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　　LETTER 140

　　CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT

　　November 10, 1805.

　　Dear Hazlitt,—I was very glad to hear from you, and that your journey was so picturesque. We miss you, as we foretold we should. One or two things have happened, which are beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well be written—how it set up for a fine Lady, and thought it had got Lovers, and was obliged to be convinc'd of its age from the parish register, where it was proved to be only twelve; and an edict issued that it should not give itself airs yet these four years; and how it got leave to be called Miss, by grace;—these and such like Hows were in my head to tell you, but who can write? Also how Manning's come to town in spectacles, and studies physic; is melancholy and seems to have something in his head, which he don't impart. Then, how I am going to leave off smoking. O la! your Leonardos of Oxford made my mouth water. I was hurried thro' the gallery, and they escaped me. What do I say? I was a Goth then, and should not have noticed them. I had not settled my notions of Beauty. I have now for ever!—the small head, the [here is drawn a long narrow eye] long Eye,—that sort of peering curve, the wicked Italian mischief! the stick-at-nothing, Herodias'-daughter kind of grace. You understand me. But you disappoint me, in passing over in absolute silence the Blenheim Leonardo. Didn't you see it? Excuse a Lover's curiosity. I have seen no pictures of note since, except Mr. Dawe's gallery. It is curious to see how differently two great men treat the same subject, yet both excellent in their way: for instance, Milton and Mr. Dawe. Mr. Dawe has chosen to illustrate the story of Sampson exactly in the point of view in which Milton has been most happy: the interview between the Jewish Hero, blind and captive, and Dalilah. Milton has imagined his Locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine's bristles; doubtless shaggy and black, as being hairs "which of a nation armed contained the strength." I don't remember, he says black: but could Milton imagine them to be yellow? Do you? Mr. Dawe with striking originality of conception has crowned him with a thin yellow wig, in colour precisely like Dyson's, in curl and quantity resembling Mrs. Professor's, his Limbs rather stout, about such a man as my Brother or Rickman—but no Atlas nor Hercules, nor yet so bony as Dubois, the Clown of Sadler's Wells. This was judicious, taking the spirit of the story rather than the fact: for doubtless God could communicate national salvation to the trust of flax and tow as well as hemp and cordage, and could draw down a Temple with a golden tress as soon as with all the cables of the British Navy.—Miss Dawe is about a portrait of sulky Fanny Imlay, alias Godwin: but Miss Dawe is of opinion that her subject is neither reserved nor sullen, and doubtless she will persuade the picture to be of the same opinion. However, the features are tolerably like—Too much of Dawes! Wasn't you sorry for Lord Nelson? I have followed him in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall (I was prejudiced against him before) looking just as a Hero should look; and I have been very much cut about it indeed. He was the only pretence of a Great Man we had. Nobody is left of any Name at all. His Secretary died by his side. I imagined him, a Mr. Scott, to be the man you met at Hume's; but I learn from Mrs. Hume that it is not the same. I met Mrs. H. one day, and agreed to go on the Sunday to Tea, but the rain prevented us, and the distance. I have been to apologise, and we are to dine there the first fine Sunday.

　　Strange perverseness! I never went while you staid here, and now I go to find you! What other news is there, Mary?—What puns have I made in the last fortnight? You never remember them. You have no relish for the Comic. "O! tell Hazlitt not to forget to send the American Farmer. I dare say it isn't so good as he fancies; but a Book's a Book." I have not heard from Wordsworth or from Malta since. Charles Kemble, it seems, enters into possession to-morrow. We sup at 109 Russell St. this evening. I wish your brother wouldn't drink. It's a blemish in the greatest characters. You send me a modern "ation poetical. How do you like this in an old play? Vittoria Corombona, a spunky Italian Lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named the White Devil, being on her trial for murder, &c.—and questioned about seducing a Duke from his wife and the State, makes answer:

　　"Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me?

　　So may you blame some fair and chrystal river,

　　For that some melancholic distracted man

　　Hath drown'd himself in it."—

　　Our ticket was a £20. Alas!! are both yours blanks?

　　P.S.—Godwin has asked after you several times.

　　N.B.—I shall expect a Line from you, if but a bare Line, whenever you write to Russell St., and a Letter often when you do not. I pay no postage; but I will have consideration for you until parliament time and franks. Luck to Ned Search and the new art of colouring. Monkey sends her Love, and Mary especially.

　　Yours truly,

　　C. LAMB.

　　[Addressed to Hazlitt at Wem. This is the first letter from Lamb to Hazlitt that has been preserved. The two men first met at Godwin's. Holcroft and Coleridge were disputing which was best—man as he is, or man as he ought to be. Lamb broke in with, "Give me man as he ought not to be."

　　Hazlitt at this date was twenty-six, some three years younger than Lamb. He had just abandoned his project of being a painter and was settling down to literary work.

　　"Rickman's wife." This passage holds the germ of Lamb's essay on "The

　　Behaviour of Married Persons," first printed in the Reflector, No.

　　IV., in 1811 or 1812, and afterwards included with the Elia essays.

　　"Monkey" was Louisa Martin, a little girl of whom Lamb was fond and whom he knew to the end of his life.

　　Manning studied medicine at the Westminster Hospital for six months previous to May, 1806.

　　"The Oxford Leonardos … the Blenheim Leonardo." The only Leonardos at Oxford are the drawings at Christ Church. The Blenheim Leonardo was probably Boltraffio's "Virgin and Child" which used to be ascribed to Da Vinci, as indeed were many pictures he never painted. Hazlitt subsequently wrote a work on the Picture Galleries of England, but he mentions none of these works.

　　"Mr. Dawe's gallery." George Dawe (1781-1829), afterwards R.A., of whom Lamb wrote his essay "Recollections of a Late Royal Academician," where he alludes again to the picture of Samson (see Vol. I. of this edition).

　　"Dyson's." Dyson was a friend of Godwin. Mrs. Professor was Mrs. Godwin.

　　"Miss Dawe." I know nothing further of George Dawe's sister. Fanny Imlay was the unfortunate daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (by Gilbert Imlay the author). She committed suicide in 1816.

　　Nelson was killed on October 21, 1805. Scott was his chaplain, and he was not killed.

　　Hume was Joseph Hume, an official at Somerset House, whom we shall meet again directly.

　　The American Farmer was very likely Gilbert Imlay's novel The

　　Emigrants, 1793, or possibly his Topographical Description of the

　　Western Territory of North America, 1792.

　　Charles Kemble, brother of John Philip Kemble and father of Fanny

　　Kemble.

　　John Hazlitt, the miniature painter, lived at 109 Russell Street. Lamb's "ation, afterwards included in his Dramatic Specimens, 1808, is from Webster's "The White Devil," Act III., Scene I.

　　The £20 ticket was presumably in the Lottery. Lamb's essay "The

　　Illustrious Defunct" (see Vol. I.) shows him to have been interested in

　　Lotteries; and in Letter No. 184 Mary Lamb states that he wrote Lottery

　　puffs.

　　"Ned Search." Hazlitt was engaged on an abridgment of The Light of

　　Nature Pursued, in seven volumes, 1768-1778, nominally by Edward

　　Search, but really by Abraham Tucker.

　　"The new art of colouring" is a reference, I fancy, to Tingry, mentioned again below.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5