Charles Lamb

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CHAPTER III.

_Jem White.--Coleridge.--Lamb's Inspiration.--Early Letters.--Poem
published.--Charles Lloyd.--Liking for Burns, &c.--Quakerism.--Robert
Southey.--Southey and Coleridge.--Antijacobin.--Rosamond Gray.-George
Dyer.-Manning.--Mary's Illnesses.--Migrations.--Hester Savory._

After the pain arising from the deaths of his parents had somewhat
subsided, and his sorrow, exhausting itself in the usual manner, had given
way to calm, the story of Lamb becomes mainly an account of his
intercourse with society. He was surrounded, during his somewhat
monotonous career, by affectionate and admiring friends, who helped to
bring out his rare qualities, who stimulated his genius, and who are in
fact interwoven with his own history.

One of the earliest of these was his schoolfellow James (familiarly Jem)
White. This youth, who at the beginning of this period was his most
frequent companion, had great cleverness and abundant animal spirits,
under the influence of which he had produced a small volume, entitled
"Original Letters of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends." These letters
were ingenious imitations of the style and tone of thought of the
celebrated Shakespearian knight and his familiars. Beyond this merit they
are, perhaps, not sufficiently full of that enduring matter which is
intended for posterity. Nevertheless they contain some good and a few
excellent things. The letter of Davy (Justice Shallow's servant) giving an
account to his master of the death of poor Abram Slender is very touching.
Slender dies from mere love of sweet Ann Page; "Master Abram is dead;
gone, your worship. A' sang his soul and body quite away. A' turned like
the latter end of a lover's lute."

White's book was published in 1796; and one of the early copies was sold
at the Roxburgh sale for five guineas. Is it possible that the imitations
could have been mistaken for originals? Afterwards, the little book could
be picked up for eighteenpence; even for sixpence. It was always a great
favorite with Lamb. He reviewed it, after White's death, in the
_Examiner_. Lamb's friendship and sympathy in taste with White induced him
to attach greater value to this book than it was, perhaps, strictly
entitled to; he even passes some commendation on the frontispiece, which
is undoubtedly a very poor specimen of art. It is remarkable how Lamb, who
was able to enter so completely into Hogarth's sterling humor, could ever
have placed any value upon this counterfeit coin.

But Lamb had a great regard for Jem White. They had been boys together,
school-fellows in Christ's Hospital; and these very early friendships
seldom undergo any severe critical tests. At all events, Lamb thought
highly of White's book, which he used often to purchase and give away to
his friends, in justification of his own taste and to extend the fame of
the author. The copy which he gave me I have still. White, it seems, after
leaving Christ's Hospital as a scholar, took some office there; but
eventually left it, and became an agent for newspapers.

In one of the Elia essays, "The Praise of Chimney-sweepers," Lamb has set
forth some of the merits of his old friend. Undoubtedly Jem White must
have been a thoroughly kind-hearted man, since he could give a dinner
every year, on St. Bartholomew's day, to the little chimney-sweepers of
London; waiting on them, and cheering them up with his jokes and lively
talk; creating at least one happy day annually in each of their poor
lives. At the date of the essay (May, 1822) he had died. In Lamb's words,
"James White is extinct; and with him the suppers have long ceased. He
carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died--of my world,
at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, missing him,
reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield
departed forever."

The great friend and Mentor, however, of Charles Lamb's youth, was (as has
frequently been asserted) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was a philosopher,
and who was considered, almost universally, to be the greater genius of
the two. It may be so; and there is little doubt that in mere capacity, in
the power of accumulating and disbursing ideas, and in the extent and
variety of his knowledge, he exceeded Lamb, and also most of his other
contemporaries; but the mind of Lamb was quite as original, and more
compact. The two friends were very dissimilar, the one wandering amongst
lofty, ill-defined objects, whilst the other "clung to the realities of
life." It is fortunately not necessary to enter into any comparative
estimate of these two remarkable persons. Each had his positive qualities
and peculiarities, by which he was distinguishable from other men; and by
these he may therefore be separately and more safely judged.

In his mature age (when I knew him) Coleridge had a full, round face, a
fine, broad forehead, rather thick lips, and strange, dreamy eyes, which
were often lighted up by eagerness, but wanted concentration, and were
adapted apparently for musing or speculation, rather than for precise or
rapid judgment. Yet he was very shrewd, as well as eloquent; was
(slightly) addicted to jesting; and would talk "at sight" upon any subject
with extreme fluency and much knowledge. "His white hair," in Lamb's
words, "shrouded a capacious brain."

Coleridge had browsed and expatiated over all the rich regions of
literature, at home and abroad. In youth his studies had, in the first
instance, been mainly in theology, he having selected the "Church" for his
profession. Although he was educated in the creed and rites of the Church
of England, he became for a time a Unitarian preacher, and scattered his
eloquent words over many human audiences. He was fond of questions of
logic, and of explaining his systems and opinions by means of diagrams;
but his projects were seldom consummated; and his talk (sometimes) and his
prose writing (often) were tedious and diffuse. His "Christabel," from
which he derived much of his fame, remained, after a lapse of more than
thirty years, incomplete at his death. He gained much reputation from the
"Ancient Mariner" (which is perhaps his best poem); but his translation of
Schiller's "Wallenstein" is the only achievement that shows him capable of
a great prolonged effort. Lamb used to boast that he supplied one line to
his friend in the fourth scene of that tragedy, where the description of
the Pagan deities occurs. In speaking of Satan, he is figured as "an old
man melancholy." "That was _my_ line," Lamb would say, exultingly. I
forget how it was originally written, except that it had not the extra (or
eleventh) syllable, which it now possesses.

There is some beautiful writing in this fourth scene, which may be read
after Mr. Wordsworth's equally beautiful reference to the Olympian gods
and goddesses, in the fourth book of the "Excursion," entitled
"Despondency Corrected." The last explains more completely than the other
the attributes of the deities specially named.

The most elaborate (perhaps impartial) sketches of Coleridge--his great
talents, combined with his great weaknesses--may be found in Hazlitt's
Essays, "The Spirit of the Age" and "My First Acquaintance with Poets;"
and in the eighth chapter of Mr. Carlyle's "Life of John Sterling."

In Lamb's letters it is easy to perceive that the writer soon became aware
of the foibles of his friend. "Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge," is his
admonition as early as 1796. In another place his remark is, "You have
been straining your faculties to bring together things infinitely distant
and unlike." Again, "I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your
plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling
nowhere." Robert Southey, whose prose style was the perfection of
neatness, and who was intimate with Coleridge throughout his life, laments
that it is "extraordinary that he should write in so rambling and
inconclusive a manner;" his mind, which was undoubtedly very pliable and
subtle, "turning and winding, till you get weary of following his mazy
movements."

Charles Lamb, however, always sincerely admired and loved his old
schoolfellow, and grieved deeply when he died. The recollection of this
event, which happened many years afterwards (in 1834), never left Lamb
until his own death: he used perpetually to exclaim, "Coleridge is dead,
Coleridge is dead," in a low, musing, meditative voice. These exclamations
(addressed to no one) were, as Lamb was a most unaffected man, assuredly
involuntary, and showed that he could not get rid of the melancholy truth.

At this distance of time, many persons (judging by what he has left behind
him) wonder at the extent of admiration which possessed some of
Coleridge's contemporaries: Charles Lamb accorded to his genius something
scarcely short of absolute worship; Robert Southey considered his capacity
as exceeding that of almost all other writers; and Leigh Hunt, speaking of
Coleridge's personal appearance, says, "He had a mighty intellect put upon
a sensual body." Persons who were intimate with both have suggested that
even Wordsworth was indebted to him for some of his philosophy. As late as
1818, Lamb, when dedicating his works to him, says that Coleridge "first
kindled in him, if not the power, the love, of poetry, and beauty, and
kindness." He must be judged, however, by what he has actually _done_.

I am not here as the valuer of Coleridge's merits. I have no pretensions
and no desire to assume so delicate an office. His dreams and intentions
were undoubtedly good, and, had he been able to carry them out for the
benefit of the world, would have entitled himself to the name of a great
poet, a great genius. His readiness to discuss _all_ subjects, and his
ability to talk on most of them with ease, were marvellous. But he was
always infirm of purpose, and never did justice to his own capacity.

Amongst other men of talent who have sung Coleridge's praises should be
named Hazlitt, who knew him in 1798, and has enshrined him in the first of
his charming papers, entitled "Winterslow Essays." Hazlitt admits his
feebleness of purpose, but speaks of his genius, shining upon his own
(then) dumb, inarticulate nature, as the sun "upon the puddles of the
road." Coleridge at that time was a Unitarian minister, and had come to
preach, instead of the minister for the time being, at Shrewsbury. Hazlitt
rose before daylight (it was in January), and walked from Wem to
Shrewsbury, a distance of ten miles, to hear the "celebrated" man, who
combined the inspirations of poet and preacher in one person, enlighten a
Shropshire congregation. "Never, the longest day I have to live" (says
he), "shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one,
in the winter of 1798. When I got there [to the Chapel], the organ was
playing the one hundredth Psalm; and when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose
and gave out his text--'And he went up into the mountain to pray, HIMSELF
ALONE.' The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle
dallying with the wind," &c. Coleridge was at that time only five and
twenty years of age; yet he seems even then to have been able to decide on
many writers in logic and rhetoric, philosophy and poetry. Of course he
was familiar with the works of his friend Wordsworth, of whom he cleverly
observed, in reply to the depreciating opinion of Mackintosh, "He strides
on so far before you, that he dwindles in the distance." [1]

It would be very interesting, were it practicable, to trace with certainty
the sources that supplied Charles Lamb's inspiration. But this must always
be impossible. For inspiration, in all cases, proceeds from many sources,
although there may be one influence predominating. It is clear that a
great Tragedy mainly determined his conduct through life, and operated,
therefore, materially on his thoughts as well as actions. The terrible
death of his mother concentrated and strengthened his mind, and prevented
its dissipation into trifling and ignoble thoughts. The regularity of the
India House labor upheld him. The extent and character of his acquaintance
also helped to determine the quality of the things which he produced. Had
he seen less, his mind might have become warped and rigid, as from want of
space. Had he seen too much, his thoughts might have been split and
exhausted upon too many points, and would thus have been so perplexed and
harassed, that the value of his productions, now known and current through
all classes, might scarcely have exceeded a negative quantity.

Then, in his companions he must be accounted fortunate. Coleridge helped
to unloose his mind from too precise notions: Southey gave it consistency
and correctness: Manning expanded his vision: Hazlitt gave him daring:
perhaps even poor George Dyer, like some unrecognized virtue, may have
kept alive and nourished the pity and tenderness which were originally
sown within him. We must leave the difficulty, as we must leave the great
problems of Nature, unexplained, and be content with what is self-evident
before us. We know, at all events, that he had an open heart, and that the
heart is a fountain which never fails.

The earliest productions of Lamb which have come down to us, namely,
verses, and criticism, and letters, are all in a grave and thoughtful
tone. The letters, at first, are on melancholy subjects, but afterwards
stray into criticism or into details of his readings, or an account of his
predilections for books and authors. At one or two and twenty, he had read
and formed opinions on Shakespeare, on Beaumont and Fletchcr, on
Massinger, Milton, Cowley, Isaac Walton, Burns, Collins, and others; some
of these, be it observed, lying much out of the ordinary course of a young
man's reading. He was also acquainted with the writings of Priestley and
Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards; for the first of whom he entertained the
deepest respect.

Lamb's verses were always good, steady, and firm, and void of those
magniloquent commonplaces which so clearly betray the immature writer.
They were at no time misty nor inconsequent, but contained proof that he
had reasoned out his idea. From the age of twenty-one to the age of fifty-
nine, when he died, he hated fine words and flourishes of rhetoric. His
imagination (not very lofty, perhaps) is to be discovered less in his
verse than in his prose humor, than in his letters and essays. In these it
was never trivial, but was always knit together by good sense, or softened
by tenderness. Real humor seldom makes its appearance in the first
literary ventures of young writers. Accordingly, symptoms of humor (which,
nevertheless, were not long delayed) are not to be discovered in Charles
Lamb's first letters or poems; the latter, when prepared for publication
in 1796, being especially grave. They are entitled "Poems by Charles Lamb
of the India House," and are inscribed to "Mary Anne Lamb, the author's
best friend and sister."

After some procrastination, the book containing them was published in
1797, conjointly with other verses by Coleridge and Charles Lloyd. "We
came into our first battle" (Charles says in his dedication to Coleridge,
in 1818) "under cover of the greater Ajax." In this volume Lloyd's verses
took precedence of Lamb's, at Coleridge's suggestion. This suggestion, the
reason of which is not very obvious, was very readily acceded to, Lamb
having a sincere regard for Lloyd, who (with a fine reasoning mind) was
subject to that sad mental disease which was common to both their
families. Lamb has addressed some verses to Lloyd at this date, which
indicate the great respect he felt towards his friend's intellect:--

"I'll think less meanly of myself, That Lloyd will sometimes think of me."

This joint volume was published without much success. In the same year
Lamb and his sister paid a visit to Coleridge, then living at Stowey, in
Somersetshire; after which Coleridge, for what purpose does not very
clearly appear, migrated to Germany. This happened in the year 1798.

Charles Lloyd, one of the triumvirate of 1797, was the son of a banker at
Birmingham. He was educated as a Quaker, but seceded from that body, and
afterwards became "perplexed in mind," and very desponding. He often took
up his residence in London, but did not mingle much with society. An
extreme melancholy darkened his latter days; and, as I believe, he died
insane. He published various poems, and translated, from the Italian into
English blank verse, the tragedies of Alfieri. His poems are distinguished
rather by a remarkable power of intellectual analysis than by the delicacy
or fervor of the verse.

The last time I saw Charles Lloyd was in company with Hazlitt. We heard
that he had taken lodgings at a working brazier's shop in Fetter Lane, and
we visited him there, and found him in bed, much depressed, but very
willing to discuss certain problems with Hazlitt, who carried on the
greater part of the conversation. We understood that he had selected these
noisy apartments in order that they might distract his mind from the fears
and melancholy thoughts which at that time distressed him.

It was soon after the publication of the joint volume that Charles
chronicles the different tastes of himself and his friend. "Burns," he
says, "is the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours." Posterity has
universally joined in the preference of Lamb. Burns, indeed, was always
one of his greatest favorites. He admired and sometimes quoted a line or
two from the last stanza of the "Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn,"
"The bridegroom may forget his bride," &c.; and I have more than once
heard him repeat, in a fond, tender voice, when the subject of poets or
poetry came under discussion, the following beautiful lines from the
Epistle to Simpson of Ochiltree:

"The Muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander
An' no think't lang."

These he would press upon the attention of any one present (chanting them
aloud), and would bring down the volume of Burns, and open it, in order
that the page might be impressed on the hearer's memory. Sometimes--in a
way scarcely discernible--he would kiss the volume; as he would also a
book by Chapman or Sir Philip Sidney, or any other which he particularly
valued. I have seen him read out a passage from the Holy Dying and the Urn
Burial, and express in the same way his devotion and gratitude.

Lamb had been brought up a Unitarian; but he appears to have been
occasionally fluctuating in a matter as to which boys are not apt to
entertain very rigid opinions. At one time he longed to be with superior
thinkers. "I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself,"
are his words. At another time he writes, "I have had thoughts of turning
Quaker lately." A visit, however, to one of the Quaker meetings in 1797,
decides him against such conversion: "This cured me of Quakerism. I love
it in the books of Penn and Woodman; but I detest the vanity of man,
thinking he speaks by the Spirit." A similar story is told of Coleridge.
Mr. Justice Coleridge's statement is, "He told us a humorous story of his
enthusiastic fondness for Quakers when at Cambridge, and his attending one
of their meetings, which had entirely cured him."

In 1797 Charles Lamb (who had been introduced to Southey by Coleridge two
years previously) accompanied Lloyd to a little village near Christchurch,
in Hampshire, where Southey was at that time reading. This little holiday
(of a fortnight) seems to have converted the acquaintanceship between
Southey and Lamb into something like intimacy. He then paid another visit
(which he had long meditated) to Coleridge, who was residing at Stowey.

It must have been shortly after this first visit (for Lamb went again to
Stowey, and met Wordsworth there in 1801) that Coleridge undertook the
office of minister to a Unitarian congregation at Shrewsbury, and preached
there, as detailed by Hazlitt in the manner already set forth. In 1798 he
took his departure for Germany, and this led to a familiar correspondence
between Lamb and Southey. The opening of Lamb's humor may probably be
referred to this friendship with a congenial humorist, and one, like
himself, taking a strong interest in worldly matters. Coleridge, between
whom and Lamb there was not much similarity of feeling, beyond their
common love for poetry and religious writings, was absent, and Lamb was
enticed by the kindred spirit of Southey into the accessible regions of
humor. These two friends never arrived at that close friendship which had
been forming between Coleridge and Lamb ever since their school-days at
Christ's Hospital. But they interchanged ideas on poetical and humorous
topics, and did not perplex themselves with anything speculative or
transcendental.

The first letter to Southey, which has been preserved (July, 1798),
announces that Lamb is ready to enter into any jocose contest. It includes
a list of queries to be defended by Coleridge at Leipsic or Gottingen; the
first of which was, "Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true
man?" Some of these queries, in all probability, had relation to
Coleridge's own infirmities: at all events, they were sent over to him in
reply to the benediction which he had thought proper to bequeath to
Charles on leaving England. "Poor Lamb, if he wants _any knowledge_ he may
apply to _me_." I must believe that this message was jocose, otherwise it
would have been insolent in the extreme degree. Coleridge's answers to the
queries above adverted to are not known; I believe that the proffered
knowledge was not afforded so readily as it was demanded.

It has been surmised that there was some interruption of the good feeling
between Coleridge and Lamb about this period of their lives; but I cannot
discern this in the letters that occurred between the two schoolfellows.
The message of Coleridge, and the questions in reply, occur in 1798; and
in May, 1800, there is a letter from Lamb to Coleridge, and subsequently
two others, in the same year, all couched in the old customary, friendly
tone. In addition to this, Charles Lamb, many years afterwards, said that
there had been an uninterrupted friendship of fifty years between them. In
one letter of Lamb's, indeed (17th March, 1800), it appears that his early
notions of Coleridge being a "very good man" had been traversed by some
doubts; but these "foolish impressions" were short-lived, and did not
apparently form any check to the continuance of their life-long
friendship.

It is clear that Lamb's judgment was at this time becoming independent. In
one of his letters to Coleridge, when comparing his friend's merits with
those of Southey, he says, "Southey has no pretensions to vie with you in
the sublime of poetry, but he tells a plain story better." Even to Southey
he is equally candid. Writing to him on the subject of a volume of poems
which he had lately published, he remarks, "The Rose is the only insipid
poem in the volume; it has neither thorns nor sweetness."

In 1798 or 1799, Lamb contributed to the Annual Anthology (which Mr.
Cottle, a bookseller of Bristol, published), jointly with Coleridge and
Southey. In 1800 he was introduced by Coleridge to Godwin. It is clear
that Charles's intimacy with Coleridge, and Southey, and Lloyd, was not
productive of unmitigated pleasure. For the "Antijacobin" made its
appearance about this time, and denounced them all in a manner which in
the present day would itself be denounced as infamous. Some of these
gentlemen (Lamb's friends), in common with many others, augured at first
favorably of the actors in the great French Revolution, and this had
excited much displeasure in the Tory ranks. Accordingly they were
represented as being guilty of blasphemy and slander, and as being adorers
of a certain French revolutionist, named Lepaux, of whom Lamb, at all
events, was entirely ignorant. They wore, moreover, the subject of a
caricature by Gilray, in which Lamb and Lloyd were portrayed as toad and
frog. I cannot think, with Sir T. Talfourd, that all these libels were
excusable, on the ground of the "sportive wit" of the offending parties.
Lamb's writings had no reference whatever to political subjects; they
were, on the contrary, as the first writings of a young man generally are,
serious,--even religious. Referring to Coleridge, it is stated that he
"was dishonored at Cambridge for preaching Deism, and that he had since
left his native country, and left his poor children fatherless, and his
wife destitute:" _ex his disce his friends Lamb and Southey._ A scurrilous
libel of this stamp would now be rejected by all persons of good feeling
or good character. It would be spurned by a decent publication, or, if
published, would be consigned to the justice of a jury.

The little story of Rosamond Gray was wrought out of the artist's brain in
the year 1798, stimulated, as Lamb confesses, by the old ballad of "An old
woman clothed in gray," which he had been reading. It is defective as a
regular tale. It wants circumstance and probability, and is slenderly
provided with character. There is, moreover, no construction in the
narrative, and little or no progress in the events. Yet it is very
daintily told. The mind of the author wells out in the purest streams.
Having to deal with one foul incident, the tale is nevertheless without
speck or blemish. A virgin nymph, born of a lily, could not have unfolded
her thoughts more delicately. And, in spite of its improbability, Rosamond
Gray is very pathetic. It touches the sensitive points in young hearts;
and it was by no means without success--the author's first success. It
sold much better than his poems, and added "a few pounds" to his slender
income.

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