Part 3 (1/2)
During these years Lae, Wordsworth, Walter Wilson, and Manning (principally with Manning) goes on It is sometimes critical, sometimes jocose He discusses the merits of various authors, and more than once expresses his extre Now, he says, it is too directly instructive Then he conificant and vapid as it is, e He could not obtain at Newberry's shop any of the old ”classics of the Nursery,” he says; whilst ”Mrs Barbauld's and Mrs
Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about”
His own dole on as usual; at one time calm and pleasant, at another ti to the frequent recurrence of his sister's es with fortitude; I do not observethen hiive way In 1798, indeed, he had said, ”I consider her perpetually on the brink ofdied, and Mary (sooner than usual) falling ill again, Charles was obliged to remove her to an asylum; and was left in the house alone with Hetty's dead body ”My heart is quite sick” (he cries), ”and I don't knohere to look for relief My head is very bad I almost wish that Mary were dead” This was the one solitary cry of anguish that he uttered during his long years of anxiety and suffering At all other ti
Charles Lamb, with his sister, left Little Queen Street on or before 1800; in which year he seerated, first to Chapel Street, Pentonville; next to Southas, Chancery Lane; and finally to No 16 Mitre Court Buildings, in the Temple, ”a pistol shot off Baron Masere's;” and here he resided for about nine years
It was during his stay at Pentonville that he ”fell in love” with a young Quaker, called Hester Savory As (he confesses) ”I have never spoken to her during my life,” it may be safely concluded that the attachirl who inspired those verses, noidely known and ad the first lines which I ever saw of Charles La I remember and admire them still, for their natural, unaffected style; no pretence, no straining for ih above the subject, but dealing with thoughts that were near his affections, in a fit and natural manner The conclusion of the poem, co, as then in Paris, is very sad and tender:--
My sprightly neighbor, gone before To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not ?
When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Hath struck a bliss upon the day, A bliss that will not go away, A sweet forewarning
[1] The e's powers is to be found in his Table Talk It appears from it that he was ready to discuss (al ably upon rations)--”John Woodvil”--Blackesmoor--Wordsworth--Rick Post--Hazlitt--Nelson--Ode to Tobacco--Draarth and Sir J Reynolds--Leigh Hunt--Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt--Russell Street and Theatrical Friends_
It is not always easy to fix Charles Larations) to any precise date The year enerally be ascertained; but the day or month is often a matter of surmise only Even the dates of the letters are often derived from the postmarks, or are sometimes conjectured from circumstances [1] Occasionally the labors of a drama or of lyric poems traverse several years, and are not to be referred to any one definite period Thus ”John Woodvil” (his tragedy) was begun in 1799, printed in 1800, and suber of Drury Lane Theatre) in the Christmas of that year, but was not published until 1801
After this tragedy had been in Mr Keent to hear his decision upon it Upon applying for this he found that his play was--lost! This was at once acknowledged, and a ”courteous request made for another copy, if I had one by s” of a genius were not, therefore, altogether lost, by having been cast, without a care, into the dusty limbo of the theatre The other copy was at once supplied, and the play very speedily rejected It was afterwards facetiously brought forward in one of the early nuh Review, and there noticed as a rude specie of the drama, ”older than AEschylus!”
Lamb met these accidents of fortunehis own Shandean humor thereon It edy likely to bringpoet, full of love for the Elizabethan writers, and without any knowledge of the requisitions of the stage, would be likely to produce There is no plot; little probability in the story; which itself is not very scientifically developed There are some pretty lines, especially some which have often been the subject of quotation; but there is not much merit in the characters of the drama, with the exception of the heroine, who is a heroine of the ”purest water” La to a correspondent, pronounces the following opinion: ”La his play, which will please you by the exquisite beauty of its poetry, and provoke you by the exquisite silliness of its story”
In October, 1799, Lamb went to see the remains of the old house (Gilston) in Hertfordshi+re, where his grandmother once lived, and the ”old church where the bones of randdame lie” This visit was, in later years, recorded in the char paper entitled ”Blakesmoor in H----shi+re”
He found that the house where he had spent his pleasant holidays, when a little boy, had been demolished; it was, in fact, taken down for the purpose of reconstruction; but out of the ruins he conjures up pleasant ghosts, whoeneration There are few of his papers in which the past years of his life are htfully revived The house had been ”reduced to an antiquity” But we go with hirass plat, were he used to read Cowley; to the tapestried bedrooical people of Ovid used to stand forth, half alive; even to ”that haunted bedroom in which old Sarah Battle died,” and into which he ”used to creep in a passion of fear” These things are all touched with a delicate pen, mixed and incorporated with tender reflections; for, ”The solitude of childhood” (as he says) ”is not so ht as the feeder of love” With him it was both
Lae, in the summer of 1800 At that tireater poet was his neighbor It is not satisfactorily shown in what manner the poetry of Wordsworth first attracted the notice of Charles Lamb, nor its first effect upon hi-stone to that elevation which enabled Charles to look into the interior of Wordsworth's h Coleridge seldom (except perhaps in the ”Ancient Mariner”) ventured into the plain, downright phraseology of the other It is very soon apparent, however, that Laust, 1800 (just after the completion of his visit to Stowey), he writes, ”I would pay five and forty thousand carriages”
(parcel fares) ”to read Wordsworth's tragedy Pray give man for the 'Lyrical Ballads'” And in October, 1800, the two authors must have been on familiar terms with each other; for in a letter addressed by Lamb to Wordsworth, ”Dear Wordsworth,” it appears that the latter had requested him to advance money for the purchase of books, to a considerable amount This was at a ti in cash” The books required an outlay of eight pounds, and Lamb had not the su” (he writes) ”to cry, Give me the money first; and I am the first of the Lambs that has done this for many centuries” Shortly afterwards Lamb sent his play to Wordsworth, who (this was previous to 30 January, 1801) appears to have invited Charles to visit him in cu doubtful whether he could ”afford so desperate a journey,” and being (he says) ”not at all ro, ”when all is said, but a house to live in”
It is not part of my task to adjust the claims of the various writers of verse in this country to their stations in the Temple of Fame If Keats was by nature the most essentially a poet in the present century, there is little doubt that Wordsworth has left his impress more broadly and more permanently than any other of our later writers upon the literature of England There are barren, unpeopled wastes in the ”Excursion,” and in soer poems; but when his Genius stirs, we find ourselves in rich places which have no parallel in any book since the death of Milton
When his lyrical ballads first appeared, they encountered much opposition and some contempt Readers had not for many years been accustomed to drink the waters of Helicon pure and undefiled; and Wordsworth (a prophet of the true faith) had to gird up his loins, march into the desert, and prepare for battle He has, indeed, at last achieved a conquest; but a long course of tih sure of eventual success, elapsed before he could boast of victory The battle has been perilous When the ”Excursion” was published (in 1814), Lamb wrote a review of it for ”The Quarterly Review”
Whatever ht have been the actual fitness of this performance, it seems to have been hacked to pieces; more than a third of the substance cut away; the warm expressions converted into cold ones; and (in La sockets left” This(or amendment, as I suppose it was considered) was the work of the late Mr Gifford Charles had a great admiration for Wordsworth It was short of prostration, however He states that the style of ”Peter Bell” does not satisfy him; but ”'Hartleap Well' is the tale for me,” are his words in 1819
I have a vivid recollection of Wordsworth, as a very gravefeatures and a deep voice I met him first at the chambers (they were in the Temple) of Mr Henry Crabb Robinson, one of theversifier, and Wordsworth was just enorant contumely into the sunrise of his fa his own poetry before friends and strangers I was not attracted by his manner, which was almost too solehty notes in his voice, when he was delivering out his oracles I forget whether it was ”Dion” or the beautiful poe long afterwards, as one recollects the roll of the spent thunder
I met Wordsworth occasionally, afterwards, at Charles Laers's, and elsewhere, and once he did entle aspect when he looked at hter (who died lately) in his hand, and spoke some words to her, the recollection of which, perhaps, helped, with other things, to incline her to poetry Hazlitt says that Wordsworth's face, notwithstanding his constitutional gravity, someti visit, I heard hi breakfasted in coe, and allowed his ”How could you perers; ”why, you are to ” ”Yes,” replied Wordsworth; ”I know that very well; but we like to take the _sting_ out of hie of Manning, his sed by the acquisition of Mr John Rickman, one of the clerks of the House of Commons ”He is afelloho has gone through life laughing at soleely literate, from matter of fact, to Xenophon and Plato: he can talk Greek with Porson, and nonsense with me” ”He understands you” (he adds) ”the first time You never need speak twice to him Fullest of matter, with least verbosity” A year or two afterwards, when Rick, ”I have lost by his going what seems to me I never can recover--_a finished man_ I almost dare pronounce you never saw his equal His memory will come to me as the brazen serpent to the Israelites” Robert Southey also, riting to his brother (in 1804), says, ”Coleridge and Rickreatness” A voluminous correspondence took place between Southey and Rick from 1800 to 1839, in the course of which a variety of important subjects--naeneral Politics were deliberately argued between the was very extensive, ment of Rickman
Lamb's acquaintance with Godwin, Holcroft, and Clarkson was formed about this tie, in 1800 The first interview isquestion: ”And pray, Mr La reference to Gilray's offensive caricature, did not afford promise of a very cheerful intireat respect to Godwin's intellect, did not resent it, but received his approaches favorably, and indeed entertained hi The acquaintance afterwards expanded into familiarity; but I never observed the appearance of any warm friendshi+p between them Godwin's precision and extreme coldness of manner (perhaps of disposition) prevented this; and Lah all his admiration of the other's power, to discern those points in his character which were obnoxious to his own Some years previously, Charles had entertained much dislike to the philosopher's opinions, and referred to hi the quick and fine intellect of Rickman, he says, ”He does not want explanation, translations, limitations, as Godwin does, when you make an assertion”
When Godwin published his ”Essay on Sepulchres,” wherein he professed to erect a wooden slab and a white cross, to be _perpetually_ renewed to the end of time (”to survive the fall of euish the site of every great rave, Lamb speaks of the project in these terms: ”Godwin has written a pretty absurd book about Sepulchres He was affronted because I told hiood as Sir Thomas Browne” Sufficient intimacy, however, had arisen between theue to Godwin's tragedy of ”Antonio; or, the Soldier's Return” This cah Lamb said that ”it had one fine line;” which indeed he repeated occasionally Godwin bore this failure, it h he was a very poor h he was ”five hundred pounds _ideal_ money out of pocket by the failure”
In 1802 La near Keswick, in cumberland For the first time in his life he beheld lakes andand unexpected It was ht of the Alps upon Leigh Hunt, who had theretofore always ht to have no effect upon a properly constituted mind; but he freely confessed afterwards, that he had been mistaken Lamb had been more than once invited to visit the romantic Lake country He had no desire to inspect the Ural chain, where the ions of Potosi; but he was all at once affected by a desire of ”visiting reions” It was a sudden irritability, which could only be quieted by travel
Charles and his sister therefore went, without giving any notice to Coleridge, who, however, received theave up all his tihborhood The visitors arrived there in a ”gorgeous sunset” (the only one that Laht that they had got ”into fairy-land”