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　　LETTER 412

　　CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

　　[No date. (1827.)]

　　My dear B.B.—A gentleman I never saw before brought me your welcome present—imagine a scraping, fiddling, fidgetting, petit-maitre of a dancing school advancing into my plain parlour with a coupee and a sideling bow, and presenting the book as if he had been handing a glass of lemonade to a young miss—imagine this, and contrast it with the serious nature of the book presented! Then task your imagination, reversing this picture, to conceive of quite an opposite messenger, a lean, straitlocked, wheyfaced methodist, for such was he in reality who brought it, the Genius (it seems) of the Wesleyan Magazine. Certes, friend B., thy Widow's tale is too horrible, spite of the lenitives of Religion, to embody in verse: I hold prose to be the appropriate expositor of such atrocities! No offence, but it is a cordial that makes the heart sick. Still thy skill in compounding it I not deny. I turn to what gave me less mingled pleasure. I find markd with pencil these pages in thy pretty book, and fear I have been penurious.

　　page 52, 53 capital. page 59 6th stanza exquisite simile. page 61 11th stanza equally good. page 108 3d stanza, I long to see van Balen. page 111 a downright good sonnet. Dixi. page 153 Lines at the bottom.

　　So you see, I read, hear, and mark, if I don't learn—In short this little volume is no discredit to any of your former, and betrays none of the Senility you fear about. Apropos of Van Balen, an artist who painted me lately had painted a Blackamoor praying, and not filling his canvas, stuff'd in his little girl aside of Blacky, gaping at him unmeaningly; and then didn't know what to call it. Now for a picture to be promoted to the Exhibition (Suffolk Street) as HISTORICAL, a subject is requisite. What does me? I but christen it the "Young Catechist" and furbishd it with Dialogue following, which dubb'd it an Historical Painting. Nothing to a friend at need.

　　While this tawny Ethiop prayeth,

　　Painter, who is She that stayeth

　　By, with skin of whitest lustre;

　　Sunny locks, a shining cluster;

　　Saintlike seeming to direct him

　　To the Power that must protect him?

　　Is she of the heav'nborn Three,

　　Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity?

　　Or some Cherub?

　　They you mention

　　Far transcend my weak invention.

　　'Tis a simple Christian child,

　　Missionary young and mild,

　　From her store of script'ral knowledge

　　(Bible-taught without a college)

　　Which by reading she could gather,

　　Teaches him to say OUR FATHER

　　To the common Parent, who

　　Colour not respects nor hue.

　　White and Black in him have part,

　　Who looks not to the skin, but heart.—

　　When I'd done it, the Artist (who had clapt in Miss merely as a fill-space) swore I exprest his full meaning, and the damosel bridled up into a Missionary's vanity. I like verses to explain Pictures: seldom Pictures to illustrate Poems. Your wood cut is a rueful Lignum Mortis. By the by, is the widow likely to marry again?

　　I am giving the fruit of my Old Play reading at the Museum to Hone, who sets forth a Portion weekly in the Table Book. Do you see it? How is Mitford?—

　　I'll just hint that the Pitcher, the Chord and the Bowl are a little too often repeated (passim) in your Book, and that on page 17 last line but 4 him is put for he, but the poor widow I take it had small leisure for grammatical niceties. Don't you see there's He, myself, and him; why not both him? likewise imperviously is cruelly spelt imperiously. These are trifles, and I honestly like your [book,] and you for giving it, tho' I really am ashamed of so many presents.

　　I can think of no news, therefore I will end with mine and Mary's kindest remembrances to you and yours. C.L.

　　[It has been customary to date this letter December, 1827, but I think that must be too late. Lamb would never have waited till then to tell Barton that he was contributing the Garrick Plays to Hone's Table Book, especially as the last instalment was printed in that month.

　　Barton's new volume was A Widow's Tale and Other Poems, 1827. The title poem tells how a missionary and his wife were wrecked, and how after three nights and days of horror she was saved. The woodcut on the title-page of Barton's book represented the widow supporting her dead or dying husband in the midst of the storm.

　　This is the "exquisite simile" on page 59, from "A Grandsire's Tale":—

　　Though some might deem her pensive, if not sad,

　　Yet those who knew her better, best could tell

　　How calmly happy, and how meekly glad

　　Her quiet heart in its own depths did dwell:

　　Like to the waters of some crystal well,

　　In which the stars of heaven at noon are seen.

　　Fancy might deem on her young spirit fell

　　Glimpses of light more glorious and serene

　　Than that of life's brief day, so heavenly was her mien.

　　This was the "downright good sonnet":—

　　TO A GRANDMOTHER

　　"Old age is dark and unlovely."—Ossian.

　　O say not so! A bright old age is thine;

　　Calm as the gentle light of summer eves,

　　Ere twilight dim her dusky mantle weaves;

　　Because to thee is given, in strength's decline,

　　A heart that does not thanklessly repine

　　At aught of which the hand of God bereaves,

　　Yet all He sends with gratitude receives;—

　　May such a quiet, thankful close be mine.

　　And hence thy fire-side chair appears to me

　　A peaceful throne—which thou wert form'd to fill;

　　Thy children—ministers, who do thy will;

　　And those grand-children, sporting round thy knee,

　　Thy little subjects, looking up to thee,

　　As one who claims their fond allegiance still.

　　And these are the lines at the foot of page 153 in a poem addressed to a child seven years old:—

　　There is a holy, blest companionship

　　In the sweet intercourse thus held with those

　　Whose tear and smile are guileless; from whose lip

　　The simple dictate of the heart yet flows;—

　　Though even in the yet unfolded rose

　　The worm may lurk, and sin blight blooming youth,

　　The light born with us long so brightly glows,

　　That childhood's first deceits seem almost truth,

　　To life's cold after lie, selfish, and void of ruth.

　　Van Balen was the painter of the picture of the "Madonna and Child" which Mrs. FitzGerald (Edward FitzGerald's mother) had given to Barton and for which he expressed his thanks in a poem.

　　The artist who painted Lamb recently was Henry Meyer (1782?-1847), the portrait being that which serves as frontispiece to this volume. I give in my large edition a reproduction of "The Young Catechist," which Meyer also engraved, with Lamb's verses attached. In 1910 I saw the original in a picture shop in the Charing Cross Road, now removed.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6