And yet, despite all my love and admiration of Charles Lamb,—nay, rather in consequence of it,—I must blame him of what Mr. Barron Field was please to eulogize him for,—writing so little. Undoubtedly in most authors suppression in writing would be a virtue. In Lamb it was a fault. There are a score or two of subjects which he, "no less from temerity than felicity of his pen," should have written upon,—subjects on which he had thought and ruminated for years, and which he, and none but he, could do justice to. He who loved and admired before or since, such sterling old writers as Burton, Browne, Fuller, and Walton, should have given us an article on each of those worthies and their inditing. Chaucer and Spenser, though proud and happy in having had such an appreciating reader of there writings as Elia was, when denizen of this earth, would, methinks, have given him a warmer, heartier, gladder welcome to heaven, if he had done for them what he did for Hogarth and the old dramatists,—pointed out to the would "with a finger of fire" the truth and beauty contained in their works. Instead of writing only two volumes of essays, Elia should have written a dozen. He had read, heard, thought, and seen enough to furnish matter for twice that number. He himself confesseth, in a letter written a year or two before his death, that he felt as if he had a thousand essays swelling within him. Oh that Elia, like Mr. Spectator, had printed himself out before he died!
But notwithstanding Lamb's fame and popularity, notwithstanding all readers of his inimitable essays lament that one who wrote so delightfully as Elia did should have written so little, their has not yet be published a complete collection of his writings. The standard edition of his works, edited by Talfourd, is far from being complete. Surely the author of "Ion" was unwise in not publishing all of Lamb's productions. Carlyle said he wanted to know all about Margaret Fuller, even to the color of her stocking. And the admirers of Elia wanted to possess every scrap and fragment of his inditing. They cannot let oblivion have the lease "notelet" or "essaykin" of his. For, however inferior to his best productions these uncollected articles may be, they must contain more or less of Lamb's humor, sense, and observation. Somewhat of his delightful individuality must be stamped upon them. In brief, they cannot but contain much that would amuse and entertain all admirers of their author. For myself, I would rather read the poorest of these uncollected essays of Elia than the best productions of some of the most popular of modern authors. "The king's chaff is as good as other people's corn," saith the old proverb. "There is a pleasure arising from the very bagatelles of men renowned for their knowledge and genius," says Goldsmith; "and we receive with veneration those pieces, after they are dead, which would lessen them in our estimation while living: sensible that we shall enjoy them no more, we treasure up, as precious relics, every saying and word that has escaped them; but their writings, of every kind, we deem inestimable."
For years I have been hopefully and patiently waiting for somebody to collect and publish these scattered and all but forgotten articles of Lamb's; but at last, seeing no likelihood of its being done at present, if ever in my day, and fearing that I might else never have an opportunity of perusing these strangely neglected writings of my favorite author, I commenced the task of searching out and discovering them myself for mine own delectation. And after a deal of fruitless and aimless labor, (for, unlike Johannes Scotus Erigena, in his quest of a treatise of Aristotle, I had no oracle to consult,) after spending as many days in turning over the leaves of I know not how many volumes of old, dusty, musty, fusty periodicals as Mr. Vernon ran miles after a butterfly, I was amply rewarded for all my pains. For I not only found all of Lamb's uncollected writings that are spoken of in his "Life and Letters," but a goodly number of articles from his pen which neither he nor his biographer has ever alluded to. As I read these (to me) new essays of Elia, I could not but feel somewhat indignant that such excellent productions of such an excellent writer should have been "underkept and down supprest" so long. I was as much ravished with these new-found essays of Lamb's as good old Nicholas Gerbelius (see Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," Partition II., Section 2, Member 4) was with a few Greek authors restored to light. If I had had one or two loving, enthusiastic admirers of Charles Lamb to enjoy with me the delight of perusing these uncollected Elias, I should have been "all felicity up to the brim." For with me, as with Michael de Montaigne and Hans Andersen, there is no pleasure without communication.
And therefore, partly to please myself, and partly to please the admirers of Charles Lamb, I herewith publish a part of Elia's uncollected essays and sketches. To ninety-nine hundredths of their author's readers they will be as good as MSS. And not only will they be new to most readers, but they will be found to be not wholly unworthy of him who wrote the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig." Albeit not to be compared with Elia's best and most finished productions, these articles contain some of the best qualities and peculiarities of his genius. Without doubt, all genuine admirers, all true lovers of the gentle, genial, delightful Elia, will be mightily pleased with these productions of his inimitable pen.
Those who were so fortunate as to be personally acquainted with Charles Lamb are lavish in their praise of his conversational powers. Hazlitt says that no one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in a half-dozen half-sentences as he did. "He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening." Lamb was undoubtedly "matchless as a fireside companion," inimitable as a table-talker, "great at the midnight hour." The "wit-combats" at his Wednesday-evening parties were waged with scarcely inferior skill and ability to those fought at the old Mermaid tavern between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. Hazlitt, in his delightful essay intituled "Persons One would Wish to have Seen," gives a masterly report of the sayings and doings at one of these parties. It is to be regretted that he did not report the conversation at all of these weekly assemblages of wits, humorists, and good-fellows. He made a capital book out of the conversation of James Northcote: he could have made a better one out of the conversation of Charles Lamb. Indeed, Elia himself seems to have been conscious that many of his deepest, wisest, best thoughts and ideas, as well as wildest, wittiest, airiest fancies and conceits, were vented in conversation; and a few months before his death he noted down for the entertainment of the readers of the London "Athenaeum," a few specimens of his table-talk. Although these paragraphs of table-talk are not transcripts of their author's actual conversation, they doubtless contain the pith and substance of what he had really said in some of his familiar discourses with friends and acquaintances. They contain none of his "jests that scald like tears," none of his play upon words, none of his flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar, but some of his sweet, serious, beautiful thoughts and fancies.
Strange that Talfourd neglected to print "Table-Talk" in his edition of Lamb! He does not even mention it. It is certainly as good, if not a great deal better than some things of Lamb's which he saw fit to reprint. But the best way to praise Elia's "Table-Talk" is, as the "Tatler" says of South's wise and witty discourse on the "Pleasures of Religious Wisdom," to quote it; and therefore here followeth, without further comment or introduction,—
"TABLE-TALK. BY THE LATE ELIA.
"It is a desideratum in works that treat de re culinariâ, that we have no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors: as to show why cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter,—and why the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; why the French bean sympathizes with the flesh of deer; why salt fish points to parsnip, brawn makes a dead-set at mustard; why cats prefer valerian to heart's-ease, old ladies vice versâ,—though this is rather travelling out of the road of the dietetics, and may be thought a question more curious than relevant; why salmon (a strong sapor per se) fortifieth its condition with the mighty lobster-sauce, whose embraces are fatal to the delicater relish of the turbot; why oysters in death rise up against the contamination of brown sugar, while they are posthumously amorous of vinegar; why the sour mango and the sweet jam by turns court and are accepted by the compilable mutton-hash,—she not yet decidedly declaring for either. We are as yet but in the empirical stage of cookery. We feed ignorantly, and want to be able to give a reason of the relish that is in us; so that, if Nature should furnish us with a new meat, or be prodigally pleased to restore the phoenix, upon a given flavor, we might be able to pronounce instantly, on philosophical principles, what the sauce to it should be,—what the curious adjuncts."
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"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident."