Charles Lamb: A Memoir Part 5

such as "scientific treatises, and the histories of Hume, Smollett, and Gibbon," &c., he confesses that he becomes splenetic when he sees them perched up on shelves, "like false saints, who have usurped the true shrines" of the legitimate occupants. He loved old books and authors, indeed, beyond most other things. He used to say (with Shakespeare), "The Heavens themselves are old." He would rather have acquired an ancient forgotten volume than a modern one, at an equal price; the very circ.u.mstance of its having been neglected and cast disdainfully into the refuse basket of a bookstall gave it value in his eyes. He bought it, and rejoiced in being able thus to remedy the injustice of fortune.

He liked best those who had not thriven with posterity: his reverence for Margaret, d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle, can only be explained in this way. It must not be forgotten that his pity or generosity towards neglected authors extended also to all whom the G.o.ddess of Good Fortune had slighted. In this list were included all who had suffered in purse or in repute. He was ready to defend man or beast, whenever unjustly attacked. I remember that, at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replying, when the blackbirds were reported to have stolen all his cherries, "Poor birds, they are welcome." He said that those impulsive words showed the inner nature of the man more truly than all his political speeches.

Lamb's charity extended to all things. I never heard him speak spitefully of any author. He thought that every one should have a clear stage, un.o.bstructed. His heart, young at all times, never grew hard or callous during life. There was always in it a tender spot, which Time was unable to touch. He gave away _greatly_, when the amount of his means are taken into consideration; he gave away money--even annuities, I believe--to old impoverished friends whose wants were known to him. I remember that once, when we were sauntering together on Pentonville Hill, and he noticed great depression in me, which he attributed to want of money, he said, suddenly, in his stammering way, "My dear boy, I--I have a quant.i.ty of useless things. I have now--in my desk, a--a hundred pounds--that I don't--don't _know_ what to do with. Take it." I was much touched; but I a.s.sured him that my depression did not arise from want of money.

He was very home-loving; he loved London as the best of places; he loved his home as the dearest spot in London: it was the inmost heart of the sanctuary. Whilst at home he had no curiosity for what pa.s.sed beyond his own territory. His eyes were never truant; no one ever saw him peering out of window, examining the crowds flowing by; no one ever surprised him gazing on vacancy. "I lose myself," he says, "in other men's minds. When I am not walking I am reading; I cannot sit and think; books think for me."

If it was not the time for his pipe, it was always the time for an old play, or for a talk with friends. In the midst of this society his own mind grew green again and blossomed; or, as he would have said, "burgeoned."

In the foregoing desultory account of Charles Lamb I have, without doubt, set forth many things that are frequently held as trivial. Nothing, however, seems to me unimportant which serves in any way to ill.u.s.trate a character. The floating straws, it is said, show from what quarter the wind is blowing. So the arching or knitting of the brow is sometimes sufficient to indicate wonder or pride, anger or contempt. On the stage, indeed, it is often the sole means of expressing the fluctuation of the pa.s.sions. I myself have heard of a "Pooh!" which interrupted a long intimacy, when the pander was administering sweet words in too liberal a measure.

As with Lamb so with his companions. Each was notable for some individual mark or character. His own words will best describe them: "Not many persons of science, and few professed _literati_, were of his councils.

They were for the most part persons of an uncertain fortune. His intimados were, to confess a truth, in the world's eye, a ragged regiment; he found them floating on the surface of society, and the color or something else in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck to him; but they were good and loving burrs, for all that."

None of Lamb's intimates were persons of t.i.tle or fas.h.i.+on, or of any political importance. They were reading men, or authors, or old friends who had no name or pretensions. The only tie that held these last and Lamb together was a long-standing mutual friends.h.i.+p--a sufficient link. None of them ever forsook him: they loved him, and in return he had a strong regard for them. His affections, indeed, were concentrated on few persons; not widened (weakened) by too general a philanthropy. When you went to Lamb's rooms on the Wednesday evenings (his "At Home"), you generally found the card table spread out, Lamb himself one of the players. On the corner of the table was a snuff-box; and the game was enlivened by sundry brief e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and pungent questions, which kept alive the wits of the party present. It was not "silent whist!" I do not remember whether, in common with Sarah Battle, Lamb had a weakness in favor of "Hearts." I suppose that it was at one of these meetings that he made that shrewd remark which has since escaped into notoriety: "Martin" (observed he), "if dirt were trumps, what a hand you would hold!" It is not known what influence Martin's trumps had on the rubber then in progress.--When the conversation became general, Lamb's part in it was very effective. His short, clear sentences always produced effect. He never joined in talk unless he understood the subject; then, if the matter in question interested him, he was not slow in showing his earnestness; but I never heard him argue or talk for argument's sake. If he was indifferent to the question, he was silent.

The supper of cold meat, on these occasions, was always on the side-table; not very formal, as may be imagined; and every one might rise, when it suited him, and cut a slice or take a gla.s.s of porter, without reflecting on the abstinence of the rest of the company. Lamb would, perhaps, call out and bid the hungry guest help himself without ceremony. We learn (from Hazlitt) that Martin Burney's eulogies on books were sometimes intermingled with expressions of his satisfaction with the veal pie which employed him at the sideboard. After the game was won (and lost) the ring of the cheerful gla.s.ses announced that punch or brandy and water had become the order of the night.

It was curious to observe the gradations in Lamb's manner to his various guests, although it was courteous to all. With Hazlitt he talked as though they met the subject in discussion on equal terms; with Leigh Hunt he exchanged repartees; to Wordsworth he was almost respectful; with Coleridge he was sometimes jocose, sometimes deferring; with Martin Burney fraternally familiar; with Manning affectionate; with G.o.dwin merely courteous; or, if friendly, then in a minor degree. The man whom I found at Lamb's house more frequently than any other person was Martin Burney.

He is now scarcely known; yet Lamb dedicated his prose works to him, in 1818, and there described him as "no common judge of books and men;" and Southey, corresponding with Rickman, when his "Joan of Arc" was being reprinted, says, "The best omen I have heard of its welldoing is, that Martin Burney likes it." Lamb was very much attached to Martin, who was a sincere and able man, although with a very unprepossessing physiognomy.

His face was warped by paralysis, which affected one eye and one side of his mouth. He was plain and unaffected in manner, very diffident and retiring, yet p.r.o.nouncing his opinions, when asked to do so, without apology or hesitation. He was a barrister, and travelled the western circuit at the same time as Sir Thomas Wild (afterwards Lord Truro), whose briefs he used to read before the other considered them, marking out the princ.i.p.al facts and points for attention. Martin Burney had excellent taste in books; eschewed the showy and artificial, and looked into the sterling qualities of writing. He frequently accompanied Lamb in his visits to friends, and although very familiar with Charles, he always spoke of him, with respect, as _Mr_. Lamb. "He is on the top scale of my friends.h.i.+p ladder," Lamb says, "on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, alas! descending." The last time I saw Burney was at the corner of a street in London, when he was overflowing on the subject of Raffaelle and Hogarth. After a great and prolonged struggle, he said, he had arrived at the conclusion that Raffaelle was the greater man of the two.

Notwithstanding Lamb's somewhat humble description of his friends and familiars, some of them were men well known in literature.

Amongst others, I met there Messrs. Coleridge, Manning, Hazlitt, Haydon, Wordsworth, Barron Field, Leigh Hunt, Clarkson, Sheridan Knowles, Talfourd, Kenney, G.o.dwin, the Burneys, Payne Collier, and others whose names I need not chronicle. I met there, also, on one or two occasions, Liston, and Miss Kelly, and, I believe, Rickman. Politics were rarely discussed amongst them. Anecdotes, characteristic, showing the strong and weak points of human nature, were frequent enough. But politics (especially party politics) were seldom admitted. Lamb disliked them as a theme for evening talk; he perhaps did not understand the subject scientifically. And when Hazlitt's impetuosity drove him, as it sometimes did, into fierce expressions on public affairs, these were usually received in silence; and the matter thus raised up for a.s.sent or controversy was allowed to drop.

Lamb's old a.s.sociates are now dead. "They that lived so long," as he says, "and flourished so steadily, are all crumbled away." The beauty of these evenings was, that every one was placed upon an easy level. No one out- topped the others. No one--not even Coleridge--was permitted to out-talk the rest. No one was allowed to hector another, or to bring his own grievances too prominently forward, so as to disturb the harmony of the night. Every one had a right to speak, and to be heard; and no one was ever trodden or clamored down (as in some large a.s.semblies) until he had proved that he was not ent.i.tled to a hearing, or until he had abused his privilege. I never, in all my life, heard so much unpretending good sense talked, as at Charles Lamb's social parties. Often a piece of sparkling humor was shot out that illuminated the whole evening. Sometimes there was a flight of high and earnest talk, that took one half way towards the stars.

It seems great matter for regret that the thoughts of men like Lamb's a.s.sociates should have pa.s.sed away altogether; for scarcely any of them, save Wordsworth and Coleridge, are now distinctly remembered; and it is, perhaps, not impossible to foretell the duration of _their_ fame. All have answered their purpose, I suppose. Each has had his turn, and has given place to a younger thinker, as the father is replaced by the son. Thus Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne, and Webster, and the old Dramatists, have travelled out of sight, and their thoughts are reproduced by modern writers, the originators of those thoughts often remaining unknown.

Perhaps _One_, out of many thousand authors, survives into an immortality.

The manner and the taste change. The armor and falchion of old give place to the new weapons of modern warfare--less weighty, but perhaps as trenchant. We praise the old authors, but we do not read them. The Soul of Antiquity seems to survive only in its proverbs, which contain the very essence of wisdom.

CHAPTER VI.

_London Magazine.--Contributors.--Transfer of Magazine.--Monthly Dinners and Visitors.--Colebrook Cottage.--Lamb's Walks.--Essays of Elia: Their Excellence and Character.--Enlarged Acquaintance.--Visit to Paris.--Miss Isola.--Quarrel with Southey.--Leaves India House.--Leisure.--Amicus Rediviuus.--Edward Irving._

The "London Magazine" was established in January, 1820, the publishers being Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, and its editor being Mr. John Scott, who had formerly edited "The Champion" newspaper, and whose profession was exclusively that of a man of letters. At this distance of time it is impossible to specify the authors of all the various papers which gave a tone to the Magazine; but as this publication forms, in fact, the great foundation of Lamb's fame, I think it well to enter somewhat minutely into its const.i.tution and character.

_Mr. John Scott_ was the writer of the several articles ent.i.tled "The Living Authors;" of a good many of the earlier criticisms; of some of the papers on politics; and of some which may be termed "Controversial." The essays on Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, G.o.dwin, and Lord Byron are from his hand. He contributed also the critical papers on the writings of Keats, Sh.e.l.ley, Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt.

_Mr. Hazlitt_ wrote all the articles which appear under the head "Drama;"

the twelve essays ent.i.tled "Table Talk;" and the papers on Fonthill Abbey, and on the Angerstein pictures, and the Elgin marbles.

_Mr. Charles Lamb's_ papers were the well-known Elia Essays, which first appeared in this Magazine. Mr. Elia (whose name he a.s.sumed) was, at one time, a clerk in the India House. He died, however, before the Essays were made public, and was ignorant of Lamb's intention to do honor to his name.

_Mr. Thomas Carlyle_ was author of the "Life and Writings of Schiller," in the eighth, ninth, and tenth volumes of the Magazine. These papers, although very excellent, appear to be scarcely prophetic of the great fame which their author was afterwards destined, so justly, to achieve.

_Mr. De Quincey's_ contributions were the "Confessions of an Opium Eater;"

also various papers specified as being "by the Opium Eater;" the essay on Jean Paul Richter, and papers translated from the German, or dealing with German literature.

_The Reverend Henry Francis Cary_ (the translator of Dante) wrote the Notices of the Early French poets; the additions to Orford's "Royal and n.o.ble Authors;" and, I believe, the continuations of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." Of these last, however, I am not certain. _Mr. Allan Cunningham_ (the Scottish poet) was author of the "Twelve Tales of Lyddal Cross;" of the series of stories or papers styled "Traditional Literature;" and of various other contributions in poetry and prose.

_Mr. John Poole_ contributed the "Beauties of the living Dramatists;"

being burlesque imitations of modern writers for the stage; viz., Morton, Dibdin, Reynolds, Moncrieff, &c.

_Mr. John Hamilton Reynolds_ wrote, I believe, in every number of the periodical, after it came into the hands of Taylor and Hessey, who were his friends. All the papers with the name of Henry Herbert affixed were written by him; also the descriptive accounts of the Coronation, Greenwich Hospital, The c.o.c.kpit Royal, The Trial of Thurtell, &c.

_Mr. Thomas Hood_ fleshed his maiden sword here; and his first poems of length, "Lycus the Centaur" and "The two Peac.o.c.ks of Bedfont" may be found in the Magazine.

_Mr. George Darley_ (author of "Thomas a Becket," &c.) wrote the several papers ent.i.tled "Dramaticles;" some pieces of verse; and the Letters addressed to "The Dramatists of the Day."

_Mr. Richard Ayton_ wrote "The Sea Roamers," the article on "Hunting," and such papers as are distinguished by the signature "R. A."

_Mr. Keats_ (the poet) and _Mr. James Montgomery_ contributed verses.

_Sir John Bowring_ (I believe) translated into English verse the Spanish poetry, and wrote the several papers which appear under the head of "Spanish Romances."

_Mr. Henry Southern_ (editor of "The Retrospective Review") wrote the "Conversations of Lord Byron," and "The Fanariotes of Constantinople," in the tenth volume.

_Mr. Walter Savage Landor_ was author of the Imaginary Conversation, between Southey and Porson, in volume eight.

_Mr. Julius (Archdeacon) Hare_ reviewed the works of Landor in the tenth volume.

_Mr. Elton_ contributed many translations from Greek and Latin authors; from the minor poems of Homer, from Catullus, Nonnus, Propertius, &c.

Messrs. Hartley Coleridge, John Clare, Cornelius Webb, Bernard Barton, and others sent poems; generally with the indicating name.

I myself was amongst the crowd of contributors; and was author of various pieces, some in verse, and others in prose, now under the protection of that great Power which is called "Oblivion."

Finally, the too celebrated _Thomas Griffiths Wainewright_ contributed various fantasies, on Art and Arts; all or most of which may be recognized by his a.s.sumed name of Ja.n.u.s Weatherc.o.c.k.

To show the difficulty of specifying the authors.h.i.+p of all the articles contributed,--even Mr. Hessey (one of the proprietors) was unable to do so; and indeed, shortly before his death, applied to me for information on the subject.

By the aid of the gentlemen who contributed--each his quota--to the "London Magazine," it acquired much reputation, and a very considerable sale. During its career of five years, it had, for a certain style of essay, no superior (scarcely an equal) amongst the periodicals of the day.

It was perhaps not so widely popular as works directed to the mult.i.tude, instead of to the select few, might have been; for thoughts and words addressed to the cultivated intellect only must always reckon upon limited success. Yet the Magazine was successful to an extent that preserved its proprietors from loss; perhaps not greatly beyond that point. Readers in those years were insignificant in number, compared with readers of the present time, when almost all men are able to derive benefit from letters, and letters are placed within every one's reach.

On the death of Mr. John Scott, the Magazine, in July, 1821, pa.s.sed into the hands of Messrs. Taylor and Hessey; the former being the gentleman who discovered the ident.i.ty of Junius with Sir Philip Francis; the latter being simply very courteous to all, and highly respectable and intelligent.

John Scott was an able literary man. I do not remember much more of him than that he was a shrewd and I believe a conscientious writer; that he had great industry; was, generally, well read, and possessed a very fair amount of critical taste; that, like other persons, he had some prejudices, and that he was sometimes, moreover, a little hasty and irritable. Yet he agreed well, as far as I know, with the regiment of mercenaries who marched under his flag.

When Taylor and Hessey a.s.sumed the management of the "London Magazine"

they engaged no editor. They were tolerably liberal paymasters; the remuneration for each page of prose (not very laborious) being, if the writer were a person of repute or ability, one pound; and for each page of verse, two pounds. Charles Lamb received (very fitly) for his brief and charming Essays, two or three times the amount of the other writers. When they purchased the Magazine, the proprietors opened a house in Waterloo Place for the better circulation of the publication.

It was there that the contributors met once a month, over an excellent dinner given by the firm, and consulted and talked on literary matters together. These meetings were very social, all the guests coming with a determination to please and to be pleased. I do not know that many important matters were arranged, for the welfare of the Magazine, at these dinners; but the hearts of the contributors were opened, and with the expansion of the heart the intellect widened also. If there had been any shades of jealousy amongst them, they faded away before the light of the friendly carousal; if there was any envy, it died. All the fences and restraints of authors.h.i.+p were cast off, and the natural human being was disclosed.