The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 49

My dear, and now more so, JOHN--

How that name smacks! what an honest, full, English, and yet withal holy and apostolic sound it bears, above the methodistical priggish Bishoppy name of Timothy, under which I had obscured your merits!

What I think of the paternal verses, you shall read within, which I a.s.sure you is not pen praise but heart praise.

It is the gem of the Dibdin Muses.

I have got all my books into my new house, and their readers in a fortnight will follow, to whose joint converse n.o.body shall be more welcome than you, and _any of yours_.

The house is perfection to our use and comfort.

Milton is come. I wish Wordsworth were here to meet him.

The next importation is of pots and saucepans, window curtains, crockery and such base ware.

The pleasure of moving, when Becky moves for you. O the moving Becky!

I hope you will come and _warm_ the house with the first.

From my temporary domicile, Enfield.

ELIA, that "is to go."--

[The paternal verses were probably a contribution by Charles Dibdin the Younger for Emma Isola's alb.u.m. The Lambs were just moving to Enfield for good, as they hoped (see next letter), Milton was the portrait.]

LETTER 430

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD

Tuesday [September 18, 1827],

Dear Hood,

If I have any thing in my head, I will send it to Mr.

Watts. Strictly speaking he should have had my Alb.u.m verses, but a very intimate friend importund me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar Souvenir. Jamieson conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble, _he_ will not be in town before the 27th. Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have finally torn ourselves out right away from Colebrooke, where I had no health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have experienced _good_.

Lord what good hours do we keep!

How quietly we sleep!

See the rest in the Complete Angler. We have got our books into our new house. I am a drayhorse if I was not asham'd of the indigested dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the cart, and blest Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffd brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's ma.s.s. Twas with some pain we were evuls'd from Colebrook.

You may find some of our flesh sticking to the door posts. To change habitations is to die to them, and in my time I have died seven deaths.

But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a rejuvenescence. Tis an enterprise, and shoves back the sense of death's approximating, which tho' not terrible to me, is at all times particularly distasteful. My house-deaths have generally been periodical, recurring after seven years, but this last is premature by half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrook. The Middletonian stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. A parvis fiunt MINIMI. I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she envy it, & rote [? rout] us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come & try it. I heard she & you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy to be cared for attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counteraction thro'

the Table Book of last Sat.u.r.day. Has it not reach'd you, that you are silent about it? Our new domicile is no manor house, but new, & externally not inviting, but furnish'd within with every convenience.

Capital new locks to every door, capital grates in every room, with nothing to pay for incoming & the rent 10 less than the Islington one.

It was built a few years since at 1100 expence, they tell me, & I perfectly believe it. And I get it for 35 exclusive of moderate taxes.

We think ourselves most lucky. It is not our intention to abandon Regent Street, & West End perambulations (monastic & terrible thought!), but occasionally to breathe the FRESHER AIR of the metropolis. We shall put up a bedroom or two (all we want) for occasional ex-rustication, where we shall visit, not be visited. Plays too we'll see,--perhaps our own.

Urban! Sylvani, & Sylvan Urba.n.u.ses in turns. Courtiers for a spurt, then philosophers. Old homely tell-truths and learn-truths in the virtuous shades of Enfield, Liars again and mocking gibers in the coffee houses & resorts of London. What can a mortal desire more for his bi-parted nature?

O the curds & cream you shall eat with us here!

O the turtle soup and lobster sallads we shall devour with you there!

O the old books we shall peruse here!

O the new nonsense we shall trifle over there!

O Sir T. Browne!--here.

O Mr. Hood & Mr. Jerdan there,

thine,

C (urba.n.u.s) L (sylva.n.u.s) (ELIA ambo)--

Inclos'd are verses which Emma sat down to write, her first, on the eve after your departure. Of course they are only for Mrs. H.'s perusal.

They will shew at least, that one of our party is not willing to cut old friends. What to call 'em I don't know. Blank verse they are not, because of the rhymes--Rhimes they are not, because of the blank verse.

Heroics they are not, because they are lyric, lyric they are not, because of the Heroic measure. They must be call'd EMMAICS.------

[Mr. Watts was Alaric A. Watts.

"Thro' the _Table Book_." Lamb contributed to Hone's _Table Book_ a prose paraphrase of Hood's _Plea, of the Midsummer Fairies_, just published, which had been dedicated to him, under the t.i.tle "The Defeat of Time." In a previous number Moxon had addressed to Hood a eulogistic sonnet on the same subject. The attacks on Hood I have not sought.

"We shall put up a bedroom." This project was very imperfectly carried out. Indeed Lamb practically lost London from this date, his subsequent visits there being as a rule not fortunate.

"Mr. Jerdan"--William Jerdan, editor of the _Literary Gazette_.

"Emmaics." These verses are no longer forthcoming.

Here should come a letter to Allsop dated September 25, 1827, saying that Mary Lamb has her nurse Miss James and the house is melancholy.

Given in the Boston Bibliophile edition.]

LETTER 431

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY COLBURN

[Dated at end: September 25, 1827.]

Dear Sir--I beg leave in the warmest manner to recommend to your notice Mr. Moxon, the Bearer of this, if by any chance yourself should want a steady hand in your business, or know of any Publisher that may want such a one. He is at present in the house of Messrs. Longman and Co., where he has been established for more than six years, and has the conduct of one of the four departments of the Country line. A difference respecting Salary, which he expected to be a little raised on his last promotion, makes him wish to try to better himself. I believe him to be a young man of the highest integrity, and a thorough man of business; and should not have taken the liberty of recommending him, if I had not thought him capable of being highly useful.

I am, Sir, with great respect, your hble Serv't CHARLES LAMB.

Enfield, Chace Side, 25th Sep. 1827.