta married her son Oedipus unknowing who he was.--A tailor's "goose" (Stanza XXII.) is his smoothing-iron, and his "hell" (Stanza XXIII.) the place where he throws his shreds and debris.--Lamb's own "Vision of Horns" (see Vol. I.) serves as a commentary on Stanza XXVII.; and in his essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors" (Vol. I.) are further remarks on the connection between tailors and cabbage in Stanza I. of Part II.--The two Miss Crockfords of Stanza XVIII. would be the daughters of William Crockford, of Crockford's Club, who, after succeeding to his father's business of fishmonger, opened the gaming-house which bore his name and amassed a fortune of upwards of a million.--Semele (Stanza XXI.), whose lightest wish Jupiter had sworn to grant, was treacherously induced to express the desire that Jupiter would visit her with the divine pomp in which he approached his lawful wife Juno. He did so, and she was consumed by his lightning and thunderbolts.--The bard of Stanza XXV. is, of course, Virgil.

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Page 138. Prologues and Epilogues.

Writing to Sarah Stoddart concerning Godwin's "Faulkener" Mary Lamb remarked: "Prologues and Epilogues will be his [Charles's] death."

Page 138. _Epilogue to "Antonio."_

Had Lamb not sent this epilogue to Manning in the letter of December 13, 1800, we should have no copy of it; for Godwin, by Lamb's advice, did not print it with the play. Writing to Godwin two days before, Lamb remarked:-"I have been plotting how to abridge the Epilogue. But I cannot see that any lines can be spared, retaining the connection, except these two, which are better out:

"Why should I instance, &c., The sick man's purpose, &c.,

and then the following line must run thus,

"The truth by an example best is shown."

See lines 16, 17 and 18.

Godwin's "Antonio," produced at Drury Lane on December 13, 1800, was a failure. Many years afterwards Lamb told the story of the unlucky first night (see "The Old Actors" in Appendix to Vol. II. of this edition). Godwin, its author, was, of course, William Godwin, the philosopher (1756-1836). Later Lamb wrote the prologue to another of his plays (see page 140 and note).

Lines 35 and 36. _Suett ... Bannister_. Richard Suett (1755-1805) and Jack Bannister (1760-1836), two famous comedians of that day. Line 62. "_Pizarro_." Sheridan's patriotic melodrama, produced May 24, 1799, at Drury Lane.

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Page 140. _Prologue to "Faulkener."_

William Godwin's tragedy "Faulkener" was produced at Drury Lane, December 16, 1807, with some success. Lamb's letters to Godwin of September 9 and 17, 1801, suggest that he had a share in the framing of the plot. Later the play was taken in hand by Thomas Holcroft and made more dramatic.

According to Godwin's preface, 1807, the story was taken from the 1745 edition of Defoe's _Roxana_, which contains the episode of Susannah imagining herself to be Roxana's daughter and throwing herself in her mother's way. Godwin transformed the daughter into a son. Lamb, however, seems to have believed this episode to be in the first edition, 1724, and afterwards to have been removed at the entreaty of Southerne, Defoe's friend (see Lamb's letters to Walter Wilson, Defoe's biographer, of December 16, 1822, and February 24, 1823). But it is in reality the first edition which lacks the episode, and Mr. G.A. Aitken, Defoe's latest editor, doubts Southerne's interference altogether and considers Susannah's curiosity an alien interpolation. For Lamb's other remarks on Defoe see also the "Ode to the Tread Mill," page 72 of this volume, and "Estimate of Defoe's Secondary Novels" (Vol. I.). Writing to Walter Wilson on November 15, 1829, on the receipt of his memoirs of Defoe, Lamb exclaims: "De Foe was always my darling."

Page 140. _Epilogue to "Time's a Tell-Tale."_

A play by Henry Siddons (1774-1815), Mrs. Siddons' eldest son. It was produced in 1807 at Drury Lane, with Lamb's prologue, which was, however, received so badly that on the second night another was substituted for it.

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Page 142. _Prologue to "Remorse."_

Coleridge's tragedy "Remorse," a recasting of his "Osorio" (written at Sheridan's instigation in 1797), was produced with success on January 23, 1813; and was printed, with the prologue, in the same year. Lamb's prologue, "spoken by Mr. Carr," was (according to Mr. Dykes Campbell) a recasting of some verses composed for the prize offered by the Drury Lane Committee in the previous year, 1812, in response to their advertisement for a suitable poem to be read at the reopening of the new building after the fire of 1809. It was, of course, this competition which brought forth the _Rejected Addresses_ (1812) of the brothers James and Horace Smith.

The prologue as printed is very different from that which was spoken at the theatre by Mr. Carr. A writer in the _Theatrical Inquisitor_ for February, 1813, in his contemptuous criticism, refers to several passages that are no longer extant. I quote from an account of the matter by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell in the _Illustrated London News_, October 22, 1892:--

I am afraid the true text of Lamb's "Rejected Address," even as modified for use as a prologue, has not come down to us. This is how the severe and suspicious _Inquisitor_ describes it and its twin brother the epilogue--

The Prologue and Epilogue were among the most stupid productions of the modern muse; the former was, in all probability, a Rejected Address, for it contained many eulogiums on the beauty and magnificence of the "dome" of Drury; talked of the waves being not quite dry, and expressed the happiness of the bard at being the first whose muse had soared within its limits. More stupid than the doggerel of Twiss, and more affected than the pretty verses of Miles Peter Andrews, the Epilogue proclaimed its author and the writer of the Prologue to be par nobile fratrum, in rival dulness both pre-eminent.

The reader of Lamb's prologue will find little of all this in it, but there is no reason for doubting the critic's account of what he heard at the theatre. It is not at all unlikely that it was this paragraph which suggested to Lamb the advisability of still further revising the "Rejected Address." In the prologue there is a good deal about the size of the theatre, as compared with "the Lyceum's petty sphere," and of how pleased Shakspere would have been had he been able to hear--

When that dread curse of Lear's Had burst tremendous on a thousand ears:

rather an anti-climax, by the way, for it means an audience of but five hundred, which would have been a beggarly account for the new Drury. There is nothing either about its "dome," or about the scenery, except commonplaces so flat that one doubts if it be quite fair to quote them--

The very use, since so essential grown, Of painted scenes, was to his [Shakspere's] stage unknown.

This is not an improvement on the "waves not yet quite dry," a Lamb-like touch which could not have been invented by the critic, and may go far to convince us of his veracity.

Above all, there is no trace of that splendidly audacious suggestion that Coleridge was the first "whose muse had soared" within the new dome--unless we find a blind one in the closing lines, supposing them to have been converted by the simple process of inversion. Instead of Coleridge being the first whose muse had soared in the new Drury, Drury was the first place in which his dramatic muse had soared.

Lamb was not among the writers parodied by the "sneering brothers" (as he called them later), but Coleridge was. Lamb's turn came in 1825, when P.G. Patmore, afterwards his friend and the father of Coventry Patmore, wrote _Rejected Articles_, in which was a very poor imitation of Elia.

Line 9. _Betterton or Booth._ Thomas Betterton, born probably in 1635, acted for the last time in 1710, the year in which he died. Barton Booth (1681-1733) left the stage in 1728. Betterton was much at the Little Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields; also at Sir John Vanbrugh's theatre in the Haymarket.

Line 11. _Quin_. James Quin (1693-1766) of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, Garrick's great rival, famous as Falstaff. His last appearance was in 1753.

Line 12. _Garrick._ Garrick's Drury Lane, in which Lamb saw his first play, was that built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1674. It lasted, with certain alterations, including a new face by the brothers Adam, nearly 120 years. The seating capacity of this theatre was modest. In 1794 a new Drury Lane Theatre, the third, was opened--too large for comfortable seeing or hearing. This was burned down in 1809; and the new one, the fourth, and that in which "Remorse" was produced, was opened in 1812. This is the building (with certain additions) that still stands.

Lines 13-16. _Garrick in the shades._ Many years later Lamb used the same idea in connection with Elliston (see "To the Shade of Elliston," Vol. II.).

Line 20. _Ben and Fletcher._ Ben Jonson (1573?-1637) and John Fletcher (1579-1625), Beaumont's collaborator. Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour" was produced at the Globe in 1598, Shakspeare being in the caste; but in the main he wrote for Henslowe, who was connected with the Rose and the Swan, on Bankside, and with the theatre in Newington Butts, and who built, with Alleyn, in 1600, the Fortune in Golden Lane, Cripplegate Without. Beaumont and Fletcher's plays went for the most part to Burbage, who owned the Globe at Southwark and the Blackfriars' Theatre. Shakspeare also wrote for Burbage.

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Page 143. _Epilogue to "Debtor and Creditor."_

"Debtor and Creditor" was a farce by James Kenney (1780-1849), Lamb's friend, with whom he stayed at Versailles in 1822. The play was produced April 20, 1814. Gosling's experiences as a dramatic author seem to have been curiously like Lamb's own. See note to "Mr. H." on page 392.

Line 12. _They never bring the Spanish._ Spanish, old slang for money.

Line 40. _Polito's._ Polito at one time kept the menagerie in Exeter Change.

Line 42. _Larry Whack._ Larry Whack is referred to in the play. Says Sampson, on one occasion: "Who be I? Come, that be capital! Why, ben't I Sampson Miller? Didn't I bang the Darby Corps at York Races ... and durst Sir Harry Slang bring me up to town to fight Larry Whack, the Irish ruffian?..."

* * * * *

Page 145. _Epilogue to an Amateur Performance of "Richard II."_

This epilogue, says Canon Ainger, who first printed it, was written for a performance given by the family of Barren Field in 1824. The family of Henry Field, Barron's father, would perhaps be more accurate; for Barron Field was childless. The verses, which I print by permission of Miss Kendall, Miss Field's residuary legatee, were given to Canon Ainger by the late Miss M.L. Field, of Hastings. In his interesting note he adds of this lady (to whom Lamb addressed the verses on page 106), "she told me that she (then a girl of 19) sat by the side of Lamb during the performance. She remembered well, she said, that in course of the play a looking glass was broken, and that Lamb turned to her and whispered 'Sixpence!' She added that before the play began, while the guests were assembling, the butler announced 'Mr. Negus!'--upon which Lamb exclaimed, 'Hand him round!'"

Lamb refers in the opening lines to Edmund Kean and John Philip Kemble.

In this connection it may be interesting to state that Lamb told Patmore that he considered John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, the grandest name in the world.

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Page 146. _Prologue to "The Wife."_

The original form of the prologue to James Sheridan Knowles' comedy, not hitherto collected in any edition of Lamb's writings, is preserved in the Forster collection in the South Kensington Museum. It was sent to Moxon, for Knowles, in April, 1833, and differs considerably. See the large edition of this work. It is curious that the prologue was not attributed to Lamb when the play was printed. Knowles wrote in the preface: "To my early, my trusty and honoured friend, Charles Lamb, I owe my thanks for a delightful Epilogue, composed almost as soon as it was requested. To an equally dear friend, I am equally indebted for my Prologue."

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Page 147. _Epilogue to "The Wife."_

This epilogue was spoken by Miss Ellen Tree.

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Page 149. JOHN WOODVIL.

First published in 1802 in a slender volume entitled _John Woodvil: a Tragedy. By C. Lamb. To which are added Fragments of Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy._ The full contents of the book were:--

John Woodvil; Ballad, From the German (see page 29); Helen (see page 28); Curious Fragments, I., II., III., IV.; The Argument; The Consequence (see Vol. I., page 29, and note; also pages 30 and 35 of the present volume and notes).

_John Woodvil_ was reprinted by Lamb in the _Works_, 1818, the text of which is followed here.

If Mr. Fuller Russell was right in his statement in _Notes and Queries_, April 1, 1882, that Lamb told him he "had lost £25 by his best effort, _John Woodvil_," we must suppose that the book was published wholly or partially at his own cost.

The history of the poem which follows is, with an omission and addition here and there, that compiled by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell and contributed by him to _The Athenaeum_, October 31 and November 14, 1891. Mr. Campbell had the opportunity of collating the edition of 1802 with a manuscript copy made by Lamb and his sister for Manning. With that patient thoroughness and discrimination which made his work as an editor so valuable, Mr. Campbell minutely examined this copy and put the results on record; and they are now for the first time, by permission of Mrs. Dykes Campbell and the Editor of _The Athenaum_, incorporated in an edition of Lamb's writings. The copy itself, I may add, when it came into the market, was secured by an American collector. Mr. Campbell's words follow, my own interpolations being within square brackets.

Lamb's first allusion to the future _John Woodvil_ occurs in a letter to Southey (October 29, 1798), at a time when the two young men were exchanging a good many copies of verses for mutual criticism. "Not having anything of my own," writes Lamb, "to send you in return (though, to tell the truth, I am at work upon something which if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two that might not displease you: but I will not do that; and whether it will come to anything I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter, when I compose anything) I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old Christopher Marlowe's." Lamb must soon have got rid of his objections to cutting away and garbling, for before a month had elapsed he had sent Southey two extracts, first the "Dying Lover" [see "Dramatic Fragment," page 85], and next (November 28) "The Witch" [see page 199], both of which passages were excluded from the printed play. [The letter, which is wrongly dated April 20, 1799, in some editions, concludes (of "The Witch"): "This is the extract I bragged of as superior to that I sent you from Marlowe: perhaps you will smile."]

Charles Lloyd shared with Southey the pains and pleasures of criticising Lamb's verses, for Lamb asks the latter if he agrees with Lloyd in disliking something in "The Witch."

[Thus: "Lloyd objects to 'shutting up the womb of his purse' in my curse (which, for a Christian witch in a Christian country, is not too mild, I hope). Do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as 'shaking the poor little snakes from his door,' which suits the speaker. Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, and snakes and the shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that this last charge has been before brought against 'em nor either the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch would do if she could."]

Lamb proposes also to adopt an emendation of Southey's in the "Dying Lover"--"though I do not feel the objection against 'Silent Prayer,'" and in the event he did very sensibly stick to his own opinion, for in the _London Magazine_ the line runs, as first written:--

He put a silent prayer up for the bride.

One wonders what harm Southey can have seen in it. At this time Southey was collecting verses for the first volume of his _Annual Anthology_ (provisionally called the _Kalendar_), and inviting contributions from Lamb. In writing before November 28, 1798, "This ['The Witch'] and the 'Dying Lover' I gave you are the only extracts I can give without mutilation," Lamb may have meant that Southey was at liberty to print them in the _Anthology_. A year later, October 31, 1799, when the second volume was in preparation, Lamb wrote:--"I shall have nothing to communicate, I fear, to the _Anthology_. You shall have some fragments of my play if you desire them; but I think I would rather print it whole."

As a matter of fact, Lamb contributed nothing to the collection except the lines "Living without God in the World," printed in the first volume [see page 19. To _Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History,_ etc., 1801, edited by Dr. James Anderson, a friend of George Dyer, Lamb, however, sent "Description of a Forest Life," "The General Lover" (What is it you love?) and the "Dying Lover," called "Fragment in Dialogue." There are slight differences in the text, the chief alteration being in line 3 of the "Description of a Forest Life":--

Bursting the lubbar bonds of sleep that bound him.]

Reverting to the letter of November 28, one learns Lamb's intentions as to the play:--"My Tragedy will be a medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, wit, pathos, humour, and, if possible, sublimity; at least it is not a fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant atoms. Heaven send they dance not the 'Dance of Death'!"

The composition went on slowly and in a very casual way, for on January 21, 1799, he writes again to Southey:--"I have only one slight passage to send you, scarce worth the sending, which I want to edge in somewhere into my play, which, by the way, hath not received the addition often lines, besides, since I saw you." The "slight passage" is one which, it will be seen, was "edged in" near the end of the second act, but taken out again--that beginning:--

I saw him [John Woodvil] in the day of Worcester fight, Whither he came at twice seven years, Under the discipline of the Lord Falkland (His uncle by the mother's side), etc.

Lamb naïvely asks Southey, "But did Falkland die before the Worcester fight? In that case I must make bold to unclify some other nobleman." I suppose Southey must have answered that Falkland had been killed at Newbury eight years before Worcester fight, for when the passage had been edged into the play, _Naseby_ and _Ashley_ were substituted for "Worcester" and "Falkland" respectively. This was as bad a shot as the first, for Sir Anthony Cooper, whether at Naseby or no, did not become Lord Ashley until sixteen years after that fight[31]. Had the passage escaped the pruning knife, Lamb's historical research would no doubt have provided a proper battle and a proper uncle for his hero. Again Lloyd appears as a critic, and this time he is obeyed, probably because his objection to "portrayed in his face" was backed by Southey. "I like the line," says Lamb, but he altered it to

Of Valour's beauty in his youthful face

in the Manning MS. Four months later, on May 20, Lamb sends Southey the charming passage about forest-life on page 173, and defends his blank verse against Southey's censure of the pauses at the end of the lines; he does it on the model of Shakespeare, he says, in his "endeavour after a colloquial ease and spirit." Talfourd printed the passage in full, but some later editors have cut down the twenty-four lines to the six opening ones, to the loss of a point in the letter. Lamb says he "loves to anticipate charges of unoriginality," adding--"the first line is almost Shakespeare's:--

"To have my love to bed and to arise. "'Midsummer-Night's Dream.'

I think there is a sweetness in the versification not unlike some rhymes in that exquisite play, and the last line but three is yours." This line describes how the deer, as they came tripping by,

Then stop and gaze, then turn, they know not why.

Lamb thus gives the line and his reference:--

----An eye That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why. "Rosamund's Epistle."

But, of course, he misquotes both line and title--though Southey would feel flattered in finding that his friend's memory had done so well. As the editors have not annotated the passage, I will say here that Lamb should have quoted

The modest eye That met the glance, or turn'd, it knew not why. "Rosamund to Henry."

The poem is one of those in the now scarce volume which Southey and Lovel published jointly at Bath in 1795, _Poems: containing "The Retrospect."_ [It was this forest passage which, as Hazlitt tells us in his _Spirit of the Age_, so puzzled Godwin. After looking in vain through the old dramatists for it, he applied to Lamb himself.]

[Footnote 31: Sir Jacob Astley(?), but he too was ennobled _after_ Naseby.]

By the end of October the play had evidently been completed (though not yet named), for on the 31st Southey was asked, "Have you seen it, or shall I lend you a copy? I want your opinion of it." None is recorded here, but more than two years later, when Southey was in London, he gave it to Danvers (_Letters of R.S._, II., 184): "Lamb and his sister see us often: he is printing his play, which will please you by the exquisite beauty of its poetry, and provoke you by the exquisite silliness of its story."

The play must have been baptised as "Pride's Cure" soon after Hallowe'en, for at Christmas it was submitted under that title to Kemble, and about the same time (December 28, 1799) we find Lamb defending the title (with the vehemence and subtlety of a doubter, as I read) against the adverse criticism of Manning and Mrs. Charles Lloyd. Lamb had lately been on a visit to these friends at Cambridge, and had doubtless taken a copy of his play with him and received their objections there and then--for his defence does not seem to have been provoked by a letter. [In a letter to Charles Lloyd that has come to light since Mr. Dykes Campbell wrote, belonging to middle December, 1799, Lamb asks for his play to be returned to him, suggesting that Mrs. Lloyd shall despatch it. It was probably in the letter that accompanied the parcel that the criticism of the title was found. Lamb thus defended it:--"By-the-bye, I think you and Sophia both incorrect with regard to the _title_ of the _play_. Allowing your objection (which is not necessary, as pride may be, and is in real life often, cured by misfortunes not directly originating from its own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a naughty desire is sometimes sent to cure it; I know you read these _practical divines_)--but allowing your objection, does not the betraying of his father's secret directly spring from pride?--from the pride of wine, and a full heart, and a proud over-stepping of the ordinary rules of morality, and contempt of the prejudices of mankind, which are not to bind superior souls--'as _trust_ in _the matter of secrets_ all _ties_ of _blood_, etc., etc., keeping of _promises_, the feeble mind's religion, binding our _morning knowledge_ to the performance of what _last night's ignorance spake_'--does he not prate, that '_Great Spirits_' must do more than die for their friend? Does not the pride of wine incite him to display some evidence of friendship, which its own irregularity shall make great? This I know, that I meant his punishment not alone to be a cure for his daily and habitual _pride_, but the direct consequence and appropriate punishment of a particular act of pride.

"If you do not understand it so, it is my fault in not explaining my meaning."]

Manning seems to have begged for a copy--or reconsideration, perhaps--for Lamb, on February 13, 1800, promised him a copy "of my play and the _Falstaff Letters_ in a day or two." There is no trace of the former having been sent, but the latter certainly was, for on March 1 he presses Manning for his opinion of it--hopes he is "prepared to call it a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humours," etc., as he was accustomed to hope when that book was in question. The next mention of the play occurs in an undated letter to Coleridge [accompanying a MS. copy of the play for the Wordsworths], dated by Talfourd and other editors "end of 1800," which must have been written in March or April, 1800 [since Coleridge was then staying with Wordsworth, engaged in completing the translation of _Wallenstein,_ the last of the MS. being sent to the printer in April]. Talfourd's mistake in dating it perhaps led him to suppose that the copy sent through Coleridge to Wordsworth was a printed copy, and that Lamb had printed _John Woodvil_ a year before he published it. If any other proof were needed that Talfourd guessed wrongly, it is supplied by this sentence in the letter to Manning of February 15, 1801:--"I lately received from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume [of the _Lyrical Ballads_] accompanied by an acknowledgment of having received from me _many months since_ a copy of a certain Tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment sooner."

Lamb's reply to Wordsworth (January 30, 1801) is so very dry--"Thank you for Liking my Play!!"--that we may suppose that Wordsworth's expression of "liking" was not very enthusiastic.

Things become clearer when we reach November 3, 1800, on which day Lamb thus addressed Manning (I quote verbatim from the original letter):--"At last I have written to Kemble to know the event of my play, which was presented last Christmas. As I suspected, came an answer back that the copy was lost ... with a courteous (reasonable!) request of another copy (if I had one by me), and a promise of a definite answer in a week. I could not resist so facile and moderate demand: so scribbled out another, omitting sundry things, such as the witch story, about half the forest scene (which is too leisurely for _story_), and transposing that damn'd soliloquy about England getting drunk, which like its reciter stupidly stood alone nothing prevenient, or antevenient, and cleared away a good deal besides ... I sent it last night, and am in weekly expectation of the Tolling Bell and death warrant."

It will be observed that that second copy sent to Kemble must have differed essentially from the one sent to Manning, for the latter includes the witch story, and retains in its original place the soliloquy about England getting drunk.

To this copy sent to Manning we now come in chronological order, but the exact date of its despatch must remain uncertain. Clearly it was subsequent, but probably not long subsequent, to Kemble's rejection of the play, which took place soon after All Souls' Day, for Kemble must have made up his mind within half an hour of taking up the manuscript. I venture to assume that the argosy which bore all the treasures recounted in the following bill of lading sailed about Christmas, 1800. It is sad to think that the bill of lading itself and the MS. of "Pride's Cure" are the only salvage.

"I send you all of Coleridge's letters to me which I have preserved; some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious critique on 'Pride's Cure' by a young Physician from EDINBORO', who modestly suggests quite another kind of plot. These are monuments of my disappointments which I like to preserve ...You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch Doctor's, _which burn_) _in statu quo_ till I come to claim mine own."

On the reverse of the half-sheet is written: "For Mister Manning | Teacher of the Mathematics | and the Black Arts, | There is another letter in the inside cover of the book opposite the blank leaf that _was_."

[This is the other letter, written inside the board cover of the copy of the play, in Charles Lamb's hand:--

"Mind this goes for a letter. (Acknowledge it directly, if only in ten words.)

"DEAR MANNING:

"(I shall want to hear this comes safe.)

"I have scratched out a good deal, as you will see. Generally, what I have rejected was either _false_ in _feeling_, or a violation of character, mostly of the first sort. I will here just instance in the concluding few lines of the dying Lover's story, which completely contradicted his character of _violent_ and _unreproachful_. I hesitated a good while what copy to send you, and at last resolved to send the _worst_, because you are familiar with it and can make it out; a stranger would find so much difficulty in doing it, that it would give him more pain than pleasure. This is compounded precisely of the two persons' hands you requested it should be.

"Yours sincerely,

"C. LAMB."

The two persons were undoubtedly Charles Lamb and his sister.]

Before proceeding to the MS. itself, it will be desirable to refer to Lamb's letter to Manning of February 15, 1802, in which he defends himself against Manning's animadversions on the changes found in the printed _John Woodvil_. This letter is addressed to "Mr. Thomas Manning, Maison Magnan, No. 342 Boulevard Italien, Paris." ....The italics are in the original:--"_Apropos_, I think you wrong about _my_ play. All the omissions are _right_. And the supplementary scene, in which Sandford _narrates_ the manner in which his master is affected, is the best in the book. It stands where a hodge-podge of German puerilities used to stand. I insist upon it that you like that scene." ...

There is one thing more to add. Its excuse is the best in the world--it is quite new. In that precious letter of February 15, 1801, is a passage [printed in Canon Ainger's _édition de luxe_] which shows that Lamb (probably) tried George Colman the younger with "Pride's Cure." The potentate of the Haymarket was probably less sublimely courteous in his rejection than Kemble.

"Now to my own affairs. I have not taken that thing to Colman, but I have proceeded one step in the business. I have inquired his address and am promised it in a few days."

[The Manning copy of _John Woodvil_ is thus described by Mr. Dykes Campbell]:--It is composed of foolscap sheets stitched into a limp wrapper of marbled paper. The writing is chiefly Mary Lamb's; her brother's portion seems to have been done at various times, for the ink varies in shade, and the handwriting in style.

On the inside of the first cover, as before noted, is written the letter quoted above. Then comes a page with:--

Begun August, 1798, finished May, 1799. This comes in beginng 2d act. (Letter) of Marg. to John

[this being Margaret's "Letter" (page 160 of the present volume).]

On the reverse, Mary has written out the "Characters in 'Pride's Cure,' a Tragedy." In this list Lovel and Gray are described as "two Court spies."

On the next page the play opens, but on the top margin is written:--

"Turn a leaf back for _my_ Letter to Manning.

"C. LAMB."

The point of the underlining of "my" is to distinguish Lamb's letter from Margaret's, which chance to face one another in the MS.

Then comes:--

Pride's Cure. A Tragedy. Act the First. Scene the First. A Servants' apartment in Wodvil [_sic_] Hall. Servants drinking. A Song by Daniel. "When the King enjoys his own again." _Peter_. A delicate song upon my verity. Where didst learn it, fellow?

And so on for some leaves without material difference from print.

After the speech [page 155] "_All_. Truly a sad consideration" comes this continuation of the dialogue:--

_Daniel_. You know what he said to you one day in confidence.

_Peter_. I have reason to remember the words--"'Tis a pity (said he) a traitor should go unpunished."

_Francis_. Did he say so much? _Peter_. As true as I sit here. I told Daniel of it the same day. Did I not, Daniel?

_Daniel_. Well, I do not know but it may be merrier times with us servants if Sir Walter never comes back.

_Francis_. But then again, who of us can think of betraying him?

_Peter_. His son, John Woodvil, is the prince of good masters.

_Daniel_. Here is his health, and the King's. (_They all drink_.) Well, I cannot see why one of us should not deserve the reward as well as another man.

_Martin_. Indeed there is something in that.

_Sandford enters suddenly_.

_Sandford_. You well-fed and unprofitable grooms.

And so on as printed, until we come to Margaret's reply to Sandford's speech ending [page 156]:--

Since my ["our"] old master quitted all his rights here.

_Margaret_. Alas! I am sure I find it so. Ah! Mr. Sandford, This is no dwelling now for me, As in Sir Walter's days it was. I can remember when this house hath been A sanctuary to a poor orphan girl From evil tongues and injuries of the world. Now every day I must endure fresh insult from the scorn Of Woodvil's friends, the uncivil jests And free discourses of the dissolute men That haunt this mansion, making me their mirth.

Further on in the same dialogue comes the following, after the line in Margaret's speech [page 158, line 18],

His love, which ["that"] long has been upon the wane.

And therefore 'tis men seeing this Have ta'en their cue and think it now their time To slur me with their coward disrespects, Unworthy usages, who, while John lov'd And while one breath'd That thought not much to take the orphan's part, And durst as soon Hold dalliance with the chafed lion's paw, Or play with fire, or utter blasphemy, As think a disrespectful thought of Margaret.

_Sandford_. I am too mean a man, Being but a servant in the family, To be the avenger of a Lady's wrongs, And such a Lady! but I verily think That I should cleave the rudesby to the earth With my good oaken staff, and think no harm, That offer'd you an insult, I being by. I warrant you, young Master would forgive, And thank me for the deed, Tho' he I struck were one of his dearest friends.

_Margaret_. O Mr. Sandford, you must think it, I know, as sad undecency in me To trouble thus your friendly hearing With my complaints. But I have now no female friend In all this house, adviser none, or friend To council with, and when I view your face, I call to mind old times, And how these things were different once When your old friend and master rul'd this house. Nay, never weep; why, man, I trust that yet Sir Walter shall return one day And thank you for these tears, And loving services to his poor orphan. For me, I am determined what to do.

And so on as printed down to Margaret's line [page 158, line 3 from foot]:--

And cowardice grows enamour'd of rare accidents.

The three lines which follow in print [pages 158-9] are not in the MS. Margaret continues thus:--

But we must part now. I see one coming, that will also observe us. Before night comes we will contrive to meet, And then I will tell you further. Till when, farewell. _Sandford_. My prayers go with you, Lady, and your counsels, And heaven so prosper them, as I wish you well. [_They part several ways_.]

Here follows:--

Scene the Second. A Library in Woodvil Hall; John Woodvil alone.

_John Woodvil (alone)_. Now universal England getteth drunk.

And so on as printed in Act II. [on page 165]. After the last printed line,

A fishing, hawking, hunting country gentleman,

the MS. has these five lines, but Lamb drew his pen through them:--

Great spirits ask great play-room; I would be The Phaeton, should put the world to a hazard, E'er I'd forego the horses of the sun, And giddy lustre of my travels' glory For tedious common paces. [_Exit_.]

Next comes:--

Scene the Third. An apartment in Woodvil Hall; Margaret. Sandford.

_Margaret_. I pray you spare me, Mr. Sandford.

And so on as printed as the continuation of the former scene [page 159] to the end of that and of the first act. But in the middle of Sandford's speech comes in the "Witch" story, thus introduced:--

[_Sandford_.] I know a suit Of lovely Lincoln-green, that much shall grace you In the wear, being glossy, fresh and worn but seld, Young Stephen Woodvil's they were, Sir Walter's eldest son, Who died long since in early youth. _Margaret_. I have somewhere heard his story. I remember Sir Walter Rowland would rebuke me, being a girl, When I have asked the manner of his death. But I forget it. _Sandford_. One summer night, Sir Francis, as it chanc'd, Was pacing to and fro in the avenue That westward fronts our house,-- _Margaret_. Methinks I should learn something of his story Whose garments I am to wear. _Sandford_. Among those aged oaks, etc.

And so the witch story goes on, not quite as printed as a separate poem in the _Works_ of 1818 [see page 199], but not differing very materially....

Then comes "Act the Second. John Woodvil alone. Reading a letter (which stands at the beginning of the book)." The letter is longer in MS. than in print [see page 160], the words in italics having been withdrawn from the middle of the second sentence:--

"The course I have taken ... seemed to [me] best _both for the warding off of calumny from myself (which should bring dishonor upon the memory of Sir Rowland my father, if a daughter of his could be thought to prefer doubtful ease before virtuous sufferance, softness before reputation), and_ for the once-for-all releasing of yourself...."

No notable alteration occurs until we come to the second scene, which in the MS. (owing to the transposition of Woodvil's soliloquy) followed immediately on Lovel's reply to Woodvil's speech--

No, you shall go with me into the gallery--

printed on page 164.

Scene the Second. Sherwood Forest. Sir Walter Woodvil, Simon, drest as Frenchmen.

Sir Walter's opening speech is long in print [page 166]--in MS. it is but this:--

_Sir Walter_. How fares my boy, Simon, my youngest born, My hope, my pride, young Woodvil, speak to me; Thinkest thy brother plays thy father false? My life upon his faith and noble heart; Son John could never play thy father false.

There is no further material change to note until we come to the point in the conversation between Sir Walter, Simon and Margaret [page 172], where Simon calls John "a scurvy brother," to whom Margaret responds:--

_Margaret_. I speak no slander, Simon, of your brother, He is still the first of men.

_Simon_. I would fain learn that, if you please.

_Margaret_. Had'st rather hear his praises in the mass Or parcel'd out in each particular?

_Simon_. So please you, in the detail: general praise We'll leave to his Epitaph-maker.

_Margaret_. I will begin then-- His face is Fancy's tablet, where the witch Paints, in her fine caprice, ever new forms, Making it apt all workings of the soul, All passions and their changes to display; His eye, attention's magnet, draws all hearts.

_Simon_. Is this all about your son, Sir?

_Margaret_. Pray let me proceed. His tongue....

_Simon_. Well skill'd in lying, no doubt--

_Sir Walter_. Ungracious boy! will you not hear her out?

_Margaret_. His tongue well skill'd in sweetness to discuss-- (False tongue that seem'd for love-vows only fram'd)--

_Simon_. Did I not say so?

_Margaret_. All knowledge and all topics of converse, Ev'n all the infinite stuff of men's debate From matter of fact, to the heights of metaphysick, How could she think that noble mind So furnish'd, so innate in all perfections, The manners and the worth That go to the making up of a complete Gentleman, Could from his proper nature so decline And from that starry height of place he mov'd in To link his fortune to a lowly Lady Who nothing with her brought but her plain heart, And truth of love that never swerv'd from Woodvil.

_Simon_. Wilt please you hear some vices of this brother, This all-accomplish'd John?

_Margaret_. There is no need--I grant him all you say and more, Vain, ambitious, large of purpose, Fantastic, fiery, swift and confident, A wayward child of vanity and spleen, A hair-brain'd mad-cap, dreamer of gold dreams, A daily feaster on high self-conceit, With many glorious faults beside, Weak minds mistake for virtues.

_Simon_. Add to these, That having gain'd a virtuous maiden's love, One fairly priz'd at twenty times his worth, He let her wander houseless from his door To seek new friends and find elsewhere a home.

_Sir Walter_. Fie upon't-- All men are false, I think, etc.

And here we arrive at the "Dying Lover," which was printed anonymously in the _London Magazine_ for January, 1822. But before passing from the long passage transcribed above I am bound to say that Lamb drew his pen through it all, marking some bits "bad" and others "very bad." I venture to think that in this he did himself some injustice.

To Sir Walter's sweeping indictment Margaret replies as follows. I keep to the text of the MS., noting some trifling changes made for the _London Magazine_ [see page 85]:--

_Margaret_. All are not false. I knew a youth who died For grief, because his Love proved so, And married to[32] another. I saw him on the wedding day, For he was present in the church that day, And in his best apparel too[33], As one that came to grace the ceremony. I mark'd him when the ring was given, His countenance never changed; And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing, He put a silent prayer up for the bride, [For they stood near who saw his lips move.][34] He came invited to the marriage-feast With the bride's friends, And was the merriest of them all that day; But they, who knew him best, call'd it feign'd mirth; And others said, He wore a smile like death's[35] upon his face. His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth, And he went away in tears.

_Simon_. What followed then?

_Margaret_. Oh! then He did not as neglected suitors use Affect a life of solitude in shades, But lived, In free discourse and sweet society, Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best. Yet ever when he smiled, There was a mystery legible in his face, That whoso saw him said he was a man Not long for this world.---- And true it was, for even then The silent love was feeding at his heart Of which he died: Nor ever spake word of reproach, Only he wish'd in death that his remains[36] Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far From his mistress' family vault, "being the place Where one day Anna should herself be laid."

(So far in the _Magazine_.)

[Footnote 32: "With" (_London Magazine_).]

[Footnote 33: "In festive bravery deck'd" (_London Magazine_).]

[Footnote 34: This line erased in MS. and nothing substituted. In the _London Magazine_ this took its place:--"For so his moving lip interpreted."]

[Footnote 35: "Death" (_London Magazine_).]

[Footnote 36: Lamb drew his pen through the four concluding lines, and wrote in the margin "_very_ bad."]

_Simon_. A melancholy catastrophe. For my part I shall never die for love, being as I am, too general-contemplative for the narrow passion. I am in some sort a general lover.

_Margaret_. In the name of the Boy-god who plays at blind man's buff with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches; what is it you love?

And so on until the end of Simon's famous description of the delights of forest life [page 173]. To this

_Margaret_ (_smiling_). And afterwards them paint in simile.

(_To Sir Walter._) I had some foolish questions to put concerning your son, Sir.--Was John so early valiant as hath been reported? I have heard some legends of him.

_Sir Walter_. You shall not call them so. Report, in most things superfluous, in many things altogether an inventress, hath been but too modest in the delivery of John's true stories.

_Margaret_. Proceed, Sir.

_Sir Walter_. I saw him on the day of Naseby Fight-- To which he came at twice seven years, Under the discipline of the Lord Ashley, His uncle by the mother's side, Who gave his early principles a bent Quite from the politics of his father's house.

_Margaret_. I have heard so much.

_Sir Walter_. There did I see this valiant Lamb of Mars, This sprig of honour, this unbearded John, This veteran in green years, this sprout, this Woodvil, With dreadless ease, guiding a fire-hot steed Which seem'd to scorn the manage of a boy, Prick forth with such an ease into the field To mingle rivalship and deeds of wrath Even with the sinewy masters of the art[37]! The rough fanatic and blood-practis'd soldiery Seeing such hope and virtue in the boy, Disclosed their ranks to let him pass unhurt, Checking their swords' uncivil injuries As both to mar that curious workmanship Of valour's beauty in his youthful face.

_Simon_. Mistress Margaret will have need of some refreshment, etc.

Lamb has drawn his pen through this passage, and marked it "bad or dubious."

[Footnote 37: Some lines intervene here in the letter to Southey of January 21, 1799, which are not in the MS.]

At the beginning of the fourth act John Woodvil's soliloquy is broken in upon by Sandford. He has just told himself [page 186] that

Some, the most resolved fools of all, Have told their dearest secrets in their cups,

when

_Enter Sandford in haste._

_Sandford_. O Sir, you have not told them anything?

_John_. Told whom, Sandford?

_Sandford_. Mr. Lovel or Mr. Gray, anything concerning your father?

_John_. Are they not my friends, Sandford?

_Sandford_. Your friends! Lord help you, they your friends! They were no better than two Court spies set on to get the secret out of you. I have just discovered in time all their practices.

_John_. But I have told one of them.

_Sandford_. God forbid, God forbid!

_John_. How do you know them to be what you said they were?

_Sandford_. Good God!

_John_. Tell me, Sandford, my good Sandford, your master begs it of you.

_Sandford_. I cannot speak to you. [_Goes out, John following him._]

Scene the Second. The forest.

This forest scene has been greatly altered. When Gray has said [page 188], "'Tis a brave youth," etc., there follows:--

_Sir Walter_. Why should I live any longer? There is my sword (_surrendering_). Son John, 'tis thou hast brought this disgrace upon us all.

_Simon_. Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you draw your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O villains, he cannot speak! One of you run for some water; quick, ye musty rogues: will ye have your throats cut? [_They both slink off._] How is it with you, father? Look up, Sir Walter, the villains are gone.

"He hears" [page 188], down to "_Bears in the body_" [page 188], of the print is not in the MS., which goes on thus:--

_Sir Walter_. Barely a minute's breath is left me now, Which must be spent in charity by me, And, Simon, as you prize my dying words, I charge you with your brother live in peace And be my messenger, To bear my message to the unhappy boy, For certain his intent was short of my death.

_Simon_. I hope as much, father.

_Sir Walter_. Tell him I send it with my parting prayer, And you must fall upon his neck and weep, And teach him pray, and love your brother John, For you two now are left in the wide world The sole survivors of the Woodvil name. Bless you, my sons-- [_Dies._]

_Simon._ My father's soul is fled. And now, my trusty servant, my sword, One labour yet, my sword, then sleep for ever. Drink up the poor dregs left of Woodvil's name And fill the measure of our house's crimes. How nature sickens, To view her customary bands so snapt When Love's sweet fires go out in blood of kin, And natural regards have left the earth.

Scene changes to another part of the forest.

_Margaret (alone)._ They are gone to bear the body to the town, It was an error merely and no crime.

And so to the end of her long speech as printed [page 189].

At this point in the MS. comes in "the hodge-podge of German puerilities" (see the letter to Manning, February 15, 1802), the sacrifice of which so discontented Manning, who evidently considered the "supplementary scene" (closing the fourth act, [pages 189 to 191]), as Lamb called it, a poor substitute.

Scene changes to Woodvil Hall.

_John reading a letter by scraps--A Servant attending._

"An event beyond the possible reach of foresight. 'Tis thought the deep disgrace of supposed treachery in you o'ercame him. His heart brake. You will acquit yourself of worse crimes than indiscretion. My remorse must end with life.

"Your quondam companion and penitent for the wrong he has done ye.

"GRAY.

"_Postscript._--The old man being unhappily removed, the young man's advancement henceforth will find no impediment."

_John._ Impediment indeed there now is none: For all has happened that my soul presag'd. What hinders, but I enter in forthwith And take possession of my crowned state? For thy advancement, Woodvil, is no less; To be a King, a King. I hear the shoutings of the under-world, I hear the unlawful accents of their mirth, The fiends do shout and clap their hands for joy, That Woodvil is proclaim'd the Prince of Hell. They place a burning crown upon my head, I hear it hissing now, [_Puts his hand to his forehead._] And feel the snakes about my mortal brain. [_Sinks in a swoon, is caught in the arms of a servant._]

Scene. A Courtyard before Woodvil Hall.

Sandford. Margaret (as just arrived from a journey).

_Margaret._ Can I see him to-night?

_Sandford._ I think ye had better stay till the morning: he will be more calm.

_Margaret._ You say he gets no sleep?

_Sandford._ He hath not slept since Sir Walter died. I have sat up with him these two nights. Francis takes my place to-night--O! Mistress Margaret, are not the witch's words come true--"All that we feared and worse"? Go in and change your garments, you have travelled hard and want rest.

_Margaret._ I will go to bed. You will promise I shall see him in the morning.

_Sandford._ You will sleep in your old chamber?

_Margaret._ The Tapestry room: yes. Pray get me a light. A good night to us all.

_Sandford._ Amen, say I. [_They go in._]

Scene. The Servants' Hall.

Daniel, Peter and Robert.

_Daniel._ Are we all of one mind, fellows? He that lov'd his old master, speak. Shall we quit his son's service for a better? Is it aye, or no?

_Peter._ For my part, I am afraid to go to bed to-night.

_Robert._ For certain, young Master's indiscretion was that which broke his heart.

_Peter._ Who sits up with him to-night?

_Robert._ Francis.

_Peter._ Lord! what a conscience he must have, that he cannot sleep alone.

_Robert._ They say he is troubled with the Night-mare.

_Daniel._ Here he comes, let us go away as fast as we can.

_Enter John Woodvil and Francis._ [_They run out._]

_John._ I lay me down to get a little sleep, And just when I began to close my eyes, My eyes heavy to sleep, it comes.

_Francis._ What comes?

_John._ I can remember when a child the maids[38] Would place me on their lap, as they undrest me, As silly women use, and tell me stories Of Witches--Make me read "Glanvil on Witchcraft," And in conclusion show me in the Bible, The old Family-Bible with the pictures in it, The 'graving of the Witch raising up Samuel, Which so possest my fancy, being a child, That nightly in my dreams an old Hag came And sat upon my pillow. I am relapsing into infancy,-- And shortly I shall dote--for would you think it? The Hag has come again. Spite of my manhood, The Witch is strong upon me every night. [_Walks to and fro, then as if recollecting something._] What said'st thou, Francis, as I stood in the passage? Something of a Father: The word is ringing in my ears now--

[Footnote 38: Twice afterwards Lamb returned to this episode--in "The Witch Aunt" in story _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.), and in "Witches and other Night Fears," in _Elia_ (see Vol. II. 9).]

_Francis_. I remember, one of the servants, Sir, would pass a few days with his father at Leicester. The poor old man lies on his deathbed, and has exprest a desire to see his son before he dies. But none cared to break the matter to you.

_John_. Send the man here. [_Francis goes out_.] My very servants shun my company. I held my purse to a beggar yesterday Who lay and bask'd his sores in the hot sun, And the gaunt pauper did refuse my alms.

_Francis returns with Robert_.

_John_. Come hither, Robert. What is the poor man ailing?

_Robert_. Please your honour, I fear he has partly perish'd for want of physic. His means are small, and he kept his illness a secret to me not to put me to expenses.

_John_. Good son, he weeps for his father. Go take the swiftest horse in my stables, Take Lightfoot or Eclipse--no, Eclipse is lame, Take Lightfoot then, or Princess[39], Ride hard all night to Leicester. And give him money, money, Francis-- The old man must have medicines, cordials, And broth to keep him warm, and careful nurses. He must not die for lack of tendance, Robert.

[Footnote 39: Lamb puts his pen through these two lines, and writes across them "miserable bad."]

_Robert_. God bless your honour for your kindness to my poor father.

_John_. Pray, now make haste. You may chance to come in time.

[_Robert goes out_.]

_John_. Go get some firewood, Francis, And get my supper ready. [_Francis goes out_.] The night is bitter cold. They in their graves feel nothing of the cold, Or if they do, how dull a cold-- All clayey, clayey. Ah God! who waits below? Come up, come quick. I saw a fearful sight.

_Francis returns in haste with wood_.

_John_. There are such things as spirits, deny it who may. Is it you, Francis? Heap the wood on thick, We two shall sup together, sup all night, Carouse, drink drunk, and tell the merriest tales-- Tell for a wager, who tells merriest-- But I am very weak. O tears, tears, tears, I feel your just rebuke. [_Goes out_.]

Scene changes to a bed-room. John sitting alone: a lamp burning by him.

"Infinite torments for finite offences." I will never believe it. How divines can reconcile this monstrous tenet with the spirit of their Theology! They have palpably failed in the proof, for to put the question thus:--If he being infinite--have a care, Woodvil, the latitude of doubting suits not with the humility of thy condition. What good men have believed, may be true, and what they profess to find set down clearly in their scriptures, must have probability in its defence[40]. Touching that other question the Casuists with one consent have pronounced the sober man accountable for the deeds by him in a state of drunkenness committed, because tho' the action indeed be such as he, sober, would never have committed, yet the drunkenness being an act of the will, by a moral fiction, the issues are accounted voluntary also. I lose my sleep in attending to these intricacies of the schoolmen. I lay till daybreak the other morning endeavouring to draw a line of distinction between sin of direct malice and sin of malice indirect, or imputable only by the sequence. My brain is overwrought by these labours, and my faculties will shortly decline into impotence. [_Throws himself on a bed_.]

End of the Fourth Act.

[Footnote 40: Lamb had crossed out this passage from "Infinite torments," and written at "touching" "begin here."]

In the fifth act of the printed play [page 192] we have simply "Margaret enters." In the MS. Sandford prepares his master for her advent, and announces her thus:--

_Sandford_. Wilt please you to see company to-day, Sir?

_John_. Who thinks me worth the visiting?

_Sandford_. One that traveled hard last night to see you, She waits to know your pleasure.

_John_. A lady too! pray send her to me-- Some curiosity, I suppose.

[_Sandford goes out and returns with Margaret_.]

_Margaret_. Woodvil![41]

[Footnote 41: "Woodvil!" and some illegible words struck out, and nothing substituted.]

_John_. Comes Margaret here, etc.

When, a page further on [page 194], John has declared to Margaret that

This earth holds not alive so poor a thing as I am-- I was not always thus,

the MS. went on (but the passage is struck out as "bad"):--

You must bear with me, Margaret, as a child, For I am weak as tender Infancy And cannot bear rebuke-- Would'st think it, Love! They hoot and spit upon me as I pass In the public streets: one shows me to his neighbour, Who shakes his head and turns away with horror-- I was not always thus--

_Margaret_. Thou noble nature, etc.

The next scene--the last [page l95]--is much cut about. The long speech of Margaret beginning,

To give you in your stead a better self,

and John's reply [both printed at pages 196-7], are struck out, and "Nimis" written by Lamb's pen in large characters in the margin; but after that all goes on in harmony with the print, to the end:--

It seem'd the guilt of blood was passing from me Even in the act and agony of tears And all my sins forgiven. At this point in the MS. Simon arrives:--

[_A noise is heard as of one without, clamorous to come in_.]

_Margaret_. 'Tis your brother Simon, John.

_Enter Simon, with his sword in a menacing posture, John staggers towards him and falls at his feet, Margaret standing over him._

_Simon_. Is this the man I came so far to see-- The perfect Cavalier, the finish'd courtier Whom Ladies lov'd, the gallant curled Woodvil, Whom brave men fear'd, the valiant, fighting Woodvil, The haughty high-ambitioned Parricide-- The same that sold his father's secret in his cups, And held it but an after-dinner's trick?-- So humble and in tears, a crestfallen penitent, And crawling at a younger brother's feet! The sinews of my [_stiff_] revenge grow slack. My brother, speak to me, my brother John. (_Aside_) Now this is better than the beastly deed Which I did meditate.

_John (rising and resuming his old dignity)_. You come to take my life, I know it well. You come to fight with me--[_Laying his hand upon his sword_.] This arm was busy on the day of Naseby: 'Tis paralytic now, and knows no use of weapons. The luck is yours, Sir. [_Surrenders his sword_.]

_Simon_. My errand is of peace: A dying father's blessing and lost prayers For his misguided son. Sir Walter sends it with his parting breath. He bade me with my brother live in peace, He bade me fall upon his neck and weep, (As I now do) and love my brother John; For we are only left in the wide world The poor survivors of the Woodvil name. [_They embrace_.]

_Simon_. And Margaret here shall witness our atonement-- (For Margaret still hath followed all your fortunes). And she shall dry thy tears and teach thee pray. So we'll together seek some foreign land, Where our sad story, John, shall never reach.

_End of "Pride's Cure" and Charles Lamb's Dramatic Works!!_

After all this [Mr. Campbell adds finally] is the reader prepared to think Manning altogether wrong and Lamb altogether right as to what was done in the process of transforming Pride's Cure into _John Woodvil_?

The version of 1818 here printed differs practically only in minor matters of typography and punctuation from that of 1802. There are, however, a few alterations which should be noted. On page 176, in John's first speech, "fermentations" was, in 1802, "stimuli." On page 178, in the speech of the Third Gentleman, there is a change. In 1802 he said "(_dashing his glass down_) Pshaw, damn these acorn cups, they would not drench a fairy. Who shall pledge," &c. And at the end of Act III, one line is omitted. In 1802 John was made to say, after disarming Lovel (page 186):--

Still have the will without the power to execute, As unfear'd Eunuchs meditate a rape.

This simile, which one reviewer fell upon with some violence, was not reprinted.

Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, writing in The Athenceum, December 28, 1901, remarks: "The truth is that in Lamb's imitations of the elder writers 'anachronistic improprieties' (as Thomas Warton would say) are exceedingly rare. In _John Woodvil_ it would not, I think, be easy to discover more than two: _caprice_, which, in the sense of 'a capricious disposition,' seems to belong to the eighteenth century, and _anecdotes_ (i.e., 'secret Court history'), which, in its English form at least, probably does not occur much before 1686."

This note is already too long, or I should like to say something of the reception of _John Woodvil_, which was not cordial. The _Annual Review_ was particularly severe, and the _Edinburgh_ caustic.

* * * * *

Page 109. "THE WITCH."

In the _Works_, 1818, this dramatic sketch followed _John Woodvil_.

Lamb sent "The Witch" to Robert Lloyd in November, 1798 (see _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, page 91), in a version differing widely from that of the _Works_ here given. The speakers are Sir Walter Woodvil's steward and Margaret. The principal variation is this, after the curse:--

_Margaret_. A terrible curse!

_Old Steward_. O Lady! such bad things are said of that old woman, You would be loth to hear them! Namely, that the milk she gave was sour, And the babe, who suck'd her, shrivell'd like a mandrake, And things besides, with a bigger horror in them, Almost, I think, unlawful to be told!

In the penultimate line "The mystery of God" was "Creation's beauteous workmanship."

* * * * *

Page 202. "MR. H----."

Lamb composed this farce in the winter 1805-1806. Writing to Hazlitt on February 19, 1806, he says: "Have taken a room at 3s. a week to be in between 5 and 8 at night, to avoid my _nocturnal_ alias _knock-eternal_ visitors. The first-fruits of my retirement has been a farce which goes to manager tomorrow." Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart at about the same time, says: "Charles is gone [to the lodging] to finish the farce, and I am to hear it read this night. I am so uneasy between my hopes and fears of how I shall like it, that I do not know what I am doing." The next day or so, February 21, she says that she liked the farce "very much, and cannot help having great hopes of its success"--stating that she has carried it to Mr. Wroughton at Drury Lane.

The reply came on June n, 1806, saying that the farce was accepted, subject to a few alterations, and would be produced in due course (see Lamb's letter to Wordsworth, written in "wantonness of triumph," of June 26). Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart, probably in October, 1806, says that

Charles took an emendated copy of his farce to Mr. Wroughton, the Manager, yesterday. Mr. Wroughton was very friendly to him, and expressed high approbation of the farce; but there are two, he tells him, to come out before it.... We are pretty well, and in fresh hopes about this farce.

Lamb tells Manning about it, on December 5, adding after an outline of the plot:--"That's the idea--how flat it is here--but how whimsical in the farce!" Later he says: "I shall get £200 from the theatre if 'Mr. H----' has a good run, and, I hope, £100 for the copyright. Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I value myself on, as a _chef-d'oeuvre_." And a little later still: "N.B. If my little thing don't succeed, I shall easily survive."

"Mr. H----" was produced on December 10, 1806. The play-bill for the night ran thus:--

Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane This present Wednesday, December 10, 1806 Their Majesties Servants will act the Operatic Drama of The Travellers; Or, Music's Fascination [&c. &c.] After which will be produced (Never Acted) a new Farce, in Two acts, called, Mr. H---- The Characters by Mr. Elliston Mr. Wewitzer, Mr. Hartley, Mr. Penley, Mr. Purser Mr. Carles, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Placide, Mr. Webb Miss Mellon, Mrs. Sparks Miss Tidswell, Mrs. Harlowe Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Maddocks, Miss Sanders The Prologue to be spoken by Mr. Elliston [&c., &c.]

According to Mrs. Baron-Wilson's _Memoirs of (Miss Mellon) Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans_, Lamb was allowed to cast "Mr. H----" himself. Miss Mellon played the heroine.

The Lambs sat near the orchestra with Hazlitt and Crabb Robinson, and the house was well salted with friendly clerks from the East India House and the South-Sea House. The prologue went capitally; and all was well with the play until the name of Hogsflesh was pronounced. Then disapproval set in in a storm of hisses, in which, Crabb Robinson tells us, Lamb joined heartily, standing on his seat to do so.

In a report of the first night of "Mr. H----" in _Monthly Literary Recreations_ for December, 1806, we read that on the secret of the name being made public "all interest vanished, the audience were disgusted, and the farce went on to its very conclusion almost unheard, amidst the contending clamours of 'Silence,' 'Hear! hear!' and 'Off! off! off!'"

Writing to Wordsworth on the next day Lamb told the story:--"Mr. H---- came out last night and failed. I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have solider fare than a _Letter_. We are pretty stout about it, have had plenty of condoling friends, but after all, we had rather it should have succeeded. You will see the Prologue in most of the Morning Papers. It was received with such shouts as I never witness'd to a Prologue. It was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, because it was wanted--and set no great store by; and Mr. H.!! The quantity of friends we had in the house my brother and I being in Public Offices &c. was astonishing--but they yielded at length to a few hisses--"a hundred hisses--damn the word, I write it like kisses--how different--a hundred hisses outweigh 1000 claps. The former come more directly from the Heart. Well, 'tis withdrawn and there is an end. Better Luck to us."

Writing to Sarah Stoddart, Lamb put the case thus:--"Mary is a little cut at the ill success of 'Mr. H.,' which came out last night, and _failed_. I know you'll be sorry, but never mind. We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoking man must write smoky farces." Thereafter Lamb's attitude to "Mr. H----" was always one of humorous resignation.

Lamb should have chosen a better, by which I mean a worse, name than Hogsflesh. As a matter of fact a great number of persons had become quite accustomed to the asperities of Hogsflesh, not only from the famous cricketer of that name, one of the pioneers of the game, but also from the innkeeper at Worthing. Indeed an old rhyme current at the end of the eighteenth century anticipated some of Lamb's humour, for the two principal landlords of Worthing, which was just then beginning to be a fashionable resort, were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, leading to the quatrain:--

Brighton is a pretty street, Worthing is much taken; If you can't get any other meat There's Hogsflesh and Bacon.

The Drury Lane authorities do not seem to have considered the failure as absolute as did Lamb, for on the next day--December 11--the bills announced:--

*** The New Farce of Mr. H----, performed for the first time last night, was received by an overflowing audience with universal applause, and will be repeated for the second time to-morrow.

But the next evening's bill--December 12, 1806--stated that "The New Farce of Mr. H---- is withdrawn at the request of the author."

"Mr. H----" did not then disappear altogether from the stage. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, May 26, 1855, remembered seeing it at Philadelphia when he was a boy. The last scene, he says, particularly amused the audience. And in William B. Wood's _Personal Recollections of the Stage_, 1855, it is recorded of the Philadelphia Theatre, of which he was manager, that in 1812, "Charles Lamb's excellent farce of 'Mr. H----' met with extraordinary success, and was played an unusual number of nights." Lamb, however, did not profit thereby.

The little play was published in Philadelphia in 1813 under the title _Mr. H----, or Beware a Bad Name. A farce in two acts, as performed at the Philadelphia Theatre_--Lamb's name not figuring in any way in connection with it.

In England "Mr. H----" was not revived until 1885, when, as a curiosity, it was played by the Dramatic Students' Society. The performance was held at the Gaiety on October 27, 1885, the prologue being spoken by a gentleman made up to resemble Lamb. At the Cheadle Town Hall on October 19 and 20, 1910, "Mr. H----" was given again, with the difference that the secret of the name was disclosed from the start.

In _Notes and Queries_, August 3, 1889, the following amusing play-bill was printed, contributed by Mr. Bertram Dobell:--

Theatre Royal, English Opera House, Strand. Particularly Private. This present FRIDAY, April 26, 1822, Will be presented a FARCE called Mr. H.... (_N.B. This piece was damned at Drury Lane Theatre._) [Caste follows.] Previous to which a PROLOGUE will be spoken by Mrs. EDWIN. After the Farce (for the first Time in this country, and now performing with immense success in Paris) A French _Petite Comedie_, called Le Comedien D'Etampes. (N.B. _This piece was never acted in London, and may very probably be damned HERE_.) [Caste follows.] Immediately after which A LOVER'S CONFESSION, in the shape of a SONG, by M. EMILE (From the Theatre de la Poste St. Martin, at Paris.) To conclude with a _Pathetic Drama_, in One Act, called The Sorrows of Werther. (N.B. This Piece was damned at Covent Garden Theatre.) [Caste follows.] Brothers and Sisters of Charlotte, by six Cherubims got for the occasion. Orchestra. Leader of the Band, Mr. Knight, Conductor, Mr. E. Knight. Piano Forte, Mr. Knight, Jun. Harpsichord, Master Knight (that was). Clavecin, by the Father of the Knights, to come. Vivat Rex! No Money returned (because none will be taken). _On account of the above surprising Novelty, not an_ ORDER _can possibly be admitted:_-- _But it is requested, that if such a thing finds its way into the front of the house_, IT WILL BE KEPT. Doors open at Half past Six, begin at Half past Seven precisely. The Entrance for all parts of the House at the Private Box Door in Exeter Street. Lowndes, Printer, Marquis Court, Drury Lane, London.

Mr. Dobell wonders if Lamb had any knowledge of this performance, and he suggests that possibly he had a hand in the bill. Certainly the interpolations concerning damnation are in his manner.

I add a few notes:--

Page 208. _The man with the great nose_. See Slawkenbergius's tale in _Tristram Shandy_, Vol. IV.

Page 212. _The feeling Hurley_. Harley was the hero of Henry Mackenzie's novel, _The Man of Feeling_.

Page 217. _Jeremiah Pry_. John Poole may have taken a hint here for his farce "Paul Pry," produced in September, 1825. Lamb and he knew each other slightly. Lamb analysed the prying nature again in _The New Times_ early in 1825, in two papers on "Tom Pry" and "Tom Pry's Wife" which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition.

Page 220. _Old Q----_. William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry (1724-1810), the most notorious libertine of his later days.

Page 224. _John, my valet_. This is a very similar incident to that described in the _Elia_ essay on the "Old Benchers," where Lovel (John Lamb) warns Samuel Salt, when dressing him, not to allude, at the party to which he is going, to the unfortunate Miss Blandy.

Page 228, line 1. _Mother Damnable_. There was at Kentish Town a notorious old shrew who bore this nickname in the 17th century.

* * * * *

Page 238. "THE PAWNBROKER'S DAUGHTER."

Printed in _Blackwood_, January, 1830, and not reprinted by Lamb.

This little play was never acted. Lamb refers to it in a letter to Bernard Barton--in July, 1829--as "an old rejected farce"; and Canon Ainger mentions a note of Lamb's to Charles Mathews, in October, 1828, offering the farce for production at the Adelphi. The theme is one that seems always to have interested Lamb (see his essay on the "Inconveniences of Being Hanged," Vol. I.).

Page 243, line 3. "_An Argument against the Use of Animal Food._" Joseph Ritson, 1752-1803, the antiquarian, was converted to vegetarianism by Mandeville's _Fable of the Bees_. The work from which Cutlet quotes was published in 1802. Pope's motto is from the _Essay on Man_, I., lines 81-84.

Page 243, last line. _Mr. Molyneux ... in training to fight Cribb_. Cutlet's rump steak did not avail in either of the great struggles between Tom Cribb and Tom Molineaux. At their first meeting, on December 18, 1810, Molineaux went under at the thirty-third round; and in the return match, on September 28, 1811, Molineaux's jaw was broken at the ninth and he gave in at the eleventh, to the great disappointment of the 20,000 spectators. Mr. Molineaux was a negro.

END OF VOL. IV.

INDEX

A

Acrostics:

"In the Album of a very Young Lady" "To Caroline Maria Applebee" "To Cecilia Catherine Lawton" "To a Lady who Desired me to Write Her Epitaph" "To Her youngest Daughter" "To Mrs. F----, on Her Return from Gibraltar" "To Esther Field" "To Mrs. Williams" "To S.F." "To R.Q." "To S.L." "To M.L." "An Acrostic against Acrostics" "Un Solitaire" "To S.T." "To Mrs. Sarah Robinson" "To Sarah" "Acrostic" (Joseph Vale Asbury) "To D.A." "To Sarah James of Beguildy" "To Emma Button"

Addington, Henry, Lamb's epigram on

Aders, Charles, Lamb's poem to

_Albion, The,_ and Lamb

"ALBUM VERSES" "In the Album of a Clergyman's Lady" "In the Autograph Book of Mrs. Sergeant W----" "In the Album of Lucy Barton" "In the Album of Miss ----" "In the Album of a very Young Lady" "In the Album of a French Teacher" "In the Album of Miss Daubeny" "In the Album of Mrs. Jane Towers" "In My Own Album" "In the Album of Edith S----" "To Dora W----" "In the Album of Rotha Q----" "In the Album of Catherine Orkney" "What is an Album" "The First Leaf of Spring" "To M.L.F." "To the Book" "On Being Asked to Write in Miss Westwood's Album" "In Miss Westwood's Album" "The Sisters" (See also under the heading of ACROSTICS.)

"Angel Help"

Ann Simmons (Lamb's "Anna")

_Annual Anthology_, Lamb's contribution to

_Anti-Jacobin, The,_ and Lamb

"ANTONIO" by Godwin

"Ape, The"

_Athenaeum, The_, Lamb's contributions to

B

"Ballad Noting the Difference of Rich and Poor" "from the German" "Singers, The"

"Barton, Bernard, To" Lucy, Lamb's verses to

Beaumont, Francis, quoted

_Bijou, The_, Lamb's contribution to

_Blackwood's Magazine_, the Lambs' contributions to

Blakesware and Widford

"BLANK VERSE," by Lloyd and Lamb

Bourne, Vincent Lamb's translations

Burney, Martin, Lamb's sonnet to Sarah, Lamb's poem to

Burton, Lamb's imitation of

Byron, Lord, Lamb's epigram on

C

Campbell, J. Dykes, on JOHN WOODVIL

Canning, George, Lamb's epigrams on

Caroline of Brunswick, Lamb's championship of

Carter, Ben, of Blakesware

"Catechist, The Young"

_Champion, The_, Lamb's contributions to

"Change, The"

Chatterton, Thomas

"Cheap Gifts"

"Childhood"

"Christening, The"

Clarkes, the Cowden

Coleridge, S.T., Lamb's dedication to his "POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS" his "POEMS" and Sara, Lamb's lines to his "REMORSE" his alteration of Lamb's sonnets on Lamb's sonnet "We were two pretty babes" in Gillray's cartoon and "The Old Familiar Faces" his translation of "Thekla's Song" Sara, her Latinity

"Composed at Midnight"

"Confidant, The," by Crabbe, adapted by Lamb

"Cook, To David"

Cornwall, Barry. See PROCTER, B.W.

Cowley, Abraham, quoted

"Cowper, To the Poet"

Crabbe, George, Lamb's adaptation of

D

Da Vinci, Leonardo, poems upon

Day, Matthew, Lamb's epigram on

Dedication of Lamb's "WORKS" to Coleridge of Lamb's "POEMS," 1797, to his sister

Dedication of Lamb's "ALBUM VERSES" to Moxon

Defoe, Daniel

"Dialogue between a Mother and Child"

"Dick Strype"

"Divine Subjects, Fancy Employed on"

Dix, Margaret, Lamb's epitaph on

Dockwra, Tom, of Widford

Dorrell, William, the swindler

"Douglas, The Tomb of"

Drake, Onesimus, of the East India House

"Dramatic Fragment"

Druitt, Mary, Lamb's epitaph upon

"Dying Lover"

E

East India House epigrams

_Englishman's Magazine_, Lamb's contributions to

Epigrams possibly by Lamb

Epilogue to Godwin's "ANTONIO" to Siddons' "TIME'S A TELL-TALE" to Kenney's "DEBTOR AND CREDITOR" to an amateur performance of "RICHARD II" to Knowles' "THE WIFE"

"Epitaph on a Dog" "on a Young Lady"

_Examiner_, The, Lamb's contributions to

"Existence, Considered in Itself, no Blessing"

F

"Faces, The Old Familiar"

"Family Name, The"

"Fancy Employed on Divine Subjects"

"Farewell to Tobacco, A"

"FARMER, PRISCILLA, POEMS ON THE DEATH OF"

Fast Day, Lamb's epigram on

"FAULKENER," by Godwin

"Female Orators, The"

Fenwick, John, editor of _The Albion_

Field, family, the poems to Mrs., Lamb's grandmother

"Free Thoughts on Several Eminent Composers"

Frend, Sophia, Lamb's poems to,

Frere, John Hookham, Lamb's epigram on

"Friend, To a"

"From the Latin"

Fryer, Miss, Lamb's poem for

G

George IV., Lamb's epigrams on

Gifford, William, Lamb's sonnet upon

Gillray, James, his cartoons

"Gipsy's Malison, The"

Godwin, William, his "ANTONI" his "FAULKENER"

Goethe on Lamb's "Family Name"

"Going or Gone"

"Grandame, The"

GRAY, ROSAMUND, quoted

H

Hamilton of Bangor quoted

Hardy, Lieutenant, Lamb's poem to

"Harmony in Unlikeness"

Haydon, B.R., Lamb's verses to

Hazlitt, William, on Lamb in the country

"Helen"

"Hercules Pacificatus"

Hessey, Archdeacon, his memories of Lamb

"Hester"

Hogsflesh, a well-known name

Hone, William, Lamb's poem to his publications, Lamb's contributions to

Hood, Thomas, his child's death

"House-keeper, The"

Hunt, Leigh, Lamb's poem to on "Composed at Midnight" and Lamb's poem, "To T.L.H." Thornton, Lamb's poem to

Hutchinson, Mr. Thomas, on JOHN WOODVIL

"Hypochondriacus"

I

"In Tabulam Eximii...."

_Indicator, The_, Lamb's contributions to

Isola, Agostino Emma, Lamb's poems to

J

Jerdan, William, Lamb's epigram on

JOHN WOODVIL volume, 1802, poems in

K

Kelly, Frances Maria (Fanny), and Lamb

"Kelly, To Miss"

Kenney, James, his "DEBTOR AND CREDITOR"

Knight, Ann.

Knowles, James Sheridan. his comedy "THE WIFE"

L

"Lady's Sapphic, A"

Lamb, Charles, dedicates his "WORKS" to Coleridge at the Salutation Inn his Earliest Poem, "Mille viae mortis" his contributions to Coleridge's "POEMS" his praise of Mrs. Siddons his partnership with Coleridge his love poems verses on his grandmother his contributions to Coleridge's "POEMS," 1797 his poems to his sister his verses to Charles Lloyd his verses to Cowper his Bristol holiday refused his contributions to "BLANK VERSE," 1798 his lines on his aunt his lines on his father his grief for his mother's death his "Old Familiar Faces" Mary Lamb laughs at him in "Helen" his translation from the German his imitations of Burton his "WORKS" his lines on Hester Savory his "Farewell to Tobacco" his lines to Thornton Leigh Hunt his sonnets to Miss Kelly his sonnet on his name his sonnet to his brother his sonnet to Martin Burney his "ALBUM VERSES" his poem on Hood's child his verses to Bernard Barton his verses on Emma Isola his sonnets on "Work" and "Leisure" his sonnets to Samuel Rogers his sonnet on the sheep stealer his sonnet to Barry Cornwall his lines to Sheridan Knowles his quatrains to Hone his skill in acrostics his translations from Bourne his "Ode to the Treadmill" his poem on old Widford friends his "POETICAL WORKS," 1836 his sonnet to Stothard his lines to Moxon on his marriage his poems on Louisa Martin his "Free Thoughts on Composers" his epitaph on Mary Druitt his verses to Haydon his sonnet to Sarah Burney his sonnet to Leigh Hunt his lines to Charles Aders his translations from Palingenius his lines to Clara Novello ALBUM VERSES AND ACROSTICS his political and other epigrams and Sir James Mackintosh his attacks on Canning his contempt for George IV. his attack on Gifford on the spy system his defence of Caroline of Brunswick epigram on Lord Byron writes for Merchant Taylors' boys burlesque of "Angel Help" his "Satan in Search of a Wife" as a writer of prologues and epilogues as a playwright

Lamb, Charles, and Coleridge's pamphlet of sonnets his dedication of his verses to Mary Lamb and _The Anti-Jacobin_ and Coleridge's "Wallenstein" and Dr. Parr his dedication to Moxon attacked by _Literary Gazette_ defended by Southey in _The Times_ frames a picture with Hood and Henry Meyer and the thought of death his letter from Samuel Rogers on "The Gipsy's Malison" Mary Lamb's poem on him his farewell to albums Archdeacon Hessey's memories of him his epigrams on India House clerks his generosity to Moxon his history of JOHN WOODVIL on the title of "Pride's Cure" sends JOHN WOODVIL to Manning on the plot of "MR. H." hisses his own play Elizabeth, Lamb's mother John, Lamb's father Lamb's brother, sonnet to Mary, poems by Lamb's poems dedication to on the death of John Wordsworth her Latin pupils Sarah (Hetty), Lamb's aunt

Landon, L.E., Lamb

Latin epigram by Lamb verses to Haydon

"Leisure"

Lilley, John, of Blakesware

"Lines Addressed ... to Sara and S.T.C." "Suggested by a Picture of Two Females" "on the Same Picture being Removed to Make Place for the Portrait of a Lady by Titian" "on Da Vinci's 'Virgin of the Rocks'" (two poems) "Addressed to Lieutenant Hardy" "for a Monument"

_Literary Gazette_, Lamb's epigram on and "ALBUM VERSES"

"Living without God in the World"

Lloyd, Charles, "POEMS ON THE DEATH OF PRISCILLA FARMER" Lamb's poems to his "BLANK VERSE" his "Lines on the Fast" and Sophia Pemberton and JOHN WOODVIL

_London Magazine_, Lamb's contributions to

"Love will Come"

M

Mackintosh, Sir James, Lamb's verses to

Manning, Thomas, and JOHN WOODVIL

Martin, Louisa, Lamb's poems on

Massinger, Philip, quoted

Merchant Taylors' School, epigrams by Lamb

Meyer, Henry

"Mille Viae Mortis"

Mitford, John

Molineaux the pugilist

_Monthly Magazine, The_, Lamb's contributions to

_Morning Chronicle_, Lamb's contributions to _Post_, Lamb's contributions to

Moxon, Edward, Lamb's poem to his career Lamb's dedication to

"MR. H----" in America

Music, Lamb and

N

Nelson, epigram on

_New Monthly Magazine_, Lamb's contribution to

_Times_, Lamb's contribution to

Newton's _Principia_

"Nonsense Verses"

Novello, Clara, Lamb's poems to the three sisters

O

"Old Familiar Faces, The"

"On a Deaf and Dumb Artist"

"On a Sepulchral Statue of an Infant Sleeping"

"On an Infant Dying as soon as Born"

"On seeing Mrs. K---- B----, aged upwards of eighty, nurse an Infant"

"On the Sight of Swans in Kensington Garden"

Orkney, Catherine, Lamb's poem to

P

Palingenius, Lamb's translations of

Parr, Dr., and Lamb

"Parting Speech of the Celestial Messenger"

"Pawnbroker's Daughter, The"

Pemberton, Sophia, and Charles Lloyd

Pichot, Amédée, his translation of "The Family Name"

"Pindaric Ode to the Tread Mill"

Pitt, William, epigram on

Plumer, Mrs., of Gilston

"POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS," Lamb's contributions to

_Poetical Recreations of "The Champion"_

"POETICAL WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB"

"Pride's Cure," first name for JOHN WOODVIL

Procter, B.W. (Barry Cornwall)

Prologue to Godwin's "FAULKENER" Coleridge's "REMORSE" Knowles' "THE WIFE"

Q

"Quatrains to the Editor of the _Every-Day Book_"

Quillinan, Rotha, Lamb's poems to.

R

_Reflector, The_, Lamb's contribution to

"Repentance, A Vision of"

"RICHARD II.," Lamb's epilogue for

Rigg family, the, tragedy of

"Rival Bells, The"

Rogers, Daniel, Lamb's sonnet on Samuel, on his brother's death "To Samuel" (two poems)

ROSAMUND GRAY quoted

Rutter, Mr. J.A., and "The Old Familiar Faces"

S

"Sabbath Bells, The"

"St. Crispin to Mr. Gifford"

"Salome"

Salutation Inn

"SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE"

Schiller translated by Lamb

"Self-Enchanted, The"

"She is Going"

Siddons, Mrs., Lamb's sonnet to Henry, his "TIME'S A TELL-TALE"

Simmons, Ann (Lamb's "Anna")

Smoking, Lamb on

Solomon, Dr., of the Balm of Gilead

Sonnet: "As when a child" "Was it some sweet device" "Methinks how dainty sweet" "O! I could laugh" "When last I roved" "A timid grace" "If from my lips" "We were two pretty" "The Lord of Life" "To a Friend" "To Miss Kelly" "On the Sight of Swans in Kensington Garden" "The Family Name" "To John Lamb, Esq." "To Martin Charles Burney, Esq." "Harmony in Unlikeness" "Written at Cambridge" "To a Celebrated Female Performer in the 'Blind Boy'" "Work" "Leisure" "To Samuel Rogers, Esq." "The Gipsy's Malison" "To the Author of Poems Published under the Name of Barry Cornwall," "In the Album of Edith S----" "To Dora W----" "In the Album of Rotha Q----" "To T. Stothard, Esq." "O lift with reverent hand" "To Miss Burney" "To Samuel Rogers, Esq., on the New Edition of his _Pleasures of Memory_" "To Louisa Morgan" "St. Crispin to Mr. Gifford" "To Mathew Wood, Esq." "O gentle look," by Coleridge and Lamb

Southey, Edith, Lamb's poem to Robert, in Gillray's cartoon his defence of Lamb and JOHN WOODVIL

Spy system, Lamb's verses on

Stothard, Thomas, Lamb's poem to

Sturms, Captain, of the East India House

Suidas, Lamb's adaptation of

T

"Thekla's Song," by Schiller

Thelwall, John, and _The Champion_

"Three Graves, The"

"Time and Eternity"

_Times, The_, Lamb's contributions to

"To a Young Friend" (two poems)

"To a Young Lady"

"To Bernard Barton"

"To C. Aders, Esq."

"To Charles Lloyd" (second poem)

"To Clara N----"

"To David Cook"

"To Emma Learning Latin"

"To John Lamb, Esq."

"To Margaret W----"

"To Martin Charles Burney, Esq."

"To Miss Burney"

"To My Friend _The Indicator_"

"To R.S. Knowles, Esq."

"To Samuel Rogers, Esq." (two poems).

"To Sir James Mackintosh"

"To T.L.H."

"To the Author of Poems Published under the Name of Barry Cornwall"

"To the Poet Cowper"

"To T. Stotbard, Esq."

"To a Friend on his Marriage"

"To Louisa M----"

"Tobacco, A Farewell to"

"Tomb of Douglas, The"

Towers, Mrs. Jane, Lamb's verses to.

Treadmill, the, Lamb's ode to.

"Triumph of the Whale, The"

Tween, Mrs., on Lamb.

"Twelfth Night Characters"

V

"Vision of Repentance, A"

W

Wagstaff, Timothy, of the East India House

"Wallenstein," ballad from

Wawd (or Wodd) of the East India House

Westwood, Frances, the Lambs' poems to

"Whale, The Triumph of the"

"What is an Album?"

Wheatley, Kitty

Widford and Blakesware

"Wife's Trial, The"

Wilde, Sergeant, Mrs., Lamb's verses to

William IV., Lamb's epigram on

Williams, Mrs., of Fornham, and family

"Witch, The"

Wood, Matthew, Lamb's sonnet to

WOODVIL, JOHN, poems in

Wordsworth, Dora, Lamb's poem to John, lines on his death

"Work"

"WORKS," 1818, dedication of poems in

"Written a Year after the Events"

"Written at Cambridge"

"Written on Christmas Day"

"Written on the Day of my Aunt's Funeral"

"Written soon after the Preceding Poem"

"Written upon the Cover of a Blotting Book"

Y

"Young Catechist, The"

"Young Friend, To a" (two poems)

"Young Lady, To a"

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

A Heart which felt unkindness, yet complained not, 88. A passing glance was all I caught of thee, 79. A sight like this might find apology, 92. A stranger, and alone, I past those scenes, 21. A thief, on dreary Bagshot's heath well known, 364. A timid grace sits trembling in her eye, 8. A tuneful challenge rings from either side, 66. A weeping Londoner I am, 247. Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas, 123. Alas! how am I chang'd! Where be the tears, 22. All are not false. I knew a youth who died, 85. All unadvised, and in an evil hour, 118. Alone, obscure, without a friend, 12. An Album is a Banquet: from the store, 78. An Album is a Garden, not for show, 46. An Ape is but a trivial beast, 89. An author who has given you all delight, 140. And hath thy blameless life become, 70. Array'd--a half-angelic sight, 52. As swallows shrink before the wintry blast, 126. As when a child on some long winter's night, 4. At Eton School brought up with dull boys, 115.

Beautiful Infant, thou dost keep, 66. Beneath this slab lies Matthew Day, 126. Blank tho' I be, within you'll find, 114. Bound for the port of matrimonial bliss, 140. Bright spirits have arisen to grace the Burney name, 91. But now time warns (my mission at an end), 98. By crooked arts, and actions sinister, 359. By Enfield lanes, and Winchmore's verdant hill, 58. By myself walking, 29.

Canadia! boast no more the toils, 79. Caroline glides smooth in verse, 63. Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear, 331. Charmed with the lines thy hand has sent, 352. Choral service, solemn chanting, 64. _Ci git_ the remains of Margaret Dix, 125. Close by the ever-burning brimstone beds, 119. Consummate Artist, whose undying name, 80. Cowper, I thank my God, that thou art heal'd, 16. Crown me a cheerful goblet, while I pray, 57.

Dim were the stars, and clouded was the azure, 357. Divided praise, Lady, to you we owe, 113. Droop not, dear Emma, dry those falling tears, 93.

Emma, eldest of your name, 114. Envy not the wretched Poet, 109. Esther, holy name and sweet, 106. External gifts of fortune, or of face, 58.

False world, 143. Fine merry franions, 75. For much good-natured verse received from thee, 69. For their elder Sister's hair, 57. Forgive me, Burney, if to thee these late, 45. Fresh clad from heaven in robes of white, 50. Friend of my earliest years and childish days, 18. Friendliest of men, Aders, I never come, 94. From broken visions of perturbed rest, 26.

Go little Poem, and present, 107. Grace Joanna here doth lie, 65. Great Newton's self, to whom the world's in debt, 71. Guard thy feelings pretty Vestal, 102.

Habits are stubborn things, 86. Had he mended in right time, 341. Had I a power, Lady, to my will, 46. Hard is the heart that does not melt with ruth, 18. He lies a Volunteer so fine, 124. Here lies the body of Timothy Wagstaff, 125. Here lieth the body of Captain Sturms, 125. High-born Helen, round your dwelling, 28. His namesake, born of Jewish breeder, 116. Hold on thy course uncheck'd, heroic Wood! 119. How blest is he who in his age, exempt, 113. How many wasting, many wasted years, 106.

I am a widow'd thing, now thou art gone, 25. I deal in aliments fictitious, 116. I had a sense in dreams of a beauty rare, 81. I have had playmates, I have had companions, 25, 323. I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone! 63. I put my night-cap on my head, 115. I saw a famous fountain, in my dream, 13. I saw where in the shroud did lurk, 53. I was not train'd in Academic bowers, 59. If from my lips some angry accents fell, 9. If we have sinn'd in paring down a name, 202. Implored for verse, I send you what I can, 49. In a costly palace Youth goes clad in gold, 30. In Christian world Mary the garland wears, 78. In days of yore, ere early Greece, 95. In merry England I computed once, 123. In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse, 9. In one great man we view with odds, 118. Inspire thy spirit, Spirit of De Foe, 72. Io! Paean! Io! sing, 116.

Jane, you are welcome from the barren Rock, 105. John, you were figuring in the gay career, 44. Joy to unknown Josepha who, I hear, 48. Judgements are about us thoroughly, 112.

Ladies, ye've seen how Guzman's consort died, 138. Lady Unknown, who crav'st from me Unknown, 50. Laura, too partial to her friends' enditing, 122. Lazy-bones, lazy-bones, wake up, and peep! 123. Least Daughter, but not least beloved, of Grace, 65. Let hate, or grosser heats, their foulness mask, 61. Little Book, surnamed of _white_, 47. Little Casket! Storehouse rare, 107. Louisa, serious grown and mild, 82.

Manners, they say, by climate alter not, 121. Margaret, in happy hour, 102. Maternal lady with the virgin grace, 42. May the Babylonish curse, 34. Methinks how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd, 5, 311. Model of thy parent dear, 38. Much speech obscures the sense; the soul of wit, 122. Must I write with pen unwilling, 109. My feeble Muse, that fain her best wou'd, 110. Mystery of God! thou brave and beauteous world, 19.

Nigh London's famous Bridge, a Gate more famed, 72. Not a woman, child, or man in, 120. Now, by Saint Hilary, 341. Now the calm evening hastily approaches, 356.

O gentle look, that didst my look beguile, 308. O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind, 5, 311. O Lady, lay your costly robes aside, 33. O lift with reverent hand that tarnish'd flower, 82. Of all that act, the hardest task is theirs, 145. Of these sad truths consideration had, 99. Off with Briareus, and his hundred hands, 359. On Emma's honest brow we read display'd, 101. On the green hill top, 6. Once on a charger there was laid, 39. One summer night Sir Francis, as it chanced, 199.

Poor Iras' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, 67. Princeps his rent from tinneries draws, 116.

Queen-bird that sittest on thy shining nest, 43. Quid vult iste equitans? et quid oclit ista virorum, 90.

Rare artist! who with half thy tools, or none, 59. Rogers, of all the men that I have known, 60. Roi's wife of Brunswick Oëls! 120. Rotha, how in numbers light, 108.

Sarah, blest wife of "Terah's faithful Son," 111. Sarah,--your other name I know not, 112. Shall I praise a face unseen, 109. Sleep hath treasures worth retracing, 113. Small beauty to your Book my lines can lend, 110. Solemn Legends we are told, 108. Solitary man, around thee, 111. Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, 83. Some poets by poetic law, 49. Soul-breathing verse, thy gentlest guise put on, 111. Such goodness in your face doth shine, 48. Suck, baby, suck, mother's love grows by giving, 61.

Tears are for lighter griefs. Man weeps the doom, 94. The cheerful sabbath bells, wherever heard, 10. The cloud doth gather, the greenwood roar, 324. The clouds are blackening, the storms threatening, 29. The Devil was sick and queasy of late, 128. The frugal snail, with fore-cast of repose, 71. The Gods have made me most unmusical, 101. The Lady Blanch, regardless of all her lovers' fears, 41. The Lord of Life shakes off his drowsihed, 16. The reason why my brother's so severe, 345. The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever, 10. There are, I am told, who sharply criticise, 142. They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, 60. This rare tablet doth include, 51. Thou fragile, filmy, gossamery thing, 105. Thou should'st have longer liv'd, and to the grave, 24. Thou too art dead,...! very kind, 21. Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black, 115. Time-mouldering crosses, gemm'd with imagery, 121. 'Tis a Book kept by modern Young Ladies for show, 104. 'Tis pleasant, lolling in our elbow chair, 93. To gratify his people's wish, 120. To name a Day for general prayer and fast, 123. To the memory, of Dr. Onesimus Drake, 125. Twelve years ago I knew thee, Knowles, and then, 62. Two miracles at once! Compell'd by fate, 122.

Under this cold marble stone, 88. Untoward fate no luckless wight invades, 146.

Was it so hard a thing? I did but ask, 17. Was it some sweet device of Faery, 4, 309. We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, 9. What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate, 80. What reason first imposed thee, gentle name, 44. What rider's that? and who those myriads bringing, 90. What time in bands of slumber all were laid, 3. What Wawd knows, God knows, 124. When first our Bard his simple will express'd, 147. When her son, her Douglas died, 11. When last I roved these winding woodwalks green, 8. When last you left your Woodbridge pretty, 55. When maidens such as Hester die, 32. When thy gay book hath paid its proud devoirs, 100. Where seven fair Streets to one tall Column draw, 67. Where the soul drinks of misery's power, 126. While this tawny Ethiop prayeth, 56. While young John runs to greet, 42. Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place, 41. Who first invented work, and bound the free, 59. Why is he wandering on the sea? 328. With change of climate manners alter not, 363.