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　　LETTER 522

　　CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

　　[P.M. 30 August, 1830.]

　　Dear B.B.—my address is 34 Southampton Buildings, Holborn. For God's sake do not let me [be] pester'd with Annuals. They are all rogues who edit them, and something else who write in them. I am still alone, and very much out of sorts, and cannot spur up my mind to writing. The sight of one of those Year Books makes me sick. I get nothing by any of 'em, not even a Copy—

　　Thank you for your warm interest about my little volume, for the critics on which I care [? not] the 5 hundred thousandth part of the tythe of a half-farthing. I am too old a Militant for that. How noble, tho', in R.S. to come forward for an old friend, who had treated him so unworthily. Moxon has a shop without customers, I a Book without readers. But what a clamour against a poor collection of album verses, as if we had put forth an Epic. I cannot scribble a long Letter—I am, when not at foot, very desolate, and take no interest in any thing, scarce hate any thing, but annuals. I am in an interregnum of thought and feeling—

　　What a beautiful Autumn morning this is, if it was but with me as in times past when the candle of the Lord shined round me—

　　I cannot even muster enthusiasm to admire the French heroism.

　　In better times I hope we may some day meet, and discuss an old poem or two. But if you'd have me not sick no more of Annuals.

　　C.L. Ex-Elia.

　　Love to Lucy and A.K. always.

　　[The Literary Gazette, Jerdan's paper, had written offensively of Album Verses and its author's vanity in the number for July 10, 1830. Southey published in The Times of August 6 some lines in praise of Lamb and against Jerdan. It was Southey's first public utterance on Lamb since the famous letter by Elia to himself, and is the more noble in consequence. The lines ran thus:—

　　TO CHARLES LAMB

　　On the Reviewal of his Album Verses in the Literary Gazette

　　Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear

　　For rarest genius, and for sterling worth,

　　Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere,

　　And wit that never gave an ill thought birth,

　　Nor ever in its sport infix'd a sting;

　　To us who have admired and loved thee long,

　　It is a proud as well as pleasant thing

　　To hear thy good report, now borne along

　　Upon the honest breath of public praise:

　　We know that with the elder sons of song

　　In honouring whom thou hast delighted still,

　　Thy name shall keep its course to after days.

　　The empty pertness, and the vulgar wrong,

　　The flippant folly, the malicious will,

　　Which have assailed thee, now, or heretofore,

　　Find, soon or late, their proper meed of shame;

　　The more thy triumph, and our pride the more,

　　When witling critics to the world proclaim,

　　In lead, their own dolt incapacity.

　　Matter it is of mirthful memory

　　To think, when thou wert early in the field,

　　How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee

　　A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield.

　　And now, a veteran in the lists of fame,

　　I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested

　　When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim,

　　Dulness hath thrown a jerdan at thy head.

　　SOUTHEY.

　　Leigh Hunt attacked Jerdan in the Examiner in a number of "Rejected Epigrams" signed T.A. See later. He also took up the matter in the Tatler, in the first number of which the following "Inquest Extraordinary" was printed:—

　　Last week a porter died beneath his burden;

　　Verdict: Found carrying a Gazette from Jerdan.

　　Moxon's shop without customers was at 64 New Bond Street. "The candle of the Lord." In my large edition I gave this reference very thoughtlessly to Proverbs xx. 27. It is really to Job. xxix. 3.

　　"The French heroism." The July Revolution, in which the Bourbons were routed and Louis Philippe placed on the throne.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6