Amongst others, Charles Lamb came to most of these dinners, always dressed in black (his old snuff-colored suit having been dismissed for years); always kind and genial; conversational, not talkative, but quick in reply; eating little, and drinking moderately with the rest. Allan Cunningham, a stalwart man, was generally there; very Scotch in aspect, but ready to do a good turn to any one. His talk was not too abundant, although he was a voluminous writer in prose. His songs, not unworthy of being compared with even those of Burns, are (as everybody knows) excellent. His face shone at these festivities. Reynolds came always. His good temper and vivacity were like condiments at the feast.
There also came, once or twice, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the quiet gentleness of whose face almost interfered with its real intelligence. Yet he spoke well, and with readiness, on any subject that he chose to discuss. He was very intimate with Lamb, who latterly often dined with him, and was always punctual. "By Cot"s plessing we will not be absent at the Grace" (he writes in 1834). Lamb"s taste was very homely: he liked tripe and cow- heel, and once, when he was suggesting a particular dish to his friend, he wrote," We were talking of roast shoulder of mutton and onion sauce; but I scorn to prescribe hospitalities. "Charles had great regard for Mr. Cary; and in his last letter (written on his death-bed) he inquired for a book, which he was very uneasy about, and which he thought he had left at Mrs.
Dyer"s. "It is Mr. Cary"s book" (he says), "and I would not lose it for the world." Cary was entirely without vanity; and he, who had traversed the ghastly regions of the Inferno, interchanged little courtesies on equal terms with workers who had never travelled beyond the pages of "The London Magazine." No one (it is said) who has performed anything great ever looks big upon it.
Thomas Hood was there, almost silent except when he shot out some irresistible pun, and disturbed the gravity of the company. Hood"s labors were poetic, but his sports were pa.s.serine. It is remarkable that he, who was capable of jesting even on his own prejudices and predilections, should not (like Catullus) have brought down the "Sparrow," and enclosed him in an ode. Lamb admired and was very familiar with him. "What a fertile genius he is!" (Charles Lamb writes to Bernard Barton), "and quiet withal." He then expatiates particularly on Hood"s sketch of "Very Deaf indeed!" wherein a footpad has stopped an old gentleman, but cannot make him understand what he wants, although the fellow is firing a pistol into his ear trumpet. "You"d like him very much," he adds. Although Lamb liked him very much, he was a little annoyed once by Hood writing a comical essay in imitation of (and so much like) one of his own, that people generally thought that Elia had awakened in an unruly mood. Hazlitt attended once or twice; but he was a rather silent guest, rising into emphatic talk only when some political discussion (very rare) stimulated him.
Mr. De Quincey appeared at only one of these dinners. The expression of his face was intelligent, but cramped and somewhat peevish. He was self- involved, and did not add to the cheerfulness of the meeting. I have consulted this gentleman"s three essays, of which Charles Lamb is professedly the subject; but I cannot derive from them anything ill.u.s.trative of my friend Lamb"s character. I have been mainly struck therein by De Quincey"s attacks on Hazlitt, to whom the essays had no relation. I am aware that the two authors (Hazlitt and De Quincey) had a quarrel in 1823, Hazlitt having claimed certain theories or reasonings which the other had propounded as his own. In reply to Mr. De Quincey"s claims to have had a familiar acquaintance with Charles Lamb (in 1821 and 1823), I have to observe that during these years (when I was almost continually with him) I never saw Mr. De Quincey at his house, and never heard Lamb speak of him or refer to his writings on any occasion. His visits to Lamb were surely very rare.
_John Clare_, a peasant from Northamptonshire, and a better poet than Bloomfield, was one of the visitors. He was thoroughly rustic, dressed in conspicuously country fashion, and was as simple as a daisy. His delight at the wonders of London formed the staple of his talk. This was often stimulated into extravagance by the facetious fictions of Reynolds. Poor fellow, he died insane.
About this time Lamb determined to leave London; and in 1823 he moved into Colebrook Cottage, Islington, a small, detached white house of six rooms.
"The New River, rather elderly by this time" (he says), "runs, if a moderate walking pace can be so termed, close to the foot of the house; behind is a s.p.a.cious garden, &c., and the cheerful dining-room is studded all over and rough with old books: I feel like a great lord; never having had a house before."
From this place (which a friend of his christened "Petty Venice") he used often to walk into London, to breakfast or dine with an acquaintance. For walking was always grateful to him. When confined to his room in the India House, he counted it amongst his princ.i.p.al recreations, and even now, with the whole world of leisure before him, it ranked amongst his daily enjoyments. By himself or with an acquaintance, and subsequently with Hood"s dog Dash (whose name should have been Rover), he wandered over all the roads and by-paths of the adjoining country. He was a peripatetic, in every way, beyond the followers of Aristotle. Walking occupied his energies; and when he returned home, he (like Sarah Battle) "unbent his mind over a book." "I cannot sit and think" is his phrase. If he now and then stopped for a minute at a rustic public house, tired with the excursive caprices of Dash--beguiled perhaps by the simple attractions of a village sign--I hold him excusable for the gla.s.s of porter which sometimes invigorated him in his fatigue.
In the course of these walks he traversed all the green regions which lie on the north and north-east of the metropolis. In London he loved to frequent those streets where the old bookshops were, Wardour Street, Princes Street, Seven Dials (where the shop has been long closed): he loved also Gray"s Inn, in the garden of which he met Dodd, just before his death ("with his buffoon mask taken off"); and the Temple, into which you pa.s.s from the noise and crowd of Fleet Street,--into the quiet and "ample squares and green recesses," where the old Dial," the garden G.o.d of Christian gardens," then told of Time, and where the still living fountain sends up its song into the listening air.
Of the Essays of "Elia," [1] written originally for the London Magazine, I feel it difficult to speak. They are the best amongst the good--his best.
I see that they are genial, delicate, terse, full of thought and full of humor; that they are delightfully personal; and when he speaks of himself you cannot hear too much; that they are not imitations, but adoptions. We encounter his likings and fears, his fancies (his nature) in all. The words have an import never known before: the syllables have expanded their meaning, like opened flowers; the goodness of others is heightened by his own tenderness; and what is in nature hard and bad is qualified (qualified, not concealed) by the tender light of pity, which always intermingles with his own vision. Gravity and laughter, fact and fiction, are heaped together, leavened in each case by charity and toleration; and all are marked by a wise humanity. Lamb"s humor, I imagine, often reflected (sometimes, I hope, relieved) the load of pain that always weighed on his own heart.
The first of the Essays ("The South Sea House") appeared in the month of August, 1820; the last ("Captain Jackson") in November, 1824. Lamb"s literary prosperity during this period was at the highest; yet he was always loath to show himself too much before the world. After the first series of Essays had been published (for they are divided into two parts) he feigned that he was dead, and caused the second series to be printed as by "a friend of the late Elia." These were written somewhat reluctantly.
His words are, "To say the truth, it is time he [Elia] were gone. The humor of the thing, if ever there were much humor in it, was pretty well exhausted; and a two years-and-a-half existence has been a tolerable duration for a phantom." It is thus modestly that he speaks of essays which have delighted all cultivated readers.
I want a phrase to express the combination of qualities which const.i.tutes Lamb"s excellence in letters. In the absence of this, I must content myself with referring to some of the papers which live most distinctly in my recollection. I will not transcribe any part of his eulogy on Hogarth; nor of his fine survey of "Lear," that grandest of all tragedies. They are well known to students of books. I turn for a moment to the Elia Essays only. In mere variety of subject (extent in a small s.p.a.ce) they surpa.s.s almost all other essays. They are full of a witty melancholy. Many of them may be termed autobiographical, which trebles their interest with most readers.
Let me recollect:--How he mourns over the ruins of Blakesmoor (once his home on holidays), "reduced to an antiquity"! How he stalks, ghost-like, through the desolate rooms of the South Sea House, or treads the avenues of the Temple, where the benchers ("supposed to have been children once") are pacing the stony terraces! Then there is the inimitable Sarah Battle (unconquered even by Chance), arming herself for the war of whist; and the young Africans, "preaching from their chimney-pulpits lessons of patience to mankind." If your appet.i.te is keen, by all means visit Bobo, who invented roast pig: if gay, and disposed to saunter through the pleasant lanes of Hertfordshire, go to Mackery End, where the Gladmans and Brutons will bid you welcome: if grave, let your eyes repose on the face of dear old Bridget Elia, "in a season of distress the truest comforter." Should you wish to enlarge your humanity, place a few coins (maravedis) in the palm of one of the beggars (the "blind Tobits") of London, and try to believe his tales, histories or fables, as though they were the veritable stories (told by night) on the banks of the famous Tigris. Do not despise the poorest of the poor--even the writer of valentines: "All valentines are not foolish," as you may read in Elia"s words; and "All fools" day"
may cheer you, as the fool in "Lear" may make you wise and tolerant.
I could go on for many pages--to the poor relations, and the old books, and the old actors; to Dodd, who "dying put on the weeds of Dominic;" and to Mrs. Jordan and d.i.c.key Suet (both whom I well remember); to Elliston, always on the stage; to Munden, with features ever changing; and to Liston, with only one face: "But what a face!" I forbear. I pa.s.s also over Comberbatch (Coleridge), borrower of books, and Captain Jackson, and Barbara S. (Miss Kelly), and go to the rest of my little history. The "Popular Fallacies," which in course of time followed, and were eventually added to the second series and re-published, are in manner essays also on a small scale, brief and dealing with abstract subjects more than the "Elia." It may be interesting to know that Lamb"s two favorites were "That home is home, though it is never so homely," and "That we should rise with the lark." In the first of these he enters into all the discomforts and terrible distractions of a poor man"s home; in the second he descants on the luxuries of bed, and the nutritious value of dreams: "The busy part of mankind," he says, "are content to swallow their sleep by wholesale: we choose to linger in bed and digest our dreams." The last "Fallacy" is remarkable for a sentence which seems to refer to Alice W.: "We were never much in the world," he says; "disappointment early struck a dark veil between us and its dazzling illusions:" he then concludes with, "We once thought life to be something; but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its time. The sun has no purposes of ours to light us to. Why should we get up?"
It will be observed by the sagacious student of the entire Essays, that however quaint or familiar, or (rarely, however) sprinkled with cla.s.sical allusions, they are never vulgar, nor commonplace, nor pedantic. They are "natural with a self-pleasing quaintness." The phrases are not affected, but are derived from our ancestors, now gone to another country; they are brought back from the land of shadows, and made denizens of England, in modern times. Lamb"s studies were the lives and characters of men; his humors and tragic meditations were generally dug out of his own heart: there are in them earnestness, and pity, and generosity, and truth; and there is not a mean or base thought to be found throughout all.
In reading over these old essays, some of them affect me with a grave pleasure, amounting to pain. I seem to import into them the very feeling with which he wrote them; his looks and movements are transfigured, and communicated to me by the poor art of the printer. His voice, so sincere and earnest, rings in my ear again. He was no Feignwell: apart from his joke, never was a man so real, and free from pretence. No one, as I believe, will ever taste the flavor of certain writers as he has done. He was the last true lover of Antiquity. Although he admitted a few of the beauties of modern times, yet in his stronger love he soared backwards to old acclivities, and loved to rest there. His essays, like his sonnets, are (as I have said) reflections of his own feelings. And so, I think, should essays generally be. A history or sketch of science, or a logical effort, may help the reader some way up the ladder of learning; but they do not link themselves with his affections. I myself prefer the affections to the sciences. The story of the heart is the deepest of all histories; and Shakespeare is profounder and longer lived than Maclaurin, or Malthus, or Ricardo.
Lamb"s career throughout his later years was marked by an enlarged intercourse with society (it had never been confined to persons of his own way of thinking), by more frequent absences in the country and elsewhere, and by the reception of a somewhat wider body of acquaintance into his own house. He visited the Universities, in which he much delighted: he fraternized with many of the contributors to the "London Magazine." He received the letters and calls of his admirers--strangers and others.
These were now much extended in number, by the publication of the Essays of Elia. I was in the habit of seeing him very frequently at his home: I met him also at Mr. Cary"s, at Leigh Hunt"s, at Novello"s, at Haydon"s, once at Hazlitt"s, and elsewhere. It must have been about this time that one of his visits (which always took place when the students were absent) was made to Oxford, where he met George Dyer, dreaming amongst the quadrangles, as he has described in his pleasant paper called "Oxford in the Vacation."
Lamb"s letters to correspondents are perhaps not quite so frequent now as formerly. He writes occasionally to his old friends; to Wordsworth, and Southey, and Coleridge; also to Manning, who is still in China, and to whom in December, 1815, he had sent one of his best and most characteristic letters, describing the (imaginary) death and decrepitude of his correspondent"s friends in England; although he takes care (the next day) to tell him that his first was a "lying letter." Indeed, that letter itself, humorous as it is, is so obviously manufactured in the fabulous district of hyperbole, that it requires no disavowal. Manning, however, returns to England not long afterwards; and then the correspondence, if less humorous, is also less built up of improbabilities. He corresponds also with Mr. Barron Field, who is relegated to the Judicial Bench in New South Wales. Of him he inquires about "The Land of Thieves;" he wants to know if their poets be not plagiarists; and suggests that half the truth which his letters contain "will be converted into lies" before they reach his correspondent. Mr.
Field is the gentleman to whom the pleasant paper on "Distant Correspondents" is addressed.
In 1822 Charles Lamb and his sister travelled as far as Paris, neither of them understanding a word of the French language. What tempted them to undertake this expedition I never knew. Perhaps, as he formerly said, when journeying to the Lakes, it was merely a daring ambition to see "remote regions." The French journey seems to have been almost barren of good. He brought nothing back in his memory, and there is no account whatever of his adventures there. It has been stated that Mary Lamb was taken ill on the road; but I do not know this with certainty. From a short letter to Barron Field, it appears, indeed, that he thought Paris "a glorious picturesque old city," to which London looked "mean and new," although the former had "no Saint Paul"s or Westminster Abbey." "I and sister," he writes, "are just returned from Paris. We have eaten frogs! It has been such a treat! Nicest little delicate things; like Lilliputian rabbits."
But this is all. His Reminiscences, whatever they were, do not enrich his correspondence. In conversation he used to tell how he had once intended to ask the waiter for an egg (oeuf), but called, in his ignorance, for Eau de vie, and that the mistake produced so pleasant a result, that his inquiries afterwards for Eau de vie were very frequent.
In his travels to Cambridge, which began to be frequent about this time, his gains were greater. For there he first became acquainted with Miss Emma Isola, for whom, as I can testify, he at all times exhibited the greatest parental regard. When he and Mary Lamb first knew her, she was a little orphan girl, at school. They invited her to spend her holidays with them; and she went accordingly: the liking became mutual, and gradually deepened into great affection. The visit once made and so much relished, became habitual; and Miss Isola"s holidays were afterwards regularly spent at the Lambs" house. She used to take long walks with Charles, when his sister was too old and infirm to accompany him. Ultimately she was looked upon in the light of a child; and Charles Lamb, when speaking of her (and he did this always tenderly), used invariably to call her "Our Emma." To show how deep his regard was, he at one time was invited to engage in some profitable engagement (1830) whilst Miss Isola was in bad health; but he at once replied, "Whilst she is in danger, and till she is out of it, I feel that I have no spirits for an engagement of any kind." Some years afterwards, when she became well, and was about to be married, Lamb writes, "I am about to lose my only walk companion," whose mirthful spirits (as he prettily terms it) were "the youth of our house." "With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence," as he states, she was to be married to Mr. Moxon. Miss Emma Isola, who was, in Charles Lamb"s phrase, "a very dear friend of ours," remained his friend till death, and became eventually his princ.i.p.al legatee. After her marriage, Charles, writing to her husband (November, 1833), says, "Tell Emma I every day love her more, and miss her less. Tell her so, from her loving Uncle, as she has let me call myself." It was, as I believe, a very deep paternal affection.
The particulars disclosed by the letters of 1823 and 1824 are so generally unimportant, that it is unnecessary to refer to them. Lamb, indeed, became acquainted with the author of "Virginius" (Sheridan Knowles), with Mr.
Macready, and with the writers in the "London Magazine" (which then had not been long established). And he appears gradually to discover that his work at the India House is wearisome, and complains of it in bitter terms: "Thirty years have I served the Philistines" (he writes to Wordsworth), "and my neck is not subdued to the yoke." He confesses that he had once hoped to have a pension on "this side of absolute incapacity and infirmity," and to have walked out in the "fine Isaac Walton mornings, careless as a beggar, and walking, walking, and dying walking;" but he says, "the hope is gone. I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing), with my breast against this thorn of a desk."
The character of his letters at this time is not generally lively; there is, he says, "a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date from poor John"s (his brother"s) loss. Deaths overset one. Then there"s Captain Burney gone. What fun has whist now?" He proceeds, "I am made up of queer points. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it." The only hope he has, he says, is, "that some pulmonary affection may relieve me." The success which attended the "Elia" Essays did not comfort him, nor the (pecuniary) temptations of the bookseller to renew them. "The spirit of the thing in my own mind is gone" (he writes). "Some brains," as Ben Jonson says, "will endure but one skimming." Notwithstanding his melancholy humor, however, there is Hope in the distance, which he does not see, and Freedom is not far off.
It was during this period of Lamb"s life (1823) that the quarrel between him and his old friend Robert Southey took place. Southey had long been (as was well known) one of the most constant and efficient contributors to the "Quarterly Review;" and Lamb a.s.signed to him the authorship of one of the Review articles, in which he himself was scantily complimented, and his friends Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt denounced. Sir T. Talfourd thinks that Mr. Southey was not the author of the offending essay. Be that as it may, Lamb was then of opinion that his old Tory friend was the enemy. In a letter to Bernard Barton (July, 1823) he writes, "Southey has attacked "Elia" on the score of infidelity. He might have spared an old friend. I hate his Review, and his being a Reviewer;" but he adds, "I love and respect Southey, and will not retort." However, in the end, irritated by the calumny, or (which is more probable) resenting compliments bestowed on himself at the expense of his friends, he sat down and penned his famous "Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esq.," which appeared in the "London Magazine" for October, 1823, and which was afterwards published amongst his collected letters.
This letter, I remember, produced a strong sensation in literary circles; and Mr. Southey"s acquaintances smiled, and his enemies rejoiced at it.
Indeed, the letter itself is a remarkable doc.u.ment. With much of Lamb"s peculiar phraseology, it is argumentative, and defends the imaginary weaknesses or faults, against which (as he guesses) the "Quarterly"
reproofs had been levelled. The occasion having gone by, this letter has been dismissed from most minds, except that part of it which exhibits Lamb"s championship on behalf of Hunt and Hazlitt, and which is more touching than anything to be found in controversial literature.
Lamb"s letter was unknown to his sister until after it appeared in the Magazine, it being his practice to write his letters in Leadenhall Street.
It caused her a good deal of annoyance when she saw it in print. It is pleasant to think, however, that it was the means of restoring the old intimacy between Southey and Lamb, and also of strengthening the friendship between Lamb and Hazlitt, which some misunderstanding, at that time, had a little loosened.
When I was married (October, 1824), Lamb sent me a congratulatory letter, which, as it was not published by Sir T. Talfourd, and is, moreover, characteristic, I insert here, from the MS.
"MY DEAR PROCTER: I do agnize a shame in not having been to pay my congratulations to Mrs. Procter and your happy self; but on Sunday (my only morning) I was engaged to a country walk; and in virtue of the hypostatical union between us, when Mary calls, it is understood that I call too, we being univocal.
"But indeed I am ill at these ceremonious inductions. I fancy I was not born with a call on my head, though I have brought one down upon it with a vengeance. I love not to pluck that sort of frail crude, but to stay its ripening into visits. In probability Mary will be at Southampton Row this morning, and something of that kind be matured between you; but in any case not many hours shall elapse before I shake you by the hand.
"Meantime give my kindest felicitations to Mrs. Procter, and a.s.sure her I look forward with the greatest delight to our acquaintance. By the way, the deuce a bit of cake has come to hand, which hath an inauspicious look at first; but I comfort myself that that Mysterious Service hath the property of Sacramental Bread, which mice cannot nibble, nor time moulder.
"I am married myself--to a severe step-wife--who keeps me, not at bed and board, but at desk and board, and is jealous of my morning aberrations. I cannot slip out to congratulate kinder unions. It is well she leaves me alone o" nights--the d-d Day-hag _Business_. She is even now peeping over me to see I am writing no Love Letters. I come, my dear--Where is the Indigo Sale Book?
"Twenty adieus, my dear friends, till we meet.
"Yours most truly,
"C. LAMB.
"_Leadenhall, Nov. 11th, "24_."
The necessity for labor continued for some short time longer. At last (in the beginning of the year 1825) deliverance came. Charles had previously intimated his wish to resign. The Directors of the East India House call him into their private room, and after complimenting him on his long and meritorious services, they suggest that his health does not appear to be good; that a little ease is expedient at his time of life, and they then conclude their conversation by suddenly intimating their intention of granting him a pension, for his life, of two thirds of the amount of his salary; "a magnificent offer," as he terms it. He is from that moment emanc.i.p.ated; let loose from all ties of labor, free to fly wheresoever he will. At the commencement of the talk Charles had had misgivings, for he was summoned into the "formidable back parlor," he says, and thought that the Directors were about to intimate that they had no further occasion for his services. The whole scene seems like one of the summer sunsets, preceded by threatenings of tempest, when the dark piles of clouds are separated and disappear, lost and swallowed by the radiance which fills the whole length and breadth of the sky, and looks as if it would be eternal. "I don"t know what I answered," Lamb says, "between surprise and grat.i.tude; but it was understood that I accepted their proposal, and I was told that I was free from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow, and, at just ten minutes after eight, I went home--forever."
At this time Lamb"s salary was six hundred pounds per annum. The amount of two thirds of this sum, therefore, would be an annuity of four hundred pounds. But an annual provision was also made for his sister, in case she should survive him; and this occasioned a small diminution. In exact figures, he was to receive three hundred and ninety-one pounds a year during the remainder of his life, and then an annuity was to become payable to Mary Lamb. His sensations, first of stupefaction, and afterwards of measureless delight, will be seen by reference to his exulting letters of this period. First he writes to Wordsworth of "the good that has befallen me." These are his words: "I came home--forever--on Tuesday last. The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelmed me. It was like pa.s.sing from Time into Eternity." * * * "Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling that some good has happened to us."--To Bernard Barton his words are, "I have scarce steadiness of head to compose a letter. I am free, B. B.; free as air. I will live another fifty years."
* * * "Would I could sell you some of my leisure! Positively the best thing a man can have to do is--NOTHING: and next to that, perhaps, Good Works."
--To Miss Hutchinson he writes, "I would not go back to my prison for seven years longer for ten thousand pounds a year. For some days I was staggered, and could not comprehend the magnitude of my deliverance--was confused, giddy. But these giddy feelings have gone away, and my weather- gla.s.s stands at a degree or two above "CONTENT." All being holidays, I feel as if I had none; as they do in heaven, where "tis all Red Letter days."
Lamb"s discharge or relief was timely and graciously bestowed. It opened a bright vista through which he beheld (in hope) many years of enjoyment; scenes in which his spirit, rescued from painful work, had only to disport itself in endless delights. He had well earned his discharge. He had labored without cessation for thirty-three years; had been diligent, and trusted--a laborer worthy of his hire. And the consciousness of this long and good service must have mingled with his reward and sweetened it. It is a great thing to have earned your meal--your rest,--whatever may be the payment in full for your deserts. You have not to force up grat.i.tude from oblivious depths, day by day, for undeserved bounty. In Lamb"s case it happened, unfortunately, that the activity of mind which had procured his repose, tended afterwards to disqualify him from enjoying it. The leisure, that he had once reckoned on so much, exceeded, when it came, the pains of the old counting-house travail. It is only the imbecile, or those brought up in complete lazihood, who can encounter successfully the monotony of "nothing to do," and can slumber away their lives unharmed amongst the dumb weeds and flowers.
In the course of a short time it appeared that he was unable to enjoy, so perfectly as he had antic.i.p.ated, his golden time of "Nothing to do," his Liberia. He therefore took long walks into the country. He also acquired the companionship of the large dog Dash, much given to wandering, to whose erratic propensities (Lamb walking at the rate of fourteen miles a day) he eventually became a slave. The rambling, inconstant dog rendered the clear, serene day of leisure almost turbid; and he was ultimately (in order to preserve for Charles some little remaining enjoyment) bestowed upon another master. Lamb was always (as I have said) fond of walking, and he had some vague liking, I suppose, for free air and green pastures; although he had no great relish specially for the flowers and ornaments of the country. I have often walked with him in the neighborhood of our great city; and I do not think that he ever treasured up in his memory the violets (or other flowers), the songs of birds, or the pictures of sheep or kine dotting the meadows. Neither his conversation nor writings afforded evidence that he had done so. It is not easy, therefore, to determine what the special attractions were that drew him out of London, which he loved, into the adjoining country, where his walks oftenest lay.
At the time of Lamb"s deliverance from office labor, he was living in Colebrook Row. It was there that George Dyer, whose blindness and absence of mind rendered it almost dangerous for him to wander unaccompanied about the suburbs of London, came to visit him on one occasion. By accident, instead of entering the house door, Dyer"s aqueous instincts led him towards the water, and in a moment he had plunged overhead in the New River. I happened to go to Lamb"s house, about an hour after his rescue and restoration to dry land, and met Miss Lamb in the pa.s.sage, in a state of great alarm: she was whimpering, and could only utter, "Poor Mr. Dyer!
Poor Mr. Dyer!" in tremulous tones. I went up stairs, aghast, and found that the involuntary diver had been placed in bed, and that Miss Lamb had administered brandy and water, as a well-established preventive against cold. Dyer, unaccustomed to anything stronger than the "crystal spring,"
was sitting upright in the bed, perfectly delirious. His hair had been rubbed up, and stood out like so many needles of iron gray. He did not (like Falstaff) "babble of green fields," but of the "watery Neptune." "I soon found out where I was," he cried out to me, laughing; and then he went wandering on, his words taking flight into regions where no one could follow. Charles Lamb has commemorated this immersion of his old friend, in his (Elia) essay of "Amicus Redivivus."
In the summer of 1826 Lamb published, in "Blackwood"s Magazine," a little drama in one act, ent.i.tled "The Wife"s Trial." It was founded on Crabbe"s poetical tale of "The Confidant;" and contains the germ of a plot, which undoubtedly might have been worked out with more effect, if Lamb had devoted sufficient labor to that object.
Amongst the remarkable persons whom Charles became acquainted with, in these years, was Edward Irving. Lamb used to meet him at Coleridge"s house at Highgate, and elsewhere; and he came to the conclusion that he was (as indeed he _was_) a fine, sincere, spirited man, terribly slandered. Edward Irving, who issued, like a sudden light, from the obscure little town of Annan, in Scotland, acquired, in the year 1822, a wide reputation in London. He was a minister of the Scotch Church, and before he came to England had acted as an a.s.sistant preacher to Dr. Chalmers. In one of Charles"s letters (in 1835) to Bernard Barton (who had evidently been measuring Irving by a low Quaker standard), he takes the opportunity of speaking of the great respect that he entertained for the Scotch minister.
"Let me adjure you" (writes Charles), "have no doubt of Irving. Let Mr.
----[?] drop his disrespect." "Irving has prefixed a dedication, of a missionary character, to Coleridge--most beautiful, cordial, and sincere.
He there acknowledges his obligations to S. T. C., at whose Gamaliel feet he sits weekly, rather than to all men living." Again he writes, "Some friend said to Irving, "This will do you no good" (no good in worldly repute). "_That is a reason for doing it_," quoth Irving. I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out-speaking, intrepid, and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. "In April, 1825, Lamb writes to Wordsworth to the same effect. "Have you read the n.o.ble dedication of Irving"s Missionary Sermons?" he inquires; and then he repeats Irving"s fine answer to the suggested impolicy of publishing his book with its sincere prefix.
Poor Edward Irving! whom I always deeply respected, and knew intimately for some years, and who was one of the best and truest men whom it has been my good fortune to meet in life! He entered London amidst the shouts of his admirers, and he departed in the midst of contumely; sick, and sad, and maligned, and misunderstood; going back to his dear native Scotland only to die. The time has long pa.s.sed for discussing the truths or errors of Edward Irving"s peculiar creed; but there can be no doubt that he himself was true and faithful till death, and that he preached only what he entirely believed. And what can man do more? If he was wrong, his errors arose from his extreme modesty, his extreme veneration for the subject to which he raised his thoughts.