The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb. Charles Lamb
between Lamb and Leigh Hunt was set up by The Reflector (see note on page 445). Leigh Hunt, however, tells us in his Autobiography that he had as a schoolboy at Christ's Hospital seen Lamb—then an old boy: he was by nine and a half years Hunt's senior. Probably Lamb's first real intimacy with Leigh Hunt began with Lamb's visits to him in prison, 1813–1815.
Page 272, line 6 from foot. An equivocal term. Hunt's Story of Rimini was reviewed, with Maga's deepest scorn, in Blackwood for November, 1817, under the heading, "The Cockney School of Poetry." Precisely what was the equivocal term referred to by Lamb I do not discover; but unfair emphasis was laid by the reviewer on the poem's alleged incestuous character.
Page 273, line 11. His handwriting. In the postscript to his private letter (of apology) to Southey (see above), Lamb took this back.
Page 273, line 18. The "Political Justice." Godwin's Enquiry into Political Justice, 1793, wherein the marriage ceremony meets with little respect.
Page 273, line 28. Sundry harsh things … against our friend C. Perhaps a reference to The Examiner's criticism of Remorse, in 1813. Coleridge, writing to Southey about it, says:—
They were forced to affect admiration of the Tragedy, but yet abuse me they must, and so comes the old infamous crambe bis millies cocta of the "sentimentalities, puerilities, whinings, and meannesses, both of style and thought" in my former writings. …
Page 274, line 3. "Foliage." Leigh Hunt published Foliage in 1818. It contains, among other familiar epistles, one to Charles Lamb, reprinted, as was the poem on his son, from The Examiner. This is one stanza to Thornton Hunt:—
Ah, first-born of thy mother,
When life and hope were new,
Kind playmate of thy brother,
Thy sister, father too;
My light, where'er I go,
My bird, when prison bound,
My hand in hand companion—no,
My prayers shall hold thee round.
Page 274, line 10. The other gentleman. William Hazlitt. Lamb first met Hazlitt about 1805, and they were intimate, with occasional differences, until Hazlitt's death in 1830. Lamb was with him at the end.
Page 275, line 1. You were pleased (you know where). Lamb had been a Unitarian, as had Coleridge and many others of his friends. Later, indeed, he claimed communion with no sect; while Coleridge became as much against Unitarianism as he had once been for it. Southey was himself converted to Unitarianism by Coleridge, in 1794. Later, however, the Church of England had few stouter supporters. What Lamb means by "You know where" I have not been able to discover—a memory possessed possibly only by Lamb and Southey.
Page 275, line 12. The last time. The only portion of this "Letter" which Lamb preserved began at this point. He rewrote this particular paragraph and included the remainder in Last Essays of Elia, in 1833, under the title, "The Tombs in the Abbey."
Page 276, line 25. Two shillings. The fees cannot have been reduced for at least ten years, for in 1833 Lamb reprinted this passage as it stood in 1823. The Abbey is not yet wholly free on every day of the week; but there is no charge except to view the chapels, and that has been reduced to sixpence. The first reduction after Lamb's protest was made by Dean Ireland, whose term of office lasted from 1816 to 1842. It was he also who appointed official guides. Lamb was not alone in this protest against the fees. One of Hood and Reynolds' Odes and Addresses, 1825, took up the point again.
Page 277, line 20. Major André. John André (1751–1780), a major in the British army in America in the War of Independence. In his capacity as Clinton's Adjutant-General he corresponded with one Arnold, who was plotting to deliver West Point to the British. In the course of his negotiations with Arnold, he crossed into the American lines and was compelled by circumstances to adopt civilian clothes. Being caught in this costume, he was charged as a spy, and, though every effort was made to save him, was, by the necessities of war, shot as such by Washington on October 2, 1780. He died like a hero. The British army donned mourning for his death, and a monument to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey. Lamb alludes to the mutilation of this monument by the fracture of a nose, but as a matter of fact the whole head of Washington had to be renewed more than once. According to Mrs. Gordon's Life of Dean Buckland, two heads taken from the monument were returned from America to the Dean many years ago, with the request that they might be replaced. They had been appropriated as relics. Lamb's reference to Transatlantic Freedom was another hit at Southey's Pantisocratic tendencies (see note above) and his Joan of Arc rebel days.
In the London Magazine for December, 1823, under "The Lion's Head," is the following:—
We have to thank an unknown correspondent for the following
Sonnet
Occasioned by reading in Elia's Letter to Dr. Southey, that the admirable translator of Dante, the modest and amiable C——, still remained a curate—or, as a waggish friend observed—after such a Translation should still be without Preferment.[70]
O Thou! who enteredst the tangled wood,
By that same spirit trusting to be led,
That on the first discoverer's footsteps shed
The light with which another world was view'd;
Thou hast well scann'd the path, and firmly stood
With measured niceness in his holy tread,
Till, mounting up thy star-illumined head,
Thou lookedst in upon the perfect good!
What treasures does thy golden key unfold!
Riches immense, the pearl beyond all price,
And saintly truths to gross ears vainly told!
Say, gilds thy earthly path some Beatrice?—
If bread thou want'st, they will but give thee stones,
And when thou'rt gone, will quarrel for thy bones!
—An Unworthy Rector.
[70] We suspect, by the way, this is not strictly the case, though we believe it is very nearly so.
Page 278. Guy Faux.
London Magazine, November, 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This essay is a blend of new and old. The first portion is new; but at the words (page 279, line 3 from foot) "The Gunpowder Treason was the subject," begins a reprint, with very slight modifications, of an article contributed by Lamb to The Reflector, No. II., in 1811, under the title "On the Probable Effects of the Gunpowder Treason in this country if the Conspirators had accomplished their Object." The Reflector essay was signed "Speculator."
Page 278, line 1. Ingenious and subtle writer. This was Hazlitt, whose article