Chapter 274

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Aug. 5, 1831.]

Send, or bring me, Hone's No. for August.

Hunt is a fool, and his critics----The anecdotes of E. and of G.D. are substantially true. What does Elia (or Peter) care for dates?

That _is_ the poem I mean. I do not know who wrote it, but is in Hone's book as far back as April.

Tis a poem I envy--_that_ & Montgomery's Last Man (nothing else of his). I envy the writers, because I feel I could have done something like it. S---- is a coxcomb. W---- is a ---- & a great Poet. L.

[Hone was now editing his _Year Book_. Under the date April 30 had appeared Edward FitzGerald's poem, "The Meadows in Spring," with the following introduction:--

These verses are in the old style; rather homely in expression; but I honestly profess to stick more to the simplicity of the old poets than the moderns, and to love the philosophical good humor of our old writers more than the sickly melancholy of the Byronian wits. If my verses be not good, they are good humored, and that is something.

The editor of _The Athenaeum_, in reprinting the poem, suggested delicately that it was by Lamb. There is no such poem by James Montgomery as "The Last Man." Campbell wrote a "Last Man," and so did Hood, but I agree with Canon Ainger that what Lamb meant was Montgomery's "Common Lot." I give the two poems in the Appendix as illustrations of what Lamb envied.

"Hunt is a fool." In _The Tatler_ for August 1 Leigh Hunt had quoted much of Lamb's essay on Elliston. I do not, however, find any adverse criticism.

"E. and G.D." Lamb had written in the August number of _The Englishman's Magazine_ his "Reminiscences of Elliston." Lamb's article on George Dawe did not appear till the September number, but perhaps Moxon already had the copy.]