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 passerine. 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 illustrative 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 spacious 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 principal 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 glass 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 pass from the noise and crowd of Fleet Street,—into the quiet and "ample squares and green recesses," where the old Dial," the garden god 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 constitutes 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 space) they surpass 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 appetite 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.