(Migrations.)—"John Woodvil."—Blackesmoor.—Wordsworth.—Rickman.— Godwin.—Visit to the Lakes.—Morning Post.—Hazlitt.—Nelson.—Ode to Tobacco.—Dramatic Specimens, &c.—Inner Temple Lane.—Reflector.—Hogarth and Sir J. Reynolds.—Leigh Hunt.—Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt.—Russell Street and Theatrical Friends.
It is not always easy to fix Charles Lamb's doings (writings or migrations) to any precise date. The year may generally be ascertained; but the day or month is often a matter of surmise only. Even the dates of the letters are often derived from the postmarks, or are sometimes conjectured from circumstances. [1] Occasionally the labors of a drama or of lyric poems traverse several years, and are not to be referred to any one definite period. Thus "John Woodvil" (his tragedy) was begun in 1799, printed in 1800, and submitted to Mr. Kemble (then manager of Drury Lane Theatre) in the Christmas of that year, but was not published until 1801.
After this tragedy had been in Mr. Kemble's hands for about a year, Lamb naturally became urgent to hear his decision upon it. Upon applying for this he found that his play was—lost! This was at once acknowledged, and a "courteous request made for another copy, if I had one by me." Luckily, another copy existed. The "first runnings" of a genius were not, therefore, altogether lost, by having been cast, without a care, into the dusty limbo of the theatre. The other copy was at once supplied, and the play very speedily rejected. It was afterwards facetiously brought forward in one of the early numbers of the Edinburgh Review, and there noticed as a rude specimen of the earliest age of the drama, "older than AEschylus!"
Lamb met these accidents of fortune manfully, and did not abstain from exercising his own Shandean humor thereon. It must be confessed that "John Woodvil" is not a tragedy likely to bring much success to a playhouse. It is such a drama as a young poet, full of love for the Elizabethan writers, and without any knowledge of the requisitions of the stage, would be likely to produce. There is no plot; little probability in the story; which itself is not very scientifically developed. There are some pretty lines, especially some which have often been the subject of quotation; but there is not much merit in the characters of the drama, with the exception of the heroine, who is a heroine of the "purest water." Lamb's friend Southey, in writing to a correspondent, pronounces the following opinion: "Lamb is printing his play, which will please you by the exquisite beauty of its poetry, and provoke you by the exquisite silliness of its story."
In October, 1799, Lamb went to see the remains of the old house (Gilston) in Hertfordshire, where his grandmother once lived, and the "old church where the bones of my honored granddame lie." This visit was, in later years, recorded in the charming paper entitled "Blakesmoor in H——shire." He found that the house where he had spent his pleasant holidays, when a little boy, had been demolished; it was, in fact, taken down for the purpose of reconstruction; but out of the ruins he conjures up pleasant ghosts, whom he restores and brings before a younger generation. There are few of his papers in which the past years of his life are more delightfully revived. The house had been "reduced to an antiquity." But we go with him to the grass plat, were he used to read Cowley; to the tapestried bedrooms, where the mythological people of Ovid used to stand forth, half alive; even to "that haunted bedroom in which old Sarah Battle died," and into which he "used to creep in a passion of fear." These things are all touched with a delicate pen, mixed and incorporated with tender reflections; for, "The solitude of childhood" (as he says) "is not so much the mother of thought as the feeder of love." With him it was both.
Lamb became acquainted with Wordsworth when he visited Coleridge, in the summer of 1800. At that time his old schoolfellow lived at Stowey, and the greater poet was his neighbor. It is not satisfactorily shown in what manner the poetry of Wordsworth first attracted the notice of Charles Lamb, nor its first effect upon him. Perhaps the verse of Coleridge was not a bad stepping-stone to that elevation which enabled Charles to look into the interior of Wordsworth's mind. The two poets were not unlike in some respects, although Coleridge seldom (except perhaps in the "Ancient Mariner") ventured into the plain, downright phraseology of the other. It is very soon apparent, however, that Lamb was able to admit Wordsworth's great merits. In August, 1800 (just after the completion of his visit to Stowey), he writes, "I would pay five and forty thousand carriages" (parcel fares) "to read Wordsworth's tragedy. Pray give me an order on Longman for the 'Lyrical Ballads.'" And in October, 1800, the two authors must have been on familiar terms with each other; for in a letter addressed by Lamb to Wordsworth, "Dear Wordsworth," it appears that the latter had requested him to advance money for the purchase of books, to a considerable amount. This was at a time when Lamb was "not plethorically abounding in cash." The books required an outlay of eight pounds, and Lamb had not the sum then in his possession. "It is a scurvy thing" (he writes) "to cry, Give me the money first; and I am the first of the Lambs that has done this for many centuries." Shortly afterwards Lamb sent his play to Wordsworth, who (this was previous to 30 January, 1801) appears to have invited Charles to visit him in Cumberland. Our humorist did not accept this invitation, being doubtful whether he could "afford so desperate a journey," and being (he says) "not at all romance-bit about Nature;" the earth, and sea, and sky, being, "when all is said, but a house to live in."
It is not part of my task to adjust the claims of the various writers of verse in this country to their stations in the Temple of Fame. If Keats was by nature the most essentially a poet in the present century, there is little doubt that Wordsworth has left his impress more broadly and more permanently than any other of our later writers upon the literature of England. There are barren, unpeopled wastes in the "Excursion," and in some of the longer poems; but when his Genius stirs, we find ourselves in rich places which have no parallel in any book since the death of Milton. When his lyrical ballads first appeared, they encountered much opposition and some contempt. Readers had not for many years been accustomed to drink the waters of Helicon pure and undefiled; and Wordsworth (a prophet of the true faith) had to gird up his loins, march into the desert, and prepare for battle. He has, indeed, at last achieved a conquest; but a long course of time, although sure of eventual success, elapsed before he could boast of victory. The battle has been perilous. When the "Excursion" was published (in 1814), Lamb wrote a review of it for "The Quarterly Review." Whatever might have been the actual fitness of this performance, it seems to have been hacked to pieces; more than a third of the substance cut away; the warm expressions converted into cold ones; and (in Lamb's phrase) "the eyes pulled out and the bleeding sockets left." This mangling (or amendment, as I suppose it was considered) was the work of the late Mr. Gifford. Charles had a great admiration for Wordsworth. It was short of prostration, however. He states that the style of "Peter Bell" does not satisfy him; but "'Hartleap Well' is the tale for me," are his words in 1819.
I have a vivid recollection of Wordsworth, who was a very grave man, with strong features and a deep voice. I met him first at the chambers (they were in the Temple) of Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson, one of the most amiable of men. I was a young versifier, and Wordsworth was just emerging out of a cloud of ignorant contumely into the sunrise of his fame. He was fond (perhaps too fond) of reciting his own poetry before friends and strangers. I was not attracted by his manner, which was almost too solemn, but I was deeply impressed by some of the weighty notes in his voice, when he was delivering out his oracles. I forget whether it was "Dion" or the beautiful poem of "Laodamia" that he read; but I remembered the reading long afterwards, as one recollects the roll of the spent thunder.
I met Wordsworth occasionally, afterwards, at Charles Lamb's, at Mr. Rogers's, and elsewhere, and once he did me the honor to call upon me. I remember that he had a very gentle aspect when he looked at my children. He took the hand of my dear daughter (who died lately) in his hand, and spoke some words to her, the recollection of which, perhaps, helped, with other things, to incline her to poetry. Hazlitt says that Wordsworth's face, notwithstanding his constitutional gravity, sometimes revealed indications of dry humor. And once, at a morning visit, I heard him give an account of his having breakfasted in company with Coleridge, and allowed him to expatiate to the extent of his lungs. "How could you permit him to go on and weary himself?" said Rogers; "why, you are to meet him at dinner this evening." "Yes," replied Wordsworth; "I know that very well; but we like to take the sting out of him beforehand."
About a year after Lamb's first knowledge of Manning, his small stock of friends was enlarged by the acquisition of Mr. John Rickman, one of the clerks of the House of Commons. "He is a most pleasant hand" (writes Lamb), "a fine rattling fellow, who has gone through life laughing at solemn apes; himself hugely literate, from matter of fact, to Xenophon and Plato: he can talk Greek with Porson, and nonsense with me." "He understands you" (he adds) "the first time. You never need speak twice to him. Fullest of matter, with least verbosity." A year or two afterwards, when Rickman went to Ireland, Lamb wrote to Manning, "I have lost by his going what seems to me I never can recover—a finished man. I almost dare pronounce you never saw his equal. His memory will come to me as the brazen serpent to the Israelites." Robert Southey also, when writing to his brother (in 1804), says, "Coleridge and Rickman, with William Taylor, make my Trinity of living greatness." A voluminous correspondence took place between Southey and Rickman, ranging from 1800 to 1839, in the course of which a variety of important subjects—namely, History, Antiquities, Political Economy, Poor Law, and general Politics were deliberately argued between them. From this it appears that Southey, whose reading was very extensive, must have had great trust in the knowledge and judgment of Rickman.