Charles Lamb: A Memoir Part 9

[2] I fear that I have not, in all the foregoing instances, set forth with sufficient precision the grounds or premises upon which the jests were founded. There were, moreover, various other sayings of Lamb, which do not come into the above catalogue; as where--when enjoying a pipe with Dr.

Parr, that Divine inquired how he came to acquire the love of smoking so much, he replied, "I toiled after it as some people do after virtue."-- When G.o.dwin was expatiating on the benefit of unlimited freedom of thought, especially in matters of religion, Lamb, who did not like this, interrupted him by humming the little child's song of "Old Father Longlegs won't say his prayers," adding, violently, "_Throw him down stairs!_"--He consoles Mr. Crabbe Robinson, suffering under tedious rheumatism, by writing, "Your doctor seems to keep you under the long cure."--To Wordsworth, in order to explain that his friend A was in good health, he writes, "A is well; he is proof against weather, ingrat.i.tude, meat underdone, and every weapon of fate." The story of Lamb replying to some one, who insisted very strenuously on some uninteresting circ.u.mstances being "a matter of fact," by saying that _he_ was "a matter of lie" man, is like Leigh Hunt, who, in opposing the frequent confessions of "I'm in love," a.s.serted, in a series of verses, that he was "In hate."--Charles hated noise, and fuss, and fine words, but never hated any person. Once, when he had said, "I hate Z," some one present remonstrated with him: "Why, you have never seen him." "No," replied Lamb, "certainly not; I never could hate any man that I have once seen."--Being asked how he felt when amongst the lakes and mountains of c.u.mberland, he replied that he was obliged to think of the Ham and Beef shop near Saint Martin's Lane; this was in order to bring down his thoughts from their almost too painful elevation to the sober regions of every-day life.

In the foregoing little history, I have set forth such facts as tend, in my opinion, to ill.u.s.trate my friend's character. One anecdote I have omitted, and it should not be forgotten. Lamb, one day, encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy package of grocery. It caused him to tremble and stop. Charles inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place of destination. Finding that the purchaser of the grocery was a female, he went with the urchin before her, and expressed a hope that she would intercede with the poor boy's master, in order to prevent his being overweighted in future. "Sir," said the dame, after the manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, "I buy my sugar, and have nothing to do with the man's manner of sending it." Lamb at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off his hat, said, humbly, "Then I hope, ma'am, you'll give me a drink of small beer." This was of course refused. He afterwards called upon the grocer, on the boy's behalf--with what effect I do not know.

POSTSCRIPT.

I have thus told, as far as my ability permits, the story of the life of Charles Lamb.

I have not ventured to deduce any formidable moral from it. Like Lamb himself, I have great dislike to ostentatious precepts and impertinent lessons. Facts themselves should disclose their own virtues. A man who is able to benefit by a lesson will, no doubt, discover it, under any husk or disguise, before it is stripped and laid bare--to the kernel.

Besides, too much teaching may disagree with the reader. It is apt to harden the heart, wearying the attention, and mortifying the self-love.

Such disturbances of the system interfere with the digestion of a truth.

Even Gulliver is sometimes too manifestly didactic. His adventures, simply told, would have emitted spontaneously a luminous atmosphere, and need not have been distilled into brilliant or pungent drops.

No history is barren of good. Even from the foregoing narrative some benefit may be gleaned, some sympathy may be excited, which naturally forms itself into a lesson.

Let us look at it cursorily.

Charles Lamb was born almost in penury, and he was taught by charity. Even when a boy he was forced to labor for his bread. In the first opening of manhood a terrible calamity fell upon him, in magnitude fit to form the mystery or centre of an antique drama. He had to dwell, all his days, with a person incurably mad. From poverty he pa.s.sed at once to unpleasant toil and perpetual fear. These were the sole changes in his fortune. Yet he gained friends, respect, a position, and great sympathy from all; showing what one poor man of genius, under grievous misfortune, may do, if he be courageous and faithful to the end.

Charles Lamb never preached nor prescribed, but let his own actions tell their tale and produce their natural effects; neither did he deal out little apothegms or sc.r.a.ps of wisdom, derived from other minds. But he succeeded; and in every success there must be a mainstay of right or truth to support it; otherwise it will eventually fail.

It is true that in his essays and numerous letters many of his sincere thoughts and opinions are written down. These, however, are written down simply, and just as they occur, without any special design. Some persons exhibit only their ingenuity, or learning. It is not every one who is able, like the licentiate Pedro Garcias, to deposit his wealth of soul by the road-side.

Like all persons of great intellectual sensibility, Lamb responded to all impressions. To sympathize with Tragedy or Comedy only, argues a limited capacity. The mind thus constructed is partially lame or torpid. One hemisphere has never been reached.

It should not be forgotten that Lamb possessed one great advantage. He lived and died amongst _his equals_. This was what enabled him to exercise his natural strength, as neither a parasite nor a patron can. It is marvellous how freedom of thought operates; what strength it gives to the system; with what lightness and freshness it endues the spirit. Then, he was made stronger by trouble; made wiser by grief.

I have not attempted to fix the precise spot in which Charles Lamb is to s.h.i.+ne hereafter in the firmament of letters. I am not of sufficient magnitude to determine his astral elevation--where he is to dwell--between the sun Shakespeare and the twinkling Zoilus. That must be left to time.

Even the fixed stars at first waver and coruscate, and require long seasons for their consummation and final settlement.

Whenever he differs with us in opinion (as he does occasionally), let us not hastily p.r.o.nounce him to be wrong. It is wise, as well as modest, not to show too much eagerness to adjust the ideas of all other thinkers to the (sometimes low) level of our own.

APPENDIX.

In the following pages will be found the opinions of several distinguished authors on the subject of Charles Lamb's genius and character, and also a contribution (by himself) to the _Athenaeum_, made in January, 1835. All the writers were contemporary with Lamb, and were personally intimate with him. The extracts may be accepted as corroborative, in some degree, of the opinions set forth in the foregoing Memoir.

HAZLITT.

[_From Hazlitt's "Spirit of the Age." t.i.tle, "Elia."_]

Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity. The film of the past hovers forever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of everything coa.r.s.e, vulgar, obtrusive, and commonplace. His spirit clothes itself in the garb of elder time; homelier, but more durable. He is borne along with no pompous paradoxes, s.h.i.+nes in no glittering tinsel of a fas.h.i.+onable phraseology, is neither fop nor sophist. He has none of the turbulence or froth of new-fangled opinions. His style runs pure and clear, though it may often take an underground course, or be conveyed through old-fas.h.i.+oned conduits....

There is a fine tone of chiaro-scuro, a moral perspective in his writings.

He delights to dwell on that which is fresh to the eye of memory; he yearns after and covets what soothes the frailty of human nature. That touches him most nearly which is withdrawn to a certain distance, which verges on the borders of oblivion; that piques and provokes his fancy most which is hid from a superficial glance. That which, though gone by, is still remembered, is in his view more genuine, and has given more signs that it will live, than a thing of yesterday, which may be forgotten to- morrow. Death has in this sense the spirit of life in it; and the shadowy has to our author something substantial.

Mr. Lamb has a distaste to new faces, to new books, to new buildings, to new customs. He is shy of all imposing appearances, of all a.s.sumptions of self-importance, of all advent.i.tious ornaments, of all mechanical advantages, even to a nervous excess. It is not merely that he does not rely upon, or ordinarily avail himself of them; he holds them in abhorrence: he utterly abjures and discards them. He disdains all the vulgar artifices of authors.h.i.+p, all the cant of criticism and helps of notoriety.

His affections revert to and settle on the past; but then even this must have something personal and local in it to interest him deeply and thoroughly. He pitches his tent in the suburbs of existing manners, and brings down his account of character to the few straggling remains of the last generation. No one makes the tour of our southern metropolis, or describes the manners of the last age, so well as Mr. Lamb,--with so fine, and yet so formal an air. How admirably he has sketched the former inmates of the South Sea House; what "fine fretwork he makes of their double and single entries!"

With what a firm yet subtle pencil he has embodied Mrs. Battle's opinions on Whist! With what well-disguised humor he introduces us to his relations, and how freely he serves up his friends!

The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of childhood: he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a bright and endless romance.

[_From Hazlitt's "Table Talk,"_ Vol. II.]

Mr. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read with pleasure; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his authors, that the idea of imitation is almost done away. There is an inward unction, a marrowy vein both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness arising from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is completely his own, though the manner is a.s.sumed. Perhaps his ideas are altogether so marked and individual, as to require their point and pungency to be neutralized by the affectation of a singular but traditional form of conveyance. Tricked out in the prevailing costume, they would probably seem more startling and out of the way. The old English authors, Burton, Fuller, Coryate, Sir Thomas Browne, are a kind of mediators between us and the more eccentric and whimsical modern, reconciling us to his peculiarities. I must confess that what I like best of his papers under the signature of Elia (still I do not presume, amidst such excellence, to decide what is most excellent) is the account of Mrs.

Battle's "Opinions on Whist," which is also the most free from obsolete allusions and turns of expression,--

"A well of native English undefiled."

To those acquainted with his admired prototypes, these Essays of the ingenious and highly gifted author have the same sort of charm and relish that Erasmus's "Colloquies," or a fine piece of modern Latin, have to the cla.s.sical scholar.--"_On Familiar Style_."

[_Hazlitt's "Plain Speaker,"_ Vol. I. p. 62.]

At Lamb's we used to have lively skirmishes at their Thursday evening parties. I doubt whether the Small Coal-man's musical parties could exceed them. O for the pen of John Buncle to consecrate a _pet.i.t souvenir_ to their memory! There was Lamb himself, the most delightful, the most provoking, the most witty and sensible of men. He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things, in half a dozen sentences, as he does. His jests scald like tears, and he probes a question with a play upon words. What a keen, laughing, hair-brained vein of homefelt truth! What choice venom! How often did we cut into the haunch of letters!

How we skimmed the cream of criticism! How we picked out the marrow of authors! Need I go over the names? They were but the old, everlasting set --Milton and Shakespeare, Pope and Dryden, Steele and Addison, Swift and Gay, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Richardson, Hogarth's prints, Claude's landscapes, the Cartoons at Hampton Court, and all those things that, having once been, must ever be. The Scotch Novels had not then been heard of: so we said nothing about them. In general we were hard upon the moderns. The author of the "Rambler" was only tolerated in Boswell's Life of him; and it was as much as any one could do to edge in a word for Junius. Lamb could not bear _Gil Blas_: this was a fault. I remember the greatest triumph I ever had was in persuading him, after some years'

difficulty, that Fielding was better than Smollett. On one occasion he was for making out a list of persons famous in history that one would wish to see again, at the head of whom were Pontius Pilate, Sir Thomas Browne, and Dr. Faustus; but we black-balled most of his list! But with what a gusto would he describe his favorite authors, Donne or Sir Philip Sidney, and call their most crabbed pa.s.sages _delicious_! He tried them on his palate, as epicures taste olives, and his observations had a smack in them, like a roughness on the tongue. With what discrimination he hinted a defect in what he admired most,--as in saying the display of the sumptuous banquet, in "Paradise Regained," was not in true keeping, as the simplest fare was all that was necessary to tempt the extremity of hunger; and stating that Adam and Eve in "Paradise Lost" were too much like married people. He has furnished many a text for Coleridge to preach upon. There was no fuss or cant about him; nor were his sweets or sours ever diluted with one particle of affectation.--_"On the Conversation of Authors."_

[_From "Autobiography of Leigh Hunt,"_ pp. 250-253.]

Let me take this opportunity of recording my recollections in general of my friend Lamb; of all the world's friend, particularly of his oldest friends, Coleridge and Southey; for I think he never modified or withheld any opinion (in private or bookwards) except in consideration of what he thought they might not like.

Charles Lamb had a head worthy of Aristotle, with as fine a heart as ever beat in human bosom, and limbs very fragile to sustain it. There was a caricature of him sold in the shops, which pretended to be a likeness.

Procter went into the shop in a pa.s.sion, and asked the man what he meant by putting forth such a libel. The man apologized, and said that the artist meant no offence. There never was a true portrait of Lamb. His features were strongly yet delicately cut; he had a fine eye as well as forehead; and no face carried in it greater marks of thought and feeling.

It resembled that of Bacon, with less worldly vigor and more sensibility.

As his frame, so was his genius. It was as fit for thought as could be, and equally as unfit for action; and this rendered him melancholy, apprehensive, humorous, and willing to make the best of everything as it was, both from tenderness of heart and abhorrence of alteration. His understanding was too great to admit an absurdity; his frame was not strong enough to deliver it from a fear. His sensibility to strong contrasts was the foundation of his humor, which was that of a wit at once melancholy and willing to be pleased.... His puns were admirable, and often contained as deep things as the wisdom of some who have greater names; such a man, for instance, as Nicole, the Frenchman, who was a baby to him. Lamb would have cracked a score of jokes at Nicole, worth his whole book of sentences; pelted his head with pearls. Nicole would not have understood him, but Rochefou-cault would, and Pascal too; and some of our old Englishmen would have understood him still better. He would have been worthy of hearing Shakespeare read one of his scenes to him, hot from the brain. Commonplace found a great comforter in him, as long as it was good-natured; it was to the ill-natured or the dictatorial only that he was startling. Willing to see society go on as it did, because he despaired of seeing it otherwise, but not at all agreeing in his interior with the common notions of crime and punishment, he "_dumfounded_" a long tirade against vice one evening, by taking the pipe out of his mouth, and asking the speaker, "Whether he meant to say that a thief was not a good man?" To a person abusing Voltaire, and indiscreetly opposing his character to that of Jesus Christ, he said admirably well (though he by no means overrated Voltaire, nor wanted reverence in the other quarter), that "Voltaire was a very good Jesus Christ _for the French_." He liked to see the church-goers continue to go to church, and wrote a tale in his sister's admirable little book (_Mrs. Leicester's School_) to encourage the rising generation to do so; but to a conscientious deist he had nothing to object; and if an atheist had found every other door shut against him, he would a.s.suredly not have found his. I believe he would have had the world remain precisely as it was, provided it innovated no further; but this spirit in him was anything but a worldly one, or for his own interest. He hardly contemplated with patience the new buildings in the Regent's Park; and, privately speaking, he had a grudge against _official_ heaven-expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, however, have been with a crowd that he disliked, than felt himself alone. He said to me one day, with a face of great solemnity, "What must have been that man's feelings, who thought himself _the first deist?_" ... He knew how many false conclusions and pretensions are made by men who profess to be guided by facts only, as if facts could not be misconceived, or figments taken for them; and therefore, one day, when somebody was speaking of a person who valued himself on being a matter-of-fact man, "Now," said he, "I value myself on being a matter-of-lie man." This did not hinder his being a man of the greatest veracity, in the ordinary sense of the word; but "truth,"

he said, "was precious, and not to be wasted on everybody." Those who wish to have a genuine taste of him, and an insight into his modes of life, should read his essays on _Hogarth_ and _King Lear_, his _Letters_, his article on the _London Streets_, on _Whist-Playing_, which he loves, and on _Saying Grace before Meat_, which he thinks a strange moment to select for being grateful. He said once to a brother whist-player, whose hand was more clever than clean, and who had enough in him to afford the joke, "M., if dirt were trumps, what hands you would hold!"

FORSTER.

[_From Mr. John Forsters Contribution to the New Monthly Magazine,_ 1835.

_t.i.tle, "Charles Lamb."_]

Charles Lamb's first appearance in literature was by the side of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He came into his first battle, as he tells us (literature is a sort of warfare), under cover of that greater Ajax.