In the foregoing desultory account of Charles Lamb I have, without doubt, set forth many things that are frequently held as trivial. Nothing, however, seems to me unimportant which serves in any way to illustrate a character. The floating straws, it is said, show from what quarter the wind is blowing. So the arching or knitting of the brow is sometimes sufficient to indicate wonder or pride, anger or contempt. On the stage, indeed, it is often the sole means of expressing the fluctuation of the passions. I myself have heard of a "Pooh!" which interrupted a long intimacy, when the pander was administering sweet words in too liberal a measure.
As with Lamb so with his companions. Each was notable for some individual mark or character. His own words will best describe them: "Not many persons of science, and few professed literati, were of his councils. They were for the most part persons of an uncertain fortune. His intimados were, to confess a truth, in the world's eye, a ragged regiment; he found them floating on the surface of society, and the color or something else in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck to him; but they were good and loving burrs, for all that."
None of Lamb's intimates were persons of title or fashion, or of any political importance. They were reading men, or authors, or old friends who had no name or pretensions. The only tie that held these last and Lamb together was a long-standing mutual friendship—a sufficient link. None of them ever forsook him: they loved him, and in return he had a strong regard for them. His affections, indeed, were concentrated on few persons; not widened (weakened) by too general a philanthropy. When you went to Lamb's rooms on the Wednesday evenings (his "At Home"), you generally found the card table spread out, Lamb himself one of the players. On the corner of the table was a snuff-box; and the game was enlivened by sundry brief ejaculations and pungent questions, which kept alive the wits of the party present. It was not "silent whist!" I do not remember whether, in common with Sarah Battle, Lamb had a weakness in favor of "Hearts." I suppose that it was at one of these meetings that he made that shrewd remark which has since escaped into notoriety: "Martin" (observed he), "if dirt were trumps, what a hand you would hold!" It is not known what influence Martin's trumps had on the rubber then in progress.—When the conversation became general, Lamb's part in it was very effective. His short, clear sentences always produced effect. He never joined in talk unless he understood the subject; then, if the matter in question interested him, he was not slow in showing his earnestness; but I never heard him argue or talk for argument's sake. If he was indifferent to the question, he was silent.
The supper of cold meat, on these occasions, was always on the side-table; not very formal, as may be imagined; and every one might rise, when it suited him, and cut a slice or take a glass of porter, without reflecting on the abstinence of the rest of the company. Lamb would, perhaps, call out and bid the hungry guest help himself without ceremony. We learn (from Hazlitt) that Martin Burney's eulogies on books were sometimes intermingled with expressions of his satisfaction with the veal pie which employed him at the sideboard. After the game was won (and lost) the ring of the cheerful glasses announced that punch or brandy and water had become the order of the night.
It was curious to observe the gradations in Lamb's manner to his various guests, although it was courteous to all. With Hazlitt he talked as though they met the subject in discussion on equal terms; with Leigh Hunt he exchanged repartees; to Wordsworth he was almost respectful; with Coleridge he was sometimes jocose, sometimes deferring; with Martin Burney fraternally familiar; with Manning affectionate; with Godwin merely courteous; or, if friendly, then in a minor degree. The man whom I found at Lamb's house more frequently than any other person was Martin Burney. He is now scarcely known; yet Lamb dedicated his prose works to him, in 1818, and there described him as "no common judge of books and men;" and Southey, corresponding with Rickman, when his "Joan of Arc" was being reprinted, says, "The best omen I have heard of its welldoing is, that Martin Burney likes it." Lamb was very much attached to Martin, who was a sincere and able man, although with a very unprepossessing physiognomy. His face was warped by paralysis, which affected one eye and one side of his mouth. He was plain and unaffected in manner, very diffident and retiring, yet pronouncing his opinions, when asked to do so, without apology or hesitation. He was a barrister, and travelled the western circuit at the same time as Sir Thomas Wild (afterwards Lord Truro), whose briefs he used to read before the other considered them, marking out the principal facts and points for attention. Martin Burney had excellent taste in books; eschewed the showy and artificial, and looked into the sterling qualities of writing. He frequently accompanied Lamb in his visits to friends, and although very familiar with Charles, he always spoke of him, with respect, as Mr. Lamb. "He is on the top scale of my friendship ladder," Lamb says, "on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, alas! descending." The last time I saw Burney was at the corner of a street in London, when he was overflowing on the subject of Raffaelle and Hogarth. After a great and prolonged struggle, he said, he had arrived at the conclusion that Raffaelle was the greater man of the two.
Notwithstanding Lamb's somewhat humble description of his friends and familiars, some of them were men well known in literature.
Amongst others, I met there Messrs. Coleridge, Manning, Hazlitt, Haydon, Wordsworth, Barron Field, Leigh Hunt, Clarkson, Sheridan Knowles, Talfourd, Kenney, Godwin, the Burneys, Payne Collier, and others whose names I need not chronicle. I met there, also, on one or two occasions, Liston, and Miss Kelly, and, I believe, Rickman. Politics were rarely discussed amongst them. Anecdotes, characteristic, showing the strong and weak points of human nature, were frequent enough. But politics (especially party politics) were seldom admitted. Lamb disliked them as a theme for evening talk; he perhaps did not understand the subject scientifically. And when Hazlitt's impetuosity drove him, as it sometimes did, into fierce expressions on public affairs, these were usually received in silence; and the matter thus raised up for assent or controversy was allowed to drop.
Lamb's old associates are now dead. "They that lived so long," as he says, "and flourished so steadily, are all crumbled away." The beauty of these evenings was, that every one was placed upon an easy level. No one out- topped the others. No one—not even Coleridge—was permitted to out-talk the rest. No one was allowed to hector another, or to bring his own grievances too prominently forward, so as to disturb the harmony of the night. Every one had a right to speak, and to be heard; and no one was ever trodden or clamored down (as in some large assemblies) until he had proved that he was not entitled to a hearing, or until he had abused his privilege. I never, in all my life, heard so much unpretending good sense talked, as at Charles Lamb's social parties. Often a piece of sparkling humor was shot out that illuminated the whole evening. Sometimes there was a flight of high and earnest talk, that took one half way towards the stars.
It seems great matter for regret that the thoughts of men like Lamb's associates should have passed away altogether; for scarcely any of them, save Wordsworth and Coleridge, are now distinctly remembered; and it is, perhaps, not impossible to foretell the duration of their fame. All have answered their purpose, I suppose. Each has had his turn, and has given place to a younger thinker, as the father is replaced by the son. Thus Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne, and Webster, and the old Dramatists, have travelled out of sight, and their thoughts are reproduced by modern writers, the originators of those thoughts often remaining unknown. Perhaps One, out of many thousand authors, survives into an immortality. The manner and the taste change. The armor and falchion of old give place to the new weapons of modern warfare—less weighty, but perhaps as trenchant. We praise the old authors, but we do not read them. The Soul of Antiquity seems to survive only in its proverbs, which contain the very essence of wisdom.