air of mild dogmatism—the same condescending to a boyish sportiveness-in both your conversations. His handwriting is so much the same with your own, that I have opened more than one letter of his, hoping, nay, not doubting, but it was from you, and have been disappointed (he will bear with my saying so) at the discovery of my error. L. H. is unfortunate in holding some loose and not very definite speculations (for at times I think he hardly knows whither his premises would carry him) on marriage-the tenets, I conceive, of the "Political Justice" carried a little farther. For anything I could discover in his practice, they have reference, like those, to some future possible condition of society, and not to the present times. But neither for these obliquities of thinking (upon which my own conclusions are as distant as the poles asunder)-nor for his political asperities and petulancies, which are wearing out with the heats and vanities of youth-did I select him for a friend; but for qualities which fitted him for that relation. I do not know whether I flatter myself with being the occasion, but certain it is, that, touched with some misgivings for sundry harsh things which he had written aforetime against our friend C., before he left this country he sought a reconciliation with that gentleman (himself being his own introducer), and found it. L. H. is now in Italy; on his departure to which land, with much regret I took my leave of him and of his little family-seven of them, sir, with their mother-and as kind a set of little people (T. H. and all), as affectionate children as ever blessed a parent. Had you seen them, sir, I think you could not have looked upon them as so many little Jonases-but rather as pledges of the vessel's safety, that was to bear such a freight of love. I wish you would read Mr. H.'s lines to that same T. H., "six years old, during a sickness: " 'Sleep breaks at last from out thee, My little patient boy' (they are to be found in the 47th page of "Foliage")-and ask yourself how far they are out of the spirit of Chris tianity. I have a letter from Italy, received but the other day, into which L. II. has put as much heart, and as many friendly yearnings after old associates, and native country, as, I think, paper can well hold." It would do you no hurt 1996 oved basto7 mon a6w ti to give that the perusal also. 21 From the other gentleman I neither expect nor desire (as he is well assured) any such concessions as L. H. made to 17 What hath soured him, and made him to suspect his I friends of infidelity towards him, when there was no such "matter, I know not. I stood well with him for fifteen years (the proudest of my life), and have ever spoken my full mind of him to some, to whom his panegyric must naturally be least tasteful. I never in thought swerved from him, I never betrayed him, I never slackened in my admiration of him; I was the same to him (neither better nor worse), though he could not see it, as in the days when he thought fit to trust me. At this instant, he may be preparing for me some compliment, above my deserts, as he has sprinkled many such among his admirable books, for which I rest his debtor; or, for anything I know, or can guess to the contrary, he may be about to read a lecture on ou my weaknesses. He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble hearth), if they can divert a spleen, or ventilate a fit of sullenness. I wish he would not quarrel with the world at the rate he does; but the reconciliation must be effected by himself, and I despair of living to see that day. But, protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do; judging him by his conversation which I enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply; or 'by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes I should belie my own conscience, if I said less, than that I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy, which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to find, such another companion. But I forget my manners-you will pardon me, sir-I return to the correspondence. " Sir, you were pleased (you know where) to invite me to a compliance with the wholesome forms and doctrines of the Church of England. I take your advice with as much kindness as it was meant. But I must think the invitation rather more kind than seasonable, I am a Dissenter. The last sect, with which you can remember me to have made common profession, were the Unitarians. You would think it not very pertinent, if (fearing that all was not well with you), I were gravely to invite you (for a remedy) to attend with me a course of Mr. Belsham's Lectures at Hackney. Perhaps I have scruples to some of your forms and doctrines. But if I come, am I secure of civil treatment ?—* The last time I was in any of your places of worship was on Easter Sunday last. I had the satisfaction of listening to a very sensible sermon of an argumentative turn, delivered with great propriety, by one of your bishops. The place was Westminster Abbey. As such religion, as I have, has always acted on me more by way of sentiment than argumentative process, I was not unwilling, after sermon ended, by no unbecoming transition, to pass over to some serious feelings, impossible to be disconnected from the sight of those old tombs, &c. But, by whose order I know not, I was debarred that privilege even for so short a space as a few minutes; and turned, like a dog or some profane person, out into the common street; with feelings, which I could not help, but not very congenial to the day or the discourse. I do not know that I shall ever venture myself again into one of your churches. You had your education at Westminster, &c. The friends Lamb indicated in this letter by their initials were:-The Rev. H. F. Cary, the translator of Dante; Procter; Allsop; Gillman, at whose house Coleridge died; Wordsworth, the poet; H. C. Robinson, lately dead; William Ayrton; Leigh Hunt; and William Hazlitt. It seems a pity that, in reprinting part of the letter, Lamb did not add a conclusion more in harmony with the rest of the Essay than the sly insinuation with which it now ends : The mischief was done about the time that you were a scholar there. Do you know anything about the unfor tunate relic? The banter was carried on a little farther in the letter Can you help us in this emergency to find the nose, or can you give Chantrey a notion (from memory) of its pristine life and vigour? I am willing for peace's sake to subscribe my guinea towards the restoration of the lamented feature. I am, Sir, your humble servant, AMICUS REDIVIVUS. ELIA. The hero of this Essay was Mr. George Dyer, the dim-sighted, absentminded, childlike, learned G. D. of" Oxford in the Vacation," for whom through life Lamb had a hearty friendship. "The oftener I see him," he wrote to Coleridge," the more deeply I admire him. He is goodness itself." A presumably true account of the accident on which this delightful Essay is founded, is contained in a letter to Mrs. Hazlitt, in 1823. Lamb was away from home at the time it occurred, and when he returned at four o'clock, he found G. D. in bed, “raving and lightheaded [tipsy, in fact] with the brandy and water which the doctora one-eyed fellow, dirty and drunk-had ordered to be administered." The following strange note was appended to the account of G. D.'s immersion in the New River: The topography of the cottage and its relation to the river will explain this, as I have been at some cost to have the whole engraved (in time, I hope, for our next number), as well for the satisfaction of the reader as to commemorate so signal a deliverance. Whatever may have been intended, the promised illustration did not appear. Elia had "a mind turned to fictions." 1 SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. W. H.," William Hazlitt, the great critic. NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. In this paper Lamb gives an account (most likely a pretty accurate one) of his newspaper experiences. Sir Js Mh is of course Sir James Macintosh, the author of "Vindicia Gallica," who was much abused at this time for his supposed apostacy from the principles he had professed at the time of the first French Revolution. In a letter to Manning, dated 1801, Lamb informs him that "the poor Albion died last Saturday of the world's neglect," and with it "the fountain of his puns was choked up for ever. He adds, "I will close my letter with an epigram on Macintosh, the "Vindicia Gallica" man, who has got a place at last; one of the last I did for the Albion :— 66 Though thou'rt, like Judas, an apostate black, In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack; When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf, This was, no doubt, the "lucky epigram" spoken of in the Essay. BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART. The "modern artist" spoken of on page 97 of the second series of Essays, was John Martin, whose picture of Belshazzar's Feast is well known. Admiral of Lamb's. THE WEDDING. was possibly Admiral Burney, a whist-playing friend The "Miss T- -s" appeared as the "Miss Turners," in the original Essay. One cannot help remarking that, if Emily was married at nineteen, and had been engaged for five years, she must have been betrothed at rather an early age-at the same age, too, that Rosamund Gray fell in love with Allan Clare. REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE. A few words of explanation may render the meaning of this Essay more intelligible. The cruel sport called Shrove Tuesday. cock-throwing" was formerly common on It is said the Roundheads celebrated the anniversary of Charles the First's execution by having a calf's head for dinner every Thirtieth of January. After the Restoration, it was customary to wear sprigs of oak, and to decorate houses with oak branches, on the Twenty-ninth of May, Charles the Second's birthday, in commemoration of his escape from the Parliamentary troops by climbing into Boscobel oak-tree. George the Fourth was born August 12th, but his birthday was kept on April 23rd, St. George's Day. |