Charles Lamb: A Memoir

Charles Lamb.

by Barry Cornwall.

PREFACE.

In my seventy-seventh year. I have been invited to place on record my recollections of Charles Lamb.

I am, I believe, nearly the only man now surviving who knew much of the excellent "Elia." a.s.suredly I knew him more intimately than any other existing person, during the last seventeen or eighteen years of his life.

In this predicament, and because I am proud to a.s.sociate my name with his, I shall endeavor to recall former times, and to bring my old friend before the eyes of a new generation.

I request the "courteous reader" to accept, for what they are worth, these desultory labors of a lover of letters; and I hope that the advocate for modern times will try to admit into the circle of his sympathy my recollections of a fine Genius departed.

No harm--possibly some benefit--will accrue to any one who may consent to extend his acquaintance to one of the rarest and most delicate of the Humorists of England.

B. W. PROCTER.

_May_, 1866.

CHARLES LAMB.

CHAPTER I.

_Introduction.--Biography: Few Events.--One predominant.--His Devotion to it.--Tendency to Literature.--First Studies.--Influence of Antique Dwellings.--Early Friends.--Humor.--Qualities of Mind.--Sympathy for neglected Objects.--A Nonconformist.--Predilections.--Character.--Taste.-- Style._

The biography of CHARLES LAMB lies within a narrow compa.s.s. It comprehends only few events. His birth and parentage, and domestic sorrows; his acquaintance with remarkable men; his thoughts and habits; and his migrations from one home to another,--const.i.tute the sum and substance of his almost uneventful history. It is a history with one event, predominant.

For this reason, and because I, in common with many others, hold a book needlessly large to be a great evil, it is my intention to confine the present memoir within moderate limits. My aim is not to write the "Life and Times" of Charles Lamb. Indeed, Lamb had no influence on his own times. He had little or nothing in common with his generation, which was almost a stranger to him. There was no reciprocity between them. His contemplations were retrospective. He was, when living, the centre of a small social circle; and I shall therefore deal incidentally with some of its members. In other respects, this memoir will contain only what I recollect and what I have learned from authentic sources of my old friend.

The fact that distinguished Charles Lamb from other men was his entire devotion to one grand and tender purpose. There is, probably, a romance involved in every life. In his life it exceeded that of others. In gravity, in acuteness, in his n.o.ble battle with a great calamity, it was beyond the rest. Neither pleasure nor toil ever distracted him from his holy purpose. Everything was made subservient to it. He had an insane sister, who, in a moment of uncontrollable madness, had unconsciously destroyed her own mother; and to protect and save this sister--a gentle woman, who had watched like a mother over his own infancy--the whole length of his life was devoted. What he endured, through the s.p.a.ce of nearly forty years, from the incessant fear and frequent recurrence of his sister's insanity, can now only be conjectured. In this constant and uncomplaining endurance, and in his steady adherence to a great principle of conduct, his life was heroic.

We read of men giving up all their days to a single object--to religion, to vengeance, to some overpowering selfish wish; of daring acts done to avert death or disgrace, or some oppressing misfortune. We read mythical tales of friendship; but we do not recollect any instance in which a great object has been so unremittingly carried out throughout a whole life, in defiance of a thousand difficulties, and of numberless temptations, straining the good resolution to its utmost, except in the case of our poor clerk of the India House.

This was, substantially, his life. His actions, thoughts, and sufferings were all concentred on this one important end. It was what he had to do; it was in his reach; and he did it, therefore, manfully, religiously. He did not waste his mind on too many things; for whatever too much expands the mind weakens it; nor on vague or mult.i.tudinous thoughts and speculations; nor on dreams or things distant or unattainable. However interesting, they did not absorb him, body and soul, like the safety and welfare of his sister.

Subject to this primary unflinching purpose, the tendency of Lamb's mind pointed strongly towards literature. He did not seek literature, however; and he gained from it nothing except his fame. He worked laboriously at the India House from boyhood to manhood; for many years without repining; although he must have been conscious of an intellect qualified to shine in other ways than in entering up a trader's books. None of those coveted offices, which bring money and comfort in their train, ever reached Charles Lamb. He was never under that bounteous shower which government leaders and persons of influence direct towards the heads of their adherents. No Dives ever selected him for his golden bounty. No potent critic ever shouldered him up the hill of fame. In the absence of these old-fashioned helps, he was content that his own una.s.sisted efforts should gain for him a certificate of capability to the world, and that the choice reputation which he thus earned should, with his own qualities, bring round him the unenvying love of a host of friends.

Lamb had always been a studious boy and a great reader; and after pa.s.sing through Christ's Hospital and the South Sea House, and being for some years in the India House, this instinctive pa.s.sion of his mind (for literature) broke out. In this he was, without doubt, influenced by the example and counsel of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, his school-fellow and friend, for whom he entertained a high and most tender respect. The first books which he loved to read were volumes of poetry, and essays on serious and religious themes. The works of all the old poets, the history of Quakers, the biography of Wesley, the controversial papers of Priestley, and other books on devout subjects, sank into his mind. From reading he speedily rose to writing; from being a reader he became an author. His first writings were entirely serious. These were verses, or letters, wherein religious thoughts and secular criticisms took their places in turn; or they were grave dramas, which exhibit and lead to the contemplation of character, and which nourish those moods out of which humor ultimately arises.

So much has been already published, that it is needless to enc.u.mber this short narrative with any minute enumeration of the qualities which const.i.tute his station in literature; but I shall, as a part of my task, venture to refer to some of those which distinguish him from other writers.

Lamb's very curious and peculiar humor showed itself early. It was perhaps born of the solitude in which his childhood pa.s.sed away; perhaps cherished by the seeds of madness that were in him, that were in his sister, that were in the ancestry from which he sprung. Without doubt, it caught color from the scenes in the midst of which he grew up. Born in the Temple, educated in Christ's Hospital, and pa.s.sed onwards to the South Sea House, his first visions were necessarily of antiquity. The grave old buildings, tenanted by lawyers and their clerks, were replaced by "the old and awful cloisters" of the School of Edward; and these in turn gave way to the palace of the famous Bubble, now desolate, with its unpeopled Committee Rooms, its pictures of Governors of Queen Anne's time, "its dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, and soundings of the Bay of Panama." These things, if they impressed his mind imperfectly at first, in time formed themselves into the shape of truths, and a.s.sumed significance and importance; as words and things, glanced over hastily in childhood, grow and ripen, and enrich the understanding in after days.

Lamb's earliest friends and confidants, with one exception, were singularly void of wit and the love of jesting. His sister was grave; his father gradually sinking into dotage; Coleridge was immersed in religious subtilties and poetic dreams; and Charles Lloyd, sad and logical and a.n.a.lytical, was the ant.i.thesis of all that is lively and humorous. But thoughts and images stole in from other quarters; and Lamb's mind was essentially quick and productive. Nothing lay barren in it; and much of what was planted there, grew, and spread, and became beautiful. He himself has sown the seeds of humor in many English hearts. His own humor is essentially English. It is addressed to his own countrymen; to the men "whose limbs were made in England;" not to foreign intellects, nor perhaps to the universal mind. Humor, which is the humor of a man (of the writer himself or of his creations), must frequently remain, in its fragrant blossoming state, in the land of its birth. Like some of the most delicate wines and flowers, it will not bear travel.

Apart from his humor and other excellences, Charles Lamb combined qualities such as are seldom united in one person; which indeed seem not easily reconcilable with each other: namely, much prudence, with much generosity; great tenderness of heart, with a firm will. To these was superadded that racy humor which has served to distinguish him from other men. There is no other writer, that I know of, in whom tenderness, and good sense, and humor are so intimately and happily blended; no one whose view of men and things is so invariably generous, and true, and independent. These qualities made their way slowly and fairly. They were not taken up as a matter of favor or fancy, and then abandoned. They struggled through many years of neglect, and some of contumely, before they took their stand triumphantly, and as things not to be ignored by any one.

Lamb pitied all objects which had been neglected or despised. Nevertheless the lens through which he viewed the objects of his pity,--beggars, and chimney-sweepers, and convicts,--was always clear: it served him even when their short-comings were to be contemplated. For he never paltered with truth. He had no weak sensibilities, few tears for imaginary griefs. But his heart opened wide to real distress. He never applauded the fault; but he pitied the offender. He had a word of compa.s.sion for the sheep-stealer, who was arrested and lost his ill-acquired sheep, "his first, last, and only hope of a mutton pie;" and vented his feelings in that sonnet (rejected by the magazines) which he has called "The Gypsey's Malison."

Although he was willing to acknowledge merit when it was successful, he preferred it, perhaps, when it was not clothed with prosperity.

By education and habit, he was a Unitarian. Indeed, he was a true Nonconformist in all things. He was not a dissenter by imitation, nor from any deep principle or obstinate heresy; nor was he made servile and obedient by formal logic alone. His reasoning always rose and streamed through the heart. He liked a friend for none of the ordinary reasons; because he was famous, or clever, or powerful, or popular. He at once took issue with the previous verdicts, and examined the matter in his own way.

If a man was unfortunate, he gave him money. If he was calumniated, he accorded him sympathy. He gave freely; not to merit, but to want.

He pursued his own fancies, his own predilections. He did not neglect his own instinct (which is always true), and aim at things foreign to his nature. He did not cling to any superior intellect, nor cherish any inferior humorist or wit.

Perhaps no one ever thought more independently. He had great enjoyment in the talk of able men, so that it did not savor of form or pretension. He liked the strenuous talk of Hazlitt, who never descended to fine words. He liked the unaffected, quiet conversation of Manning, the vivacious, excursive talk of Leigh Hunt. He heard with wondering admiration the monologues of Coleridge. Perhaps he liked the simplest talk the best; expressions of pity or sympathy, or affection for others; from young people, who thought and said little or nothing about themselves.

He had no craving for popularity, nor even for fame. I do not recollect any pa.s.sage in his writings, nor any expression in his talk, which runs counter to my opinion. In this respect he seems to have differed from Milton (who desired fame, like "Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides"), and to have rather resembled Shakespeare, who was indifferent to fame or a.s.sured of it; but perhaps he resembled no one.

Lamb had not many personal antipathies, but he had a strong aversion to pretence and false repute. In particular, he resented the adulation of the epitaph-mongers who endeavored to place Garrick, the actor, on a level with Shakespeare. Of that greatest of all poets he has said such things as I imagine Shakespeare himself would have liked to hear. He has also uttered brave words in behalf of Shakespeare's contemporary dramatists; partly because they deserved them, partly because they were unjustly forgotten. The sentence of oblivion, pa.s.sed by ignorant ages on the reputation of these fine authors, he has annulled, and forced the world to confess that preceding judges were incompetent to entertain the case.

I cannot imagine the mind of Charles Lamb, even in early boyhood, to have been weak or childish. In his first letters you see that he was a thinker.

He is for a time made sombre by unhappy reflections. He is a reader of thoughtful books. The witticisms which he coined for sixpence each (for the Morning Chronicle) had, no doubt, less of metallic l.u.s.tre than those which he afterwards meditated; and which were highly estimated.

_Effodiuntur opes_. His jests were never the mere overflowings of the animal spirits, but were exercises of the mind. He brought the wisdom of old times and old writers to bear upon the taste and intellect of his day.

What was in a manner foreign to his age, he naturalized and cherished. And he did this with judgment and great delicacy. His books never unhinge or weaken the mind, but bring before it tender and beautiful thoughts, which charm and nourish it as only good books can. No one was ever worse from reading Charles Lamb's writings; but many have become wiser and better.

Sometimes, as he hints, "he affected that dangerous figure, irony;" and he would sometimes interrupt grave discussion, when he thought it too grave, with some light jest, which nevertheless was "not quite irrelevant." Long talkers, as he confesses, "hated him;" and a.s.suredly he hated long talkers.

In his countenance you might sometimes read--what may be occasionally read on almost all foreheads--the letters and lines of old, unforgotten calamity. Yet there was at the bottom of his nature a buoyant self- sustaining strength; for although he encountered frequent seasons of mental distress, his heart recovered itself in the interval, and rose and sounded, like music played to a happy tune. Upon fit occasion, his lips could shut in a firm fashion; but the gentle smile that played about his face showed that he was always ready to relent. His quick eye never had any sullenness: his mouth, tender and tremulous, showed that there would be nothing cruel or inflexible in his nature.

On referring to his letters, it must be confessed that in literature Lamb's taste, like that of all others, was at first imperfect. For taste is a portion of our judgment, and must depend a good deal on our experience, and on our opportunities of comparing the claims of different pretenders. Lamb's affections swayed him at all times. He sympathized deeply with Cowper and his melancholy history, and at first estimated his verse, perhaps, beyond its strict value. He was intimate with Southey, and antic.i.p.ated that he would rival Milton. Then his taste was at all times peculiar. He seldom worshipped the Idol which the mult.i.tude had set up. I was never able to prevail on him to admit that "Paradise Lost" was greater than "Paradise Regained;" I believe, indeed, he liked the last the best.

He would not discuss the Poetry of Lord Byron or Sh.e.l.ley, with a view of being convinced of their beauties. Apart from a few points like these, his opinions must be allowed to be sound; almost always; if not as to the style of the author, then as to the quality of his book or pa.s.sage which he chose to select. And his own style was always good, from the beginning, in verse as well as in prose. His first sonnets are unaffected, well sustained, and well written.

I do not know much of the opinion of others; but to my thinking the style of Charles Lamb, in his "Elia," and in the letters written by him in the later (the last twenty) years of his life, is full of grace; not antiquated, but having a touch of antiquity. It is self-possessed, choice, delicate, penetrating, his words running into the innermost sense of things. It is not, indeed, adapted to the meanest capacity, but is racy, and chaste, after his fashion. Perhaps it is sometimes scriptural: at all events it is always earnest and sincere. He was painfully in earnest in his advocacy of Hazlitt and Hunt, and in his pleadings for Hogarth and the old dramatists. Even in his humor, his fict.i.tious (as well as his real) personages have a character of reality about them which gives them their standard value. They all ring like true coin. In conversation he loved to discuss persons or books, and seldom ventured upon the stormy sea of politics; his intimates lying on the two opposite sh.o.r.es, Liberal and Tory. Yet, when occasion moved him, he did not refuse to express his liberal opinions. There was little or nothing cloudy or vague about him; he required that there should be known ground even in fiction. He rejected the poems of Sh.e.l.ley (many of them so consummately beautiful), because they were too exclusively ideal. Their efflorescence, he thought, was not natural. He preferred Southey's "Don Roderick" to his "Curse of Kehama;"

of which latter poem he says, "I don't feel that firm footing in it that I do in 'Roderick.' My imagination goes sinking and floundering in the vast s.p.a.ces of unopened systems and faiths. I am put out of the pale of my old sympathies."

Charles Lamb had much respect for some of the modern authors. In particular, he admired (to the full extent of his capacity for liking) Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Burns. But with these exceptions his affections rested mainly on writers who had lived before him; on _some_ of them; for there were "things in books' clothing" from which he turned away loathing. He was not a worshipper of the customs and manners of old times, so much as of the tangible objects that old times have bequeathed to us; the volumes tinged with decay, the buildings (the Temple, Christ's Hospital, &c.) colored and enriched by the hand of age. Apart from these, he clung to the time present; for if he hated anything in the extreme degree, he hated change.

He clung to life, although life had bestowed upon him no magnificent gifts; none, indeed, beyond books, and friends (a "ragged regiment"), and an affectionate, contented mind. He had, he confesses, "an intolerable disinclination to dying;" which beset him especially in the winter months.

"I am not content to pa.s.s away like a weaver's shuttle. Any alteration in this earth of mine discomposes me. My household G.o.ds plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood." He seems never to have looked into the Future. His eyes were on the present or (oftener) on the past. It was always thus from his boyhood. His first readings were princ.i.p.ally Beaumont and Fletcher, Ma.s.singer, Isaac Walton, &c. "I gather myself up" (he writes) "unto the old things." He has indeed extracted the beauty and innermost value of Antiquity, whenever he has pressed it into his service.

CHAPTER II.

_Birth and Parentage.--Christ's Hospital.--South Sea House and India House.--Condition of Family.--Death of Mother.--Mary in Asylum.--John Lamb.--Charles's Means of Living.--His Home.--Despondency.--Alice W.-- Brother and Sister._

On the south side of Fleet Street, near to where it adjoins Temple Bar, lies the Inner Temple. It extends southward to the Thames, and contains long ranges of melancholy buildings, in which lawyers (those reputed birds of prey) and their followers congregate. It is a district very memorable.

About seven hundred years ago, it was the abiding-place of the Knights Templars, who erected there a church, which still uplifts its round tower (its sole relic) for the wonder of modern times. Fifty years since, I remember, you entered the precinct through a lowering archway that opened into a gloomy pa.s.sage--Inner Temple Lane. On the east side rose the church; and on the west was a dark line of chambers, since pulled down and rebuilt, and now called Johnson's Buildings. At some distance westward was an open court, in which was a sun-dial, and, in the midst, a solitary fountain, that sent its silvery voice into the air above, the murmur of which, descending, seemed to render the place more lonely. Midway, between the Inner Temple Lane and the Thames, was, and I believe still is, a range of substantial chambers (overlooking the gardens and the busy river), called Crown Office Row. In one of these chambers, on the 18th day of February, 1775, Charles Lamb was born.

He was the son of John and Elizabeth Lamb; and he and his brother John and his sister Mary (both of whom were considerably older than himself) were the only children of their parents. John was twelve years, and Mary (properly Mary Anne) was ten years older than Charles. Their father held the post of clerk to Mr. Samuel Salt, a barrister, one of the benchers of the Inner Temple; a mild, amiable man, very indolent, very shy, and, as I imagine, not much known in what is called "the profession."