I am inclined to think that both these charges—made with what is (for the author) perfect good-humour, and only in the first case slightly exaggerated, as was almost permissible when he was dealing ostensibly with a type not a person—are quite true. One would not indeed have them false; it would be most “miserably wise” economy to exchange Lamb, as he is, for a wilderness of consistent, equitable, catholic mediocrities. As Hazlitt himself admits, this “Occult Criticism” does not or need not come from any affectation or love of singularity: indeed, some occult critics “smack of genius and are worth any money.” The Lothario part of the indictment, the desertion after enjoyment, is perhaps less easy to authenticate as well as to defend; but I think it existed, and was indeed a necessary consequence of the other tendency. If you love merely or mainly as a collector, and for rarity,—if not only thus but because others do not,—the multiplication of the object or of the taste must necessarily have a disgusting effect. “The bloom is off the rye.” And I should say that, beyond all reasonable question, there is a distinct character of eccentricity in the strict sense, of whim, of will-worship, about many, if not most, of Lamb’s preferences. There is no affectation about him; but there is what might be affectation in another man, and has been affectation in many and many another. Take the most famous instances of his criticism—the defence of Congreve and Wycherley, the exaltation of Ford, the saying (productive of endless tribulation to the matter-of-fact) that Heywood is “a prose Shakespeare,” the enthusiasm shown towards that rather dull-fantastic play A Fair Quarrel, while the magnificence of the same author’s Changeling was left to Leigh Hunt to find out—these and other things distinctly show the capriccio. Lamb, not Hunt, is really the “Ariel of Criticism,” and he sometimes pushes tricksiness to a point which would, we fear, have made his testy Highness of Milan rather angry. It was probably in conversation rather than in writing that his fickleness showed itself: we can never conceive Lamb writing down anything that he had ever written up. But something of disillusionment must, as has been said, almost necessarily have resulted from the peculiarly whimsical character of his inamoration. Canon Ainger has noted, as the distinguishing features of Lamb’s critical power, “width and versatility.” One differs with the Master[[458]] of the Temple unwillingly and suo periculo: but neither term seems to me quite appropriate. “Width” implies continuity, and there is little of this in Lamb: “versatility” implies a power of turning to what you will, and Lamb, I think, loved, not as he would but as he could not help it at the time.
The early Letters.
But he wants nothing save method and certainty (in response—not even this in touch), and he has critical graces of his own which make him all but as great as Coleridge or Hazlitt, and perhaps more delightful than either. In his very earliest critical utterances, in the Letters to Coleridge and Southey especially, much of this delightfulness displays itself as well as its two parents—Lamb’s unconquerable originality of thought and feeling, and his unsurpassable quaintness and piquancy of phrase. The critic is, as is inevitable from his youth, and from the as yet very imperfect reading which he frankly confesses, a little uncertain and inadequate. His comparative estimates of Coleridge and Southey, Southey and Milton, Southey and Cowper, and of all or most of these poets and others in themselves, exhibit an obviously unregulated compass—a tendency to correct impression rather overmuch, because the first striking off of it has been hasty. But this soon disappears: and though the eccentricity above noted rather increases than lessens with years, the critic’s real virtues—those just indicated—appear ever and ever more distinctly and more delightfully.
The Specimens.
In a certain sense they never appear to greater advantage than in the brief notes included in the Specimens of Dramatic Poets (1808). Everything necessary to excite Lamb’s critical excellence united here,—actual merit, private interest (for, though the study of the minor as well as of the major Elizabethans had been progressing steadily, and “Dodsley” had gone through several editions, yet the authors were caviare to the general still); presence of the highest excellence; and, as we see from the Letters, years of familiarity and fondness on the part of the critic.
The Notes themselves pretend to no method, and fulfil their pretence very strictly. Lamb is distinctly inferior to both his great friends and rivals in grasp. His appreciation is tangential—though in a different sense from that in which Hazlitt applies the word to Coleridge. Lamb is not so much desultory or divagatory as apt to touch his subject only at one (sometimes one very small) point. The impact results in a spark of the most ardent heat and glowing light, but neither heat nor light spreads much. Sometimes, as is inevitable in this style of criticism, he can be only disappointing: one is inclined to be pettish with him for seeing nothing to notice in the vast and shadowy sweep of Tamburlaine save an interesting evidence that Pistol was not merely jesting. Nor is perhaps Barabbas “a mere monster brought in with a large painted nose to please the rabble.” But you must get out of this mood if you are to enjoy Lamb. How he makes it all up, and more than up, on Faustus, and (when he comes to Dekker) on Old Fortunatus! “Beware! beware!” is the cry here also, lest we steal too much of his honeydew. Fortunately it has been so widely used, even for the vulgar purpose of sweetening school-editions, that it has become generally accessible. The famous passage on the Witches, which Hazlitt loved to quote, is perhaps as characteristic as any: the Webster and Chapman notices are perhaps critically the best.
Next in order of time come the articles contributed to the Reflector, especially the magnificent paper on “The Tragedies of Shakespeare” and their actableness. I may be prejudiced in favour of this, by caring myself infinitely to read the drama, and not caring at all to see it acted; but this objection could not be made to Lamb, who was notoriously a playgoer, and an eager though unfortunate aspirant to the honours of the boards. The piece, of course, shows some traces of the capriccio,—especially in the confession of being utterly unable to appreciate “To be or not to be,” because of its being “spouted.” Shakespeare himself might have taught Lamb better, in a certain passage about age and custom. To learn, to hear, nay, direst curse of all! to teach “To be or not to be” leaves it perfect Cleopatra. But Lamb must be Lamb and keep his Lambish mind: and he keeps it here to great purpose. The Lear passage, the best known and the most generally admitted as forcible, is not more so than those on the Tempest and on Macbeth. They all come to that position of the true critic (as I believe it to be), which has been indicated elsewhere, that drama may be literature but is not bound to be—that they are different things, and that the points which drama need not have, and perhaps to which it cannot do full justice, are in literature of the greatest importance.