Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849. Various
p>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849
CHARLES LAMB. 1
To Charles Lamb shall be allotted – general assent has already assigned it to him, and we have no wish to dispute his claim – a quiet, quaint niche, apart to himself, in some odd nook or corner in the great temple of English literature. It shall be carved from the solid oak, and decorated with Gothic tracery; but where Madonnas and angels ordinarily appear, there shall be all manner of laughing cherubs – one amongst them disguised as a chimney-sweep– with abundance of sly and humorous devices. Some such niches or stalls may occasionally be seen in old cathedrals, sharing the eternity of the structure, and drawing the peculiar regard of the curious and loitering visitor. You are startled to find a merry device, and a wit by no means too reverential, side by side with the ideal forms of Catholic piety. You approach to examine the solemn-looking carving, and find, perhaps, a fox clothed in priestly raiment – teaching, in his own way, divers lessons of morality to the bears and geese. Such venerable and Gothic drollery suspends for a moment, but hardly mars, the serious and sedate feelings which the rest of the structure, and the other sculptured figures of the place, are designed to excite.
Some such peculiar place amongst our literary worthies seems, as we have said, to be assigned by general consent to Charles Lamb, nor are we about to gainsay his right to this position. He has all the genius that could comport with oddity, and all the oddity that could amalgamate with genius. With a range of thought most singularly contracted, considering the times in which he lived, and the men by whom he was surrounded, he has contrived, by a charming subtlety of observation, and a most felicitous humour, to make us in love even with that contractedness itself, which in another would be despised, as evidencing a sluggishness and obtuseness of mind. Perhaps there are few writers who could be named, of these later days, on whose peculiar merits there is so little difference of opinion. As a poet, he was, at all events, inoffensive, and his mediocrity has been pardoned him in favour of that genius he displayed as the humorous and critical essayist. The publication of his letters, too, has materially added to his reputation, and confirmed him as a favourite with all to whom his lambent and playful wit had already made him known and esteemed. We are not aware, therefore, that we have anything to dispute, or essentially to modify, in the verdict passed by popular opinion on this writer. Yet something may remain to be said to assist in appreciating and discriminating his peculiar merits as a humorist – something to point out where praise is due, and something to draw the limits of that praise. Moreover, his biography, as presented to us by Mr Talfourd, claims some notice; disclosing, as it does, one of the saddest tragedies, and one of the noblest acts of heroism, which ever afflicted and dignified the life of a man of letters. This biography is also written by one who is himself distinguished in the literary world, who was an intimate friend of Lamb, and personally acquainted with those literary characters by whom Lamb had surrounded himself, and who are here grouped around him. Upon the whole, therefore, the Life and Writings of Elia, though a subject which no longer wears the gloss of novelty, still invites and may repay attention.
We hardly know whether to regret it as a disadvantage to us, on the present occasion, that we never enjoyed the slightest acquaintance with Charles Lamb, or indeed with any of those literary friends amongst whom he lived. We never saw this bland humorist; we never heard that half-provoking, half-pleasing stutter, which awakened anticipation whilst it delayed enjoyment, and added zest to the witticism which it threatened to mar, and which it had held back, for a moment, only to project with the happier impetus. We never had before us, in bodily presence, that slight, black-coated figure, and those antique and curiously-gaitered legs, which, we have also been assured, contributed their part to the irresistible effect of his kindly humour. We never even knew those who had seen and talked with him. To us he is a purely historic figure. So, too, of his biographer – which argues ourselves to be sadly unknown – we have no other knowledge than what runs about bruited in the world; even his displays of eloquence, forensic or parliamentary, we have never had an opportunity of hearing; we know him only by his writings, and by that title we have often heard bestowed on him, the amiable author of Ion; – to which amiability we refer, because to this we must attribute, we suppose, a large portion of that too laudatory criticism which, in these volumes, he bestows so lavishly and diffusely. We cannot, therefore, bring to our subject any of those vivid reminiscences, anecdotes, or details which personal acquaintance supplies. But, on the other hand, we have no bias whatever to contend against, whether of a friendly or hostile description, in respect of any of the literary characters whom we may have occasion to speak of. Had they all lived in the reign of good Queen Anne, they could not have been more remote from our personal sympathies or antipathies.
It is probably known to most of our readers that when, shortly after the decease of Charles Lamb, his letters were given to the world with some biographical notices, there were circumstances which imposed silence on certain passages of his life, and which obliged the editor to withhold a certain portion of the letters. That sister, in fact, was still alive whose lamentable history was so intimately blended with the career of Lamb, and an allusion to her unfortunate tragedy would have been cruel in any one, and in an intimate friend utterly impossible. Serjeant Talfourd had no other course than to leave the gap or hiatus in the biography, and cover it up and conceal it as well as might be, from the eyes of such readers as were not better informed from other sources. Upon the decease of that sister, there no longer existed any motive for this silence; and, indeed, shortly after this event, the whole narrative was revealed by a writer in the British Quarterly Review, who had himself waited till then before he permitted himself to disclose it, and by its disclosure do an act of justice to the moral character of Lamb. Mr Talfourd was, therefore, called upon to complete his biographical notice, and also the publication of the letters. This he did in the two volumes entitled Final Memorials, &c.
As a separate and subsidiary publication became inevitable, and as probably the exigencies of the trade required that it should be of a certain bulk and substance, we suppose we must rather commiserate Mr Talfourd than cast any blame upon him for the manifest difficulty he has had to fill these two volumes of Final Memorials. One of them would have been sufficient for all that he had to communicate, or that it was wise to add. Many of the letters of Lamb here printed are such as he had very properly laid aside, in the first instance, not because they trenched upon too delicate ground, but because they were wholly uninteresting. He had very correctly said, in what, for distinction's sake, we will call The Life– "I have thought it better to omit much of this verbal criticism, which, not very interesting in itself, is unintelligible without a contemporary reference to the poems which are its subject." – (P. 12.) Now we cannot, of course, undertake to say that the letters given us here are precisely those which he speaks of as being wisely rejected on the former occasion, but we know that there was the same good reason for this rejection, for they are occupied with a verbal criticism utterly uninteresting. Surely, what neither illustrates a man's life, nor adds a tittle to his literary reputation, ought not to be allowed to encumber for ever, as with a dead weight, the collected works of an author. The mischief is, that, if materials of this kind are once published, every succeeding editor finds it incumbent on him to reprint them, lest his edition should be thought less perfect than others, and thus there is no getting rid of the useless and burdensome increment. It is otherwise with another portion of these two volumes, the sketches of the contemporaries and friends of Lamb, which Mr Serjeant Talfourd, or any future editor, can either retrench, omit, or enlarge, at his option.
In the next edition that is published of the works of Lamb, we hope the editor may be persuaded altogether to recast his materials. The biography should be kept apart, and not interspersed piecemeal amongst the letters. This is an arrangement, the most provoking and irritating to the reader that could have been devised. Let us have all the biography at once, and then sit down and enjoy the letters of Lamb. Why be incessantly bandied from the one to the other? Few of the letters need any explanation; if they do, the briefest note at the head or at the foot would be sufficient. Not to add, that, if it is wished to refer to any event in the biography, one does not know where to look for it. And, apropos of this matter of reference, it may be just worth mentioning that the present volume is so divided into Parts, and the parts so paged, that any reference to a passage by the number of the page is almost useless. The numbers recommence some half-dozen