E.I.H.
9 Oct. 22.
[Barton had just published his Verses on the Death of P.B. Shelley, a lament for misapplied genius. The club at Pisa referred particularly to Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Trelawney. Trelawney placed three lines from Ariel's song in "The Tempest" on Shelley's monument; but whether Lamb knew this, or his choice of rival lines is a coincidence, I do not know. Trelawney chose the lines:—
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
There is no other record of Lamb's meeting with Shelley, who, by the way, admired Lamb's writings warmly, particularly Mrs. Leicester's School (see the letter to Barton, August 17, 1824).
Byron's Vision of Judgment, a burlesque of Southey's poem of the same name, was printed in The Liberal for 1822.]
LETTER 294
CHARLES LAMB TO B.R. HAYDON
India House, 9th October, 1822.
Dear Haydon, Poor Godwin has been turned out of his house and business in Skinner Street, and if he does not pay two years' arrears of rent, he will have the whole stock, furniture, &c., of his new house (in the Strand) seized when term begins. We are trying to raise a subscription for him. My object in writing this is simply to ask you, if this is a kind of case which would be likely to interest Mrs. Coutts in his behalf; and who in your opinion is the best person to speak with her on his behalf. Without the aid of from £300 to £400 by that time, early in November, he must be ruined. You are the only person I can think of, of her acquaintance, and can, perhaps, if not yourself, recommend the person most likely to influence her. Shelley had engaged to clear him of all demands, and he has gone down to the deep insolvent.