Reviews, newspapers, and other parapher- A rural conflagration at this time kindled nalia. So I am sitting in the skeleton of a the noblest range of Lamb's thoughts, which possible divan. What right I have to he expressed in the following letter. The interfere, you best know. Look on me as light he flashes on the strange power exerted a dog who went once temporarily insane, by the half-witted incendiary shows in it and bit you, and now begs for a crust. Will something of a fearful grandeur. you set your wits to a dog? "Our object is to open a subscription, which my friends of the are most willing to forward for him, but think that a leave from you to publish would aid it. "But not an atom of respect or kindness will or shall it abate in either of us, if you decline it. Have this strongly in your mind. "Those 'Every-day' and 'Table' Books will be a treasure a hundred years hence, but they have failed to make Hone's fortune. "Here his wife and all his children are about me, gaping for coffee customers; but how should they come in, seeing no pot boiling! Enough of Hone. I saw Coleridge a day or two since. He has had some severe attack, not paralytic; but, if I had not heard of it, I should not have found it out. He looks, and especially speaks, strong. How are all the Wordsworths, and all the Southeys, whom I am obliged to you if you have not brought up haters of the name of "C. LAMB? "P.S.-I have gone lately into the acrostic line. I find genius (such as I had) declines with me, but I get clever. Do you know anybody that wants charades, or such things, for Albums? I do 'em at so much a sheet. 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.' addressed TO MR. DYER. It is Where "Dec. 20th, 1830. "Dear Dyer, I should have written before to thank you for your kind letter, written with your own hand. It glads us to see your writing. It will give you pleasure to hear that after so much illness we are in tolerable health and spirits once more. Poor Enfield, that has been so peaceable hitherto, has caught the inflammatory fever; the tokens are upon her; and a great fire was blazing last night in the barns and haystacks of a farmer, about half a mile from us. will these things end? There is no doubt of its being the work of some ill-disposed rustic, but how is he to be discovered? They go to work in the dark with strange chemical preparations, unknown to our forefathers. There is not even a dark lantern, to have a chance of detecting these Guy Fauxes. We are past the iron age, and are got into the fiery age, undreamed of by Ovid. You are lucky in Clifford's Inn, where I think you have few ricks or stacks worth the burning. Pray, keep as little corn by you as you can for fear of the worst. It was never good times in England since the poor began to speculate upon their condition. Formerly they jogged on with as little reflection as horses. The whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl with his brother that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather breeches, and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic, that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake to perceive that something is wrong in the social system,-what a hellish faculty above gunpowder! Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted. We shall see who can hang or burn fastest. It is not always revenge that stimulates these kindlings. There is a stead, he put an unfortunate question to me, as to the 'probability of its turning out a good turnip season,' and when I, who am still less of an agriculturist than a steam potato ground, innocently made answer, that 'I believed it depended very much upon boiled legs of mutton,' my unlucky reply set Miss Isola a laughing to a degree that disturbed her tranquillity for the only moment in our journey. I am afraid my credit sank very low with my other fellowtraveller, who had thought he had met with a well-informed passenger, which is an accident so desirable in a stage-coach. We were rather less communicative, but still friendly, the rest of the way." love of exerting mischief! Think of a disrespected clod, that was trod into earth; that was nothing; on a sudden by damned arts refined into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits of the earth, and their growers, philosopher, not knowing a turnip from a in a mass of fire; what a new existence! What a temptation above Lucifer's! Would clod be anything but a clod, if he could resist it? Why, here was a spectacle last night for a whole country, a bonfire visible to London, alarming her guilty towers, and shaking the Monument with an ague fit, all done by a little vial of phosphor in a clown's fob. How he must grin, and shake his empty noddle in clouds! The Vulcanian epicure! Alas! can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilise, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat? Who shall persuade the boor that phosphor will not ignite? Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like those apples of asphaltes and bitumen. The food for the inhabitants of earth will quickly "Dear Madam,-I do assure you that your disappear. Hot rolls may say, 'Fuimus verses gratified me very much, and my sister panes, fuit quartern-loaf, et ingens gloria is quite proud of them. For the first time in apple-pasty-orum.' That the good old munching system may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary George! is the devout prayer of thine, In 1830, Lamb took a journey to Bury St. Edmund's, to fetch Miss Isola to her adopted home, from a visit which had been broken by her illness. It was on his return that Lamb's repartee to the query of the statistical gentleman as to the prospects of the turnip crop, which has been repeatedly published, was made. The following is his own version of it, contained in a letter addressed to Miss Isola's hostess, on their arrival. To the same lady, having sent him an acrostic on his sister's name, he replied with a letter which contained one on hers, and the following notice of his own talent in the acrostic line. my life I congratulated myself upon the Rebuses and "I thought I had adroitly escaped the rather unpliable name of 'Williams,' curtailing your poor daughters to their proper "A rather talkative gentleman, but very surnames, but it seems you would not let me civil, engaged me in a discourse for full off so easily. If these trifles amuse you, I am twenty miles, on the probable advantages of paid. Though really 'tis an operation too steam carriages, which, being merely pro- much like-‘A, apple-pie; B, bit it.' To blematical, I bore my part in with some make amends, I request leave to lend you credit, in spite of my totally un-engineer-like faculties. But when, somewhere about Stan the 'Excursion,' and to recommend, in particular, the Churchyard Stories;' in the seventh book, I think. They will strengthen afterwards, when he felt the want of those the tone of your mind after its weak diet on acrostics." In 1830, a small volume of poems, the gleanings of some years, during which Lamb had devoted himself to prose, under his name of "Elia," was published by Mr. Moxon, under the title of "Album Verses," and which Lamb, in token of his strong regard, dedicated to the Publisher. An unfavourable review of them in the Literary Gazette produced some verses from Southey, which were inserted in the "Times," and of which the following, as evincing his unchanged friendship, may not unfitly be inserted here. The residue, being more severe on Lamb's critics than Lamb himself would have wished, may now be spared. Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear This year closed upon the grave of Hazlitt. Lamb visited him frequently during his last illness, and attended his funeral. They had taken great delight in each other's conversation for many years; and though the indifference of Lamb to the objects of Hazlitt's passionate love or hatred, as a politician, at one time produced a coolness, the warmth of the defence of Hazlitt in "Elia's Letter to Southey" renewed the old regard of the philosopher, and set all to rights. Hazlitt, in his turn, as an Edinburgh Reviewer, had opportunities which he delighted to use, of alluding to Lamb's Specimens and Essays, and making him amends for the severity of ancient criticism, which the editor, who could well afford the genial inconsistency, was too generous to exclude. The conduct, indeed, of that distinguished person to Hazlitt, especially in his last illness, won Lamb's admiration, and wholly effaced the recollection of the time when, thirty years before, his play had been denied critical mercy under his rule. Hazlitt's death did not so much shock Lamb at the time, as it weighed down his spirits essays which he had used periodically to look for with eagerness in the magazines and reviews which they alone made tolerable to him; and when he realised the dismal certainty that he should never again enjoy that rich discourse of old poets and painters with which so many a long winter's night had been gladdened, or taste life with an additional relish in the keen sense of enjoyment which endeared it to his companion. CHAPTER XVIII. [1830 to 1834.] LAMB'S LAST LETTERS AND DEATH. AFTER the year 1830, Lamb's verses and essays were chiefly given to his friends; the former consisting of album contributions, the latter of little essences of observation and criticism. Mr. Moxon, having established a new magazine, called the "Englishman's Magazine," induced him to write a series of papers, some of which were not inferior to his happiest essays. At this time, his old and excellent friend, Dyer, was much annoyed by some of his witticisms,—which, in truth, were only Lamb's modes of expressing his deep-seated regard; and at the quotation of a couplet in one of his early poems, which he had suppressed as liable to be misconstrued by Mr. Rogers. Mr. Barker had unfortunately met with the unexpurgated edition which contained this dubious couplet, and in his "Memorials of Dr. Parr" quoted the passage; which, to Mr. Dyer's delicate feelings,* conveyed the apprehension that Mr. Rogers would treat the suppression as * Mr. Dyer also complained to Mr. Lamb of some suggestions in Elia, which annoyed him, not so much for his own sake as for the sake of others, who, in the delicacy of his apprehensiveness, he thought might feel aggrieved by imputations which were certainly not intended, and which they did not deserve. One passage in schoolmasters, under whom he had been a teacher in his Elia, hinting that he had been hardly dealt with by younger days, hurt him; as, in fact, he was treated by them with the most considerate generosity and kindness. had been underpaid by booksellers also vexed him; as Another passage which he regarded as implying that he his labours have always been highly esteemed, and have, according to the rate of remuneration of learned men, been well compensated by Mr. Valpy and others. The truth is that Lamb wrote from a vague recollection, colourable, and refer the revival of the lines to his sanction. The following letter was written to dispel those fears from his mind. TO MR. DYER. "Feb. 22nd, 1831. "Dear Dyer,-Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Rogers' friends, are perfectly assured, that you never intended any harm by an innocent couplet, and that in the revivification of it by blundering Barker you had no hand whatever. To imagine that, at this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic expression of more than thirty years' standing, would be to suppose him indulging his 'pleasures of memory' with a vengeance. You never penned a line which for its own sake you need, dying, wish to blot. You mistake your heart if you think you can write a lampoon. Your whips are rods of roses. Your spleen has ever had for its objects vices, not the vicious; abstract offences, not the concrete sinner. But you are sensitive, and wince as much at the consciousness of having committed a compliment, as another man would at the perpetration of an affront. But do not lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. I maintain, and will to the last hour, that I never writ of you but con amore. That if any allusion was made to your near-sightedness, it was not for the purpose of mocking an infirmity, but of connecting it with scholar-like habits: for, is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat near of sight, before age naturally brings on the malady? You could not then plead the obrepens senectus. Did I not moreover make it an apology for a certain absence, which some of your friends may have experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a casual street-meeting? and did I not strengthen your excuse for this slowness of recognition, by further accounting morally for the present engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person, make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever made? If these things be not so, I never knew what I wrote, or meant by my writing, and have been penning libels all my life without being aware of it. Does it follow that I should have exprest myself exactly in the same way of those dear old eyes of yours now, now that Father Time has conspired with a hard task-master to put a last extinguisher upon them. I should as soon have insulted the Answerer of Salmasius, when he awoke up from his ended task, and saw no more with mortal vision. But you are many films removed yet from Milton's calamity. You write perfectly intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size or tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the hands, text, german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and affords variety. You pen better than you did a twelvemonth ago; and if you continue to improve, you bid fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at your young gentlemen's academy. But you must be aware of Valpy, and his printing-house, that hazy cave of Trophonius, out of which it was a mercy that you escaped with a glimmer. Beware of MSS. and Variæ Lectiones. Settle the text for once in your mind, and stick to it. You have some years' good sight in you yet, if you do not tamper with it. It is not for you (for us I should say), to go poring into Greek contractions, and star-gazing upon slim Hebrew points. We have yet the sight Of sun, and moon, and star, throughout the year, You have vision enough to discern Mrs. Dyer from the other comely gentlewoman who lives up at staircase No. 5; or, if you should make a blunder in the twilight, Mrs. Dyer has too much good sense to be jealous for a mere effect of imperfect optics. But don't try to write the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the compass of a halfpenny; nor run after a midge, or a mote, to catch it; and leave off hunting for needles in bushels of hay, for all these things strain the eyes. The snow is six feet deep in some parts here. I must put on jack-boots to get at the post-office with this. It is not much. It lies in drifts. I wonder what its good for weak eyes to pore upon snow too drift is; only that it makes good pancakes, remind Mrs. Dyer. It turns a pretty green world into a white one. It glares too much my 'old actors.' It might be better. His power was extravagant. I saw him one evening in three drunken characters. Three farces were played. One part was DoseyI forget the rest; but they were so discrimi for an innocent colour methinks. I wonder why you think I dislike gilt edges. They TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHENÆUM." set off a letter marvellously. Yours, for in- "Dear Sir,-Your communication to me of stance, looks for all the world like a tablet the death of Munden made me weep. Now, of curious hieroglyphics in a gold frame. But Sir, I am not of the melting mood. But, in don't go and lay this to your eyes. You these serious times, the loss of half the always wrote hieroglyphically, yet not to world's fun is no trivial deprivation. It was come up to the mystical notations and my loss (or gain shall I call it) in the early conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You time of my play-going, to have missed all never wrote what I call a schoolmaster's Munden's acting. There was only he and hand, like C; nor a woman's hand, like Lewis at Covent Garden, while Drury Lane S; nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor was exuberant with Parsons, Dodd, &c., such an all-of-the-wrong-side sloping hand, like a comic company as, I suppose, the stage Miss H—; nor a dogmatic, Mede-and- never showed. Thence, in the evening of Persian, peremptory hand, like R- -; but my life I had Munden all to myself, more you ever wrote what I call a Grecian's mellowed, richer, perhaps, than ever. I canhand; what the Grecians write (or used) at | not say what his change of faces produced in Christ's Hospital; such as Whalley would me. It was not acting. He was not one of have admired, and Boyer have applauded, but Smith or Atwood (writing-masters) would have horsed you for. Your boy-ofgenius hand and your mercantile hand are various. By your flourishes, I should think you never learned to make eagles or cork-nated that a stranger might have seen them screws, or flourish the governors' names in the writing-school; and by the tenor and cut of your letters, I suspect you were never in it at all. By the length of this scrawl you will think I have a design upon your optics; but I have writ as large as I could, out of respect to them; too large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is a sort of deputy Grecian's hand; a little better, and more of a worldly hand, than a Grecian's, but still remote from the mercantile. I don't know how it is, but I keep my rank in fancy still since school-days. I can never forget I was a deputy Grecian! And writing to you, or to Coleridge, besides affection, I feel a reverential deference as to Grecians still. I keep my soaring way above the Great Erasmians, yet far beneath the other. Alas! what am I now? what is a Leadenhall clerk, or India pensioner, to a deputy Grecian ? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., &c. C. LAMB." all, and not have dreamed that he was seeing the same actor. I am jealous for the actors who pleased my youth. He was not a Parsons or a Dodd, but he was more wonderful. He seemed as if he could do anything. He was not an actor, but something better, if you please. Shall I instance Old Foresight, in 'Love for Love,' in which Parsons was at once the old man, the astrologer, &c. Munden dropped the old man, the doater—which makes the character-but he substituted for it a moon-struck character, a perfect abstraction from this earth, that looked as if he had newly come down from the planets. Now, that is not what I call acting. It might be better. He was imaginative; he could impress upon an audience an idea-the low one, perhaps, of a leg of mutton and turnips; but such was the grandeur and singleness of his expressions, that that single expression would convey to all his auditory a notion of all the pleasures they had all received from all the legs of mutton and turnips they had ever eaten in their lives. Now, this is not acting, nor The death of Munden reviving his recol- do I set down Munden amongst my old actors. lections of "the veteran comedian," called He was only a wonderful man, exerting his forth the following letter of the 11th vivid impressions through the agency of the February, 1832, to the editor of the "Athe-stage. In one only thing did I see him actnæum," whom Lamb had, for a long time, that is, support a character; it was in a numbered among his friends. wretched farce, called 'Johnny Gilpin,' for |