Selected Prose

by Charles Lamb

  2. (p. 380) capite dolente: ‘sorrowful head’.

  3. (p. 380) Tædet me … formarum: ‘I am tired of these everyday forms’ (Terence, ‘Eunuchus’ 2, 3, 6).

  4. (p. 380) The foul enchanter … enfranchisement: Busirane is the ‘foul enchanter’ from whom Britomart rescues Amoret in Spenser’s Faerie Queene 3, 11; letters four do form his name is Coleridge’s reference to Pitt in ‘Fire, Famine and Slaughter’: here they refer to Joseph Hume, M. P. (1777–1855), who had successfully attacked ‘abuses’ in the East India Company, revised the system of collecting revenue (affecting Wordsworth as distributor of stamps) and opposed a scheme for reducing pension charges.

  5. (p. 380) Otium cum indignitate: ‘Freedom with indignity’.

  6. (p. 381) Lord Palmerston’s report … graves: the report in The Times of 21 March had said, among other things, that ‘since 1810 not fewer than 26 clerks had died of pulmonary complaints, and disorders arising from sedentary habits’.

  7. (p. 381) the Malvolio story: a reference to Lamb’s essay ‘On Some of the Old Actors’, London Magazine, February 1822.

  8. (p. 381) Hartley: Coleridge’s son Hartley, who was twenty-five and living in London.

  42. To John Clare

  1. (p. 381) your present: Clare, who had met Lamb, possibly, the previous year, had sent him his Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820), and The Village Minstrel and Other Poems (1821).

  2. (p. 382) Shenstone: William Shenstone (1714–63).

  3. (p. 382) a little volume: Tracts by Sir Thomas Browne.

  4. (p. 382) I have been in France: in August 1822 Lamb and Mary went to France. It was his only trip abroad.

  43. To Walter Wilson

  1. (p. 383) Dodwell … Wadd: two East India House clerks, old colleagues of Wilson’s.

  2. (p. 383) I have nothing of Defoe’s: Wilson was beginning to write his Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, published in 1830.

  44. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 384) the steep Tarpeian rock: a cliff overhanging the Roman forum from which murderers and traitors were thrown.

  2. (p. 385) Baldwin: Robert Baldwin was the senior partner in the publishing firm of Baldwin, Cradock and Joy who, on 1 January 1820, started the London Magazine. He sold it to Taylor and Hessey in 1821 after the death of John Scott, the editor.

  45. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 386) Hessey: James Augustus Hessey (1785–1875), publisher and partner in the firm of Taylor and Hessey, who published the London Magazine from 1821 to 5.

  2. (p. 386) old Alcinous: King Alcinous in the Odyssey, father of Nausicaa. He owned a large orchard of fruit trees.

  3. (p. 386) Proctor: see Biographical Index (p. 442).

  4. (p. 387) Wainwright: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794–1847), painter and prose writer, who contributed to the London Magazine from the first issue until early in 1823; one of his pseudonyms was Janus Weathercock.

  5. (p. 387) Mr Pulham: a clerk in the East India House who in 1825 made a famous etching of Lamb talking to his colleagues at work.

  6. (p. 387) Mr Cary: Henry Francis Cary (1772–1844) published a famous translation of The Divine Comedy in 1814. From 1826 to 1837 (roughly the period of his friendship with Lamb) he was Assistant Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum.

  46. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 388) Judge Park … Thurtell … Jack Ketch: on 6–7 January 1824, in a famous murder trial, Thurtell was convicted of the murder of William Weare of Lyon’s Inn. The presiding judge was Sir James Alan Park, and Thurtell was hanged at Hertford on 9 January, on a gallows of his own design. Ketch was the proverbial name for the hangman, who was always allowed the dead man’s clothes.

  2. (p. 389) baiting at Scorpion: the sign of the zodiac passed on the way to the next world.

  47. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 389) Poetic Vigils: Barton’s fourth book of verse, published in 1824.

  48. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 391) Southey’s Book: The Book of the Church.

  2. (p. 391) Wilberforce: William Wilberforce (1759–1833), abolitionist, parliamentarian and one of the leading Puritans of the time.

  3. (p. 391) RELIGIO … TREMEBUNDI: ‘the religion of a trembling man or of trembling piety’.

  49. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 393) Montgomery’s book: James Montgomery (1771–1854), poet and editor who compiled an Album in 1824 to be sold in aid of child chimney-sweeps, for which Lamb sent him a copy of Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’.

  2. (p. 393) The Society, with the affected name: The Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Infant Chimney Sweepers.

  3. (p. 393) the Dream … from B.: the Album ended with three ‘Climbing-Boys Soliloquys’ by Montgomery, the second of which used the dream in Blake’s Song.

  4. (p. 393) we have lost another Poet: Byron had died, 19 April 1824.

  50. To Thomas Manning

  1. (p. 394) Tuthill: Sir George Leman Tuthill (1772–1835), the physician. In 1825, he was co-signatory with James Gillman for the medical report which enabled Lamb to retire on 29 March 1825.

  2. (p. 394) To all my nights … masterdom: from Macbeth I, v, 67–8.

  51. To William Wordsworth

  1. (p. 394) poor Monkhouse: Thomas Monkhouse (1783–1825), a London merchant. Cousin of the Hutchinsons’ and related, by marriage, to Wordsworth.

  2. (p. 395) Leigh Hunt and Montgomery: both editors and poets imprisoned for political libels.

  3. (p. 396) Irving: Edward Irving (1792–1834), Scottish minister and school-master who founded the Catholic Apostolic Church.

  4. (p. 396) videlicet: ‘evidently’.

  52. To Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  1. (p. 397) Allsop’s: Thomas Allsop (1795–1880), silk-merchant and stockbroker; a friend of Coleridge and Lamb, he sent them presents of game. He was one of the executors of Lamb’s will of 1823.

  2. (p. 397) vide Lond. Mag … July: Lamb is referring to his essay ‘The Convalescent’.

  3. (p. 397) Hood: Thomas Hood (1799–1845), writer. His Odes and Addresses to Great People, written in collaboration with J. H. Reynolds, was published in 1825.

  4. (p. 397) Mag. Ignotum: the ‘Ode to the Great Unknown’, the author of the Scotch novels.

  5. (p. 398) your Enigma about Cupid: a reference to Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection (1825): ‘And most noteable it is, that soon after the promulgation and spread of the Gospel had awakened the moral sense, and had opened the eyes even of its wiser Enemies to the necessity of providing some solution to this great problem of the Moral World, the beautiful Parable of Cupid and Psyche was brought forward as a rival (in italics) FALL OF MAN: and the fact of a moral corruption connatural with the human race was again recognized.’

  6. (p. 398) Signor Non-vir sed VELUTI Vir: the Italian castrato, Giovanni Battista Velluti (1781–1861), who first appeared in England in 1825.

  7. (p. 398) Nos DURUM genus: ‘we are a hard race [who know what work is]’; from Ovid’s Metamorphoses l. 414.

  8. (p. 398) Olim Clericus: ‘once a clerk’.

  53. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 398) Ann Knight: a Quaker who kept a school at Woodbridge, where Barton was staying at the time.

  2. (p. 400) Taylor has dropt the London: Henry Southern took over the London Magazine in September 1825.

  3. (p. 400) Lucy: Barton’s daughter.

  54. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 400) George 3 trying the 100th psalm: a reference to the end of Byron’s ‘Vision of Judgement’; ‘All I saw farther, in the last confusion,/Was, that King George slipp’d into heaven for one;/And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,/I left him practising the hundredth psalm.’

  55. To John Bates Dibdin

  1. (p. 401) D.: John Bates Dibdin (c. 1799–1829) was a clerk with a London shipping office, Rankings, who met Lamb at East India House. He had gone to Hastings to recover his health and seems to have been living above a baker’s.

  2. (p. 402) t
he little church: Hollington Rural Church.

  3. (p. 403) Probatum est: ‘it is proven’.

  4. (p. 403) Peter Fin Junr.: a character in Richard Jones’s play of 1822, Peter Finn’s Trip to Brighton.

  5. (p. 404) Tommy Hill: Thomas Hill (1760–1840). Drysalter, book-collector, bon vivant, dilettante and gossip who gave dinners for the literary.

  56. To Peter George Patmore

  1. (p. 404) Patmore: Peter George Patmore (1786–1855), author and editor. A friend of Hazlitt’s, who introduced him to Lamb in 1826.

  2. (p. 404) Dash: Thomas Hood’s large dog, which had stayed with the Lambs at Enfield.

  3. (p. 404) aperto ore: ‘with mouth uncovered’.

  57. To Mrs Basil Montagu

  1. (p. 406) Dear Madam: see note 1 to Letter 69 (p. 483).

  2. (p. 406) Clarkson: see note 2 to Letter 29 (p. 471).

  3. (p. 406) Howard’s: John Howard (the philanthropist) and Dr Johnson were the first statues erected in St Paul’s.

  4. (p. 406) Wade Mill: where Clarkson’s memorial stands, in Hertfordshire.

  58. To Barron Field

  1. (p. 408) For Mathews … such a task: Charles James Mathews (1803–78), actor and dramatist. He suggested, through Field, that Lamb should write the descriptions for the catalogue of Mathews’s collection of theatrical portraits.

  2. (p. 408) an imitator of me … Calais: P. G. Patmore, in his Rejected Articles, published in 1826.

  3. (p. 408) Emma: Emma Isola (1809–91), who first met the Lambs at Cambridge in 1820. By 1821 she was visiting the Lambs regularly and was virtually adopted by them, as she was an orphan. Wordsworth had been taught at Cambridge by her grandfather. She married Edward Moxon, the publisher, in 1833.

  4. (p. 408) nec sinit esse feros: from Ovid (Ep. ex Ponto, 11, 9, 47): ‘Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes/Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros’; ‘A careful study of the arts refines the manners, stops their becoming crude’.

  59. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 409) a splendid … Bunyan’s Pilgrim: published by John Murray in 1830, with a Life of Bunyan by Southey and illustrations by John Martin and W. Harvey.

  2. (p. 409) Pidcock’s: Pidcock showed his lions at Bartholomew Fair.

  3. (p. 410) Mitford’s Salamander God: possibly a reference to something in the collection of Revd John R. Mitford (1781–1859), a writer, scholar and book-collector that Lamb knew.

  4. (p. 410) the Gem: a magazine edited by Thomas Hood.

  5. (p. 410) Mathews and Yates: joint managers of the Adelphi Theatre.

  6. (p. 410) W. Scott … bribe haunch: Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). For ‘a bribe haunch’, see note 4 to Letter 22 (p. 470).

  60. To Bryan Waller Procter

  1. (p. 411) the Abactor: cattle-thief.

  2. (p. 411) vide Ainsworth: a reference to Robert Ainsworth’s Thesaurus (1736), which gives only ‘abactus – driven away by force’.

  3. (p. 412) Per occasionem cujus: ‘instigated by this (occasion)’.

  61. To Henry Crabb Robinson

  1. (p. 413) your strange shaped present: on setting off for Rome, Crabb Robinson had sent Lamb a copy of Richardson’s Pamela, thinking that he had borrowed one.

  2. (p. 413) two Mr B.’s: in Richardson’s novel, Pamela marries and reforms the young squire B.

  62. To Henry Crabb Robinson

  1. (p. 414) Doubly Dumby: a form of whist in which two ‘hands’ are exposed, so that each of the two players manages two ‘hands’.

  63. To Henry Crabb Robinson

  1. (p. 414) the report of thy torments: Crabb Robinson had gone to have a course of Turkish baths at Brighton to treat a sudden attack of acute rheumatism.

  2. (p. 415) Grimaldi: Joseph Grimaldi, the clown.

  3. (p. 415) ad libitum: for pleasure.

  64. To Bernard Barton

  1. (p. 416) Idumean palm: a reference to Virgil, Georgics 3, 12.

  2. (p. 416) Lucy: see note 3 to Letter 53 (p. 400).

  3. (p. 416) Emma: see note 3 to Letter 58 (p. 480).

  4. (p. 417) Eliza: Barton’s sister.

  5. (p. 417) an old rejected farce: The Pawnbroker’s Daughter, which was printed in Blackwood, January 1830.

  65. To James Gillman

  1. (p. 418) Squire Mellish: William Mellish, at that time MP for Middlesex.

  2. (p. 418) Thomas Westwood: Westwood had been a haberdasher, and after his retirement was an agent for an insurance company. In 1827, the Westwoods were next-door neighbours of the Lambs at Enfield, and in October 1829 the Lambs gave up their house and lodged with the Westwoods until 1833.

  3. (p. 419) augustiœ domûs: ‘straitened means at home’, a reference to Juvenal’s Satires 3, 165 and 6, 357.

  4. (p. 419) in formâ: ‘in shape’.

  5. (p. 420) Bellerophon: a Corinthian of remarkable beauty and courage.

  6. (p. 421) specilla: here meaning ‘glasses’.

  66. To Mary Shelley

  1. (p. 421) Mrs Shelley: Mary Shelley (1797–1851), author of Frankenstein and other novels, Shelley’s second wife and the daughter of William Godwin and his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft.

  67. To William Wordsworth

  1. (p. 422) punctum stans: ‘a small point in time’.

  2. (p. 422) otium pro dignitate: ‘leisure for the sake of dignity’.

  3. (p. 423) Eloisa … Paraclete: Abelard’s monastic school was later occupied by Eloisa.

  4. (p. 423) the Red Gauntlet: by Walter Scott, published in 1824.

  5. (p. 423) a calenture: a fever or delirium that usually occurs aboard ship in tropical climates.

  6. (p. 424) the collyrium of Tobias: a collyrium is an eye-salve or poultice.

  7. (p. 424) propriâ manu: ‘with her own hand’.

  8. (p. 425) dii avertant: ‘let the gods avert it’.

  9. (p. 425) the plunge of Curtius: there was a story that a chasm once opened in the forum in Rome which could be closed up only if Rome’s greatest treasure was thrown into it. At this point the brave Curtius, fully mounted and armed, leapt in: all that remained was a dried-up pool, called Lacus Curtius.

  10. (p. 425) the Sceptre of Agamemnon: see the Iliad 1, 234.

  11. (p. 426) his soul is Begoethed: Crabb Robinson, a friend of Goethe’s, had recently visited Goethe in Weimar, who told him that he admired Lamb’s sonnet ‘The Family Name’.

  68. To Dr J. Vale Asbury

  1. (p. 427) Dear Sir: Dr J. Vale Asbury (1792–1871) was a doctor at Enfield who treated Emma Isola in 1830.

  2. (p. 427) metheglin: a Welsh fermented liquor made from honey.

  3. (p. 428) a palanquin: a litter for one person, consisting of a box on poles carried on men’s shoulders.

  4. (p. 428) iii pol … can: an invented prescription suggesting three medium pills to be taken at night, but with what else is not clear.

  69. To Basil Montagu

  1. (p. 429) Montagu: Basil Montagu (1770–1851), barrister, author, humanitarian and early friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s.

  2. (p. 429) putting up … Woodstock: Montagu was considering standing as MP for Woodstock.

  3. (p. 429) Horne Tooke … Erskine: John Horne Tooke (1736–1812), politician and philologist. In May 1794 Hardy, Thelwall and Tooke, among others, were tried for treason and acquitted due largely to the defence of the Whig lawyer, Erskine.

  70. To George Dyer

  1. (p. 430) the inflammatory fever: Lamb is referring to the incendiarism by agricultural workers at this time, who were reacting to poor wages and the competition of new machinery.

  2. (p. 431) those apples of Asphaltes and bitumen: see Milton’s Paradise Lost, 10, 564–7.

  3. (p. 431) Fuimus panes … Apple-pasty-orum: ‘we loaves have had our day’, from Aeneid 2, 325: ‘Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens/ Gloria Teucrorum’: ‘no longer are we Trojans; Ilium and the great glory of the Teucrians has gone’.

  71. To Thomas Allsop

  1. (p. 431) Thomas Allsop: see note 1 to Letter 52 (p. 478).


  72. To Maria Fryer

  1. (p. 432) Maria Fryer (died c. 1848) was a friend and school-fellow of Emma Isola.

  2. (p. 432) the Waldens: the Waldens let lodgings in their Edmonton house to mental patients, as Mr Walden had previously worked in an asylum. Mary Lamb stayed there when she couldn’t remain at home. In 1833, Lamb thought she should be there permanently; he moved in with her, living there until he died.

  3. (p. 433) That is a book you should read: Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler.

  4. (p. 433) Woolman’s: John Woolman (1720–72) was an American Quaker minister and writer who moved to England; his Journal was one of Lamb’s favourite books.

  73. To Henry Francis Cary

  1. (p. 433) Henry Francis Cary: see note 6 to Letter 45 (p. 477). This letter is undated and Lucas gives it as 1834.

  2. (p. 434) the Buffam Graces: Lamb’s landladies at Southampton Buildings. The Lambs lived there in 1809 and 1830, and usually stayed there whenever they went to London.

  3. (p. 434) that Argus Portitor: the gate-keeper who seemed, like Argus guarding io, to have a hundred eyes.