The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume II Part 37

I dare say it is not in the scope of your Review--but if you could put it into any likely train, he would rejoyce. For alas! our boasted Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he teazes me to death with chusing to suppose that I could get it into all the Reviews at a moment's notice.--I!! who have been set up as a mark for them to throw at and would willingly consign them all to h.e.l.l flames and Megaera's snaky locks.

"But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember she makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are directed against that very process."

This is the pa.s.sage--one red-hot sentence--concerning eels:--

"If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in the ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that it was necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that he must be skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's usual practice, he would conclude that the cook would so far use her reason as to cut off his head first, which is not fit for food, as then he might be skinned and broiled without harm; for however the other parts of his body might be convulsed during the culinary operations, there could be no feeling of consciousness therein, the communication with the brain being cut off; but if the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, skin him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to death: then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not the only sufferers; that lobsters and other sh.e.l.l fish were put into cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees in many parts of the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton atrocities, were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride of mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion that there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals designed for our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow so much thought on him as to cut his head off first, and that she would have laughed at any considerate person who should have desired such a thing; with what fearful indignation might he inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician that, like a cruel spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of mercy upon animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind, highly magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar and unthinking of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that man's obligations of morality towards the creatures subjected to his use are imperfect obligations!"

The poem "The Beggar-Man," in _Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol.

III.), was also from John Lamb's pen.

Page 85, asterisks. _Society for the Relief of_--Distrest Sailors, says Lamb's Key.

Page 86, last line of essay. "_Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfords.h.i.+re_." This line occurs in a sonnet of Lamb's written many years before the essay (see Vol. IV.). Probably, however, Lamb did not invent it, for (the late W.J. Craig pointed out) in Leland's _Itinerary_, which Lamb must have known, if only on account of the antiquary's remarks on Hertfords.h.i.+re, is quoted a poem by William Vallans (_fl._ 1578-1590), "The Tale of the Two Swans," containing the line--

The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfords.h.i.+re--

which one can easily understand would have lingered in Lamb's mind very graciously.

In the _London Magazine_ the essay ended with the words, "Till then, Farewell."

Page 86. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDs.h.i.+RE.

_London Magazine_, July, 1821. Reprinted in _Elia_, 1823, as written, save for the omission of italics from many pa.s.sages.

Bridget Elia, who is met also in "Mrs. Battle," in "My Relations," and in "Old China," was, of course, Mary Lamb.

Page 86, line 11 from foot. _She must have a story_. Thomas Westwood, in his reminiscences of the Lambs in later years, printed in _Notes and Queries_, speaks of Mary Lamb's pa.s.sion for novel-reading in the Enfield days, when he was a boy.

Page 87, line 6. _Margaret Newcastle_. Lamb's devotion to this lady is expressed again in the essay on "The Two Races of Men," in the essay on Beggars, and in "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading."

Page 87, line 8. _Free-thinkers_ ... William G.o.dwin, perhaps alone among Lamb's friends, quite answers to the description of leader of novel philosophies and systems; but there had been also Thomas Holcroft and John Thelwall among the Lambs' acquaintance. And Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt would come within this description.

Page 87, foot. _Good old English reading_. The reference is to Samuel Salt's library in the Temple (see note to "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple").

Page 88, line 14. _Mackery End_. The farmhouse still stands, although new front rooms have been added. At the end of the present hall, one pa.s.ses through what was in Lamb's time the front door, and thereafter the house is exactly as it used to be save that its south windows have been filled in. By kind invitation of Mr. Dolphin Smith, the farmer, who had been there over forty years, I spent in 1902 some time in the same parlour in which the Lambs had been entertained. Harpenden, on the north-west, has grown immensely since Lamb's day, and the houses at the Folly, between Wheathampstead and the Cherry Trees, are new; but Mackery End, or Mackrye End as the farmer's waggons have it, remains unencroached upon. Near by is the fine old mansion which is Mackery End house proper; Lamb's Mackery End was the farm.

Lamb's first visit there must have been when he was a very little boy--somewhere about 1780. Probably we may see recollections of it in Mary Lamb's story "The Farmhouse" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III. of this edition).

Page 88, line 18. _A great-aunt_. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother, was Mary Bruton, whose sister married, as he says, a Gladman, and was the great-aunt mentioned. The present occupier of the farm is neither Gladman nor Bruton; but both names are still to be found in the county. A Miss Sarah Bruton, a direct descendant of Lamb's great-aunt, was living at Wheathampstead in 1902. She had on her walls two charming oval portraits of ancestresses, possibly--for she was uncertain as to their ident.i.ty--two of the handsome sisters whom Lamb extols.

Writing to Manning, May 28, 1819, Lamb says:--"How are my cousins, the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton is a glorious woman.

"Hail, Mackery End!

"This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but got no further."

Page 89, verse. "_But thou, that didst appear so fair ..._" From Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," Stanza 6. Writing to Wordsworth in 1815, Lamb said of this stanza that he thought "no lovelier" could be found in "the wide world of poetry." From a letter to Taylor, of the _London Magazine_, belonging to the summer of 1821, we gather that the proof-reader had altered the last word of the third line to "air" to make it rhyme to "fair." Lamb says: "_Day_ is the right reading, and _I implore you to restore it_."

Page 90, line 4. _B.F._ Barron Field (see note to "Distant Correspondents"), then living in Sydney, where he composed, and had printed for private circulation in 1819, a volume of poems reviewed by Lamb (see Vol. I.), in 1819, one of which was ent.i.tled "The Kangaroo."

It was the first book printed in Australia. Field edited Heywood for the old Shakespeare Society. Although a Field, he was no kinsman of Lamb's.

Page 90. MODERN GALLANTRY.

_London Magazine_, November, 1822.

De Quincey writes in "London Reminiscences" concerning the present essay:--

Among the prominent characteristics of Lamb, I know not how it is that I have omitted to notice the peculiar emphasis and depth of his courtesy. This quality was in him a really chivalrous feeling, springing from his heart, and cherished with the sanct.i.ty of a duty. He says somewhere in speaking of himself[?] under the mask of a third person, whose character he is describing, that, in pa.s.sing a servant girl, even at a street-crossing, he used to take off his hat. Now, the _spirit_ of Lamb's gallantry would have prompted some such expression of homage, though the customs of the country would not allow it to be _literally_ fulfilled, for the very reason that would prompt it--_viz_., in order to pay respect--since the girl would, in such a case, suppose a man laughing at her. But the instinct of his heart was to think highly of female nature, and to pay a real homage (not the hollow demonstration of outward honour which a Frenchman calls his "homage," and which is really a mask for contempt) to the sacred _idea_ of pure and virtuous womanhood.

Barry Cornwall has the following story in his Memoir of Lamb:--

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 over-weighted 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.

Page 90, line 2 of essay. _Upon the point of gallantry_. Here, in the _London Magazine_, came the words:--

"as upon a thing altogether unknown to the old cla.s.sic ages.

This has been defined to consist in a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, paid to females, as females."

Page 92, line 3. _Joseph Paice_. Joseph Paice was, as Lamb pointed out to Barton in a letter in January, 1830, a real person, and all that Lamb records. According to Miss Anne Manning's _Family Pictures_, 1860, Joseph Paice, who was a friend of Thomas Coventry, took Lamb into his office at 27 Bread Street Hill somewhere in 1789 or 1790 to learn book-keeping and business habits. He pa.s.sed thence to the South-Sea House and thence to the East India House. Miss Manning (who was the author of _Flemish Interiors_) helps to fill out Lamb's sketch into a full-length portrait. She tells us that Mr. Paice's life was one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities.

Charles Lamb speaks of his holding an umbrella over a market-woman's fruit-basket, lest her store should be spoilt by a sudden shower; and his uncovering his head to a servant-girl who was requesting him to direct her on her way. These traits are quite in keeping with many that can still be authenticated:--his carrying presents of game _himself_, for instance, to humble friends, who might ill have spared a s.h.i.+lling to a servant; and his offering a seat in his hackney-coach to some poor, forlorn, draggled beings, who were picking their way along on a rainy day. Sometimes these chance guests have proved such uncongenial companions, that the kind old man has himself faced the bad weather rather than prolong the acquaintance, paying the hackney-coachman for setting down the stranger at the end of his fare. At lottery times, he used to be troubled with begging visits from certain improvident hangers-on, who had risked their all in buying shares of an unlucky number. About the time the numbers were being drawn, there would be a ring at the gate-bell, perhaps at dinner time. His spectacles would be elevated, an anxious expression would steal over his face, as he half raised himself from his seat, to obtain a glance at the intruder--"Ah, I thought so, I expected as much," he would gently say. "I expected I should soon have a visit from poor Mrs. ---- or Mrs. ----. Will you excuse me, my dear madam," (to my grandmother) "for a moment, while I just tell her it is quite out of my power to help her?"

counting silver into his hand all the time. Then, a parley would ensue at the hall-door--complainant telling her tale in a doleful voice: "My good woman, I really cannot," etc.; and at last the hall-door would be shut. "Well, sir," my grandmother used to say, as Mr. Paice returned to his seat, "I do not think you have sent Mrs. ---- away quite penniless." "Merely enough for a joint of meat, my good madam--just a trifle to buy her a joint of meat."

_Family Pictures_ should be consulted by any one who would know more of this gentleman and of Susan Winstanly.

Page 92, line 5. _Edwards_. Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), author of _Canons of Criticism_, 1748. The sonnet in question, which was modelled on that addressed by Milton to Cyriack Skinner, was addressed to Paice, as the author's nephew, bidding him carry on the family line. Paice, however, as Lamb tells us, did not marry.

Page 94. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE.

_London Magazine_, September, 1821.

Lamb's connection with the Temple was fairly continuous until 1817, when he was thirty-eight. He was born at No. 2 Crown Office Row in 1775, and he did not leave it, except for visits to Hertfords.h.i.+re, until 1782, when he entered Christ's Hospital. There he remained, save for holidays, until 1789, returning then to Crown Office Row for the brief period between leaving school and the death of Samuel Salt, under whose roof the Lambs dwelt, in February, 1792. The 7 Little Queen Street, the 45 and 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, and the first 34 Southampton Buildings (with Gutch) periods, followed; but in 1801 Lamb and his sister were back in the Temple again, at 16 Mitre Court Buildings, since rebuilt. They moved from there, after a brief return to 34 Southampton Buildings, to 4 Inner Temple Lane (since rebuilt and now called Johnson's Buildings) in 1809, where they remained until the move to 20 Great Russell Street in 1817. With each change after that (except for another and briefer sojourn in Southampton Buildings in 1830), Lamb's home became less urban. His last link with the Temple may be said to have snapped with the death of Randal Morris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, in 1827 (see "A Death-Bed"), although now and then he slept at Crabb Robinson's chambers.

The Wors.h.i.+pful Masters of the Bench of the Hon. Society of the Inner Temple--to give the Benchers their full t.i.tle--have the government of the Inner Temple in their hands.

Page 97, line 12 from foot, _J----ll_. Joseph Jekyll, great-nephew of Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, well known as a wit and diner-out.

He became a Bencher in 1795, and was made a Master in Chancery in 1815, through the influence of the Prince Regent. Under his direction the hall of the Inner Temple and the Temple Church were restored, and he compiled a little book ent.i.tled _Facts and Observations relating to the Temple Church and the Monuments contained in it_, 1811. He became a K.C. in 1805, and died in 1837, aged eighty-five. Jekyll was a friend of George Dyer, and was interested in Lamb's other friends, the Norrises. & letter from him, thanking Lamb for a copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_, is printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _The Lambs_. He had another link of a kind with Lamb in being M.P. for "sweet Calne in Wilts.h.i.+re." Jekyll's chambers were at 6 King's Bench Walk. On the same staircase lived for a while George Colman the Younger.

Page 97, line 9 from foot. _Thomas Coventry_. Thomas Coventry became a Bencher in 1766. He was the nephew of William, fifth Earl of Coventry, and resided at North Cray Place, near Bexley, in Kent, and in Serjeant's Inn, where he died in 1797, in his eighty-fifth year. He is buried in the Temple Church. Coventry was a sub-governor of the South-Sea House, and it was he who presented Lamb's friend, James White, to Christ's Hospital. He was M.P. for Bridport from 1754 to 1780. As an ill.u.s.tration of Coventry's larger benefactions it may be remarked that he presented 10,000 worth of South Sea stock to Christ's Hospital in 1782.

Page 98, line 9. _Samuel Salt_. Samuel Salt was the son of the Rev.

John Salt, of Audley, in Staffords.h.i.+re; and he married a daughter of Lord Coventry, thus being connected with Thomas Coventry by marriage.

He was M.P. for Liskeard for some years, and a governor of the South-Sea House. Samuel Salt, who became a Bencher in 1782, rented at No. 2 Crown Office Row two sets of chambers, in one of which the Lamb family dwelt. John Lamb, Lamb's father, who is described as a scrivener in Charles's Christ's Hospital application form, was Salt's right-hand man, not only in business, but privately, while Mrs. Lamb acted as housekeeper and possibly as cook. Samuel Salt played the part of tutelary genius to John Lamb's two sons. It was he who arranged for Charles to be nominated for Christ's Hospital (by Timothy Yeats); probably he was instrumental also in getting him into the East India House; and in all likelihood it was he who paved the way for the younger John Lamb's position in the South-Sea House. It was also Samuel Salt who gave to Charles and Mary the freedom of his library (see the reference in the essay on "Mackery End"): a privilege which, to ourselves, is the most important of all. Salt died in February, 1792, and is buried in the vault of the Temple Church. He left to John Lamb 500 in South Sea stock and a small annual sum, and to Elizabeth Lamb 200 in money; but with his death the prosperity of the family ceased.