MR. P[IT]T
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MR. P[IT]T
By crooked arts, and actions sinister,
I came at first to be a Minister;
And now I am no longer Minister,
I still retain my actions sinister.
Page 116. Two Epigrams. The Examiner, March 22, 1812.
These epigrams have no signature, but the second of them was reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion" (1822) with Lamb's signature, R. et R., appended, and a note saying that it was written in the last reign, together with an announcement that it had not appeared in The Champion, but was inserted in that collection at the author's request. By Princeps and the heir-apparent is meant, of course, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., who had just entered upon office as Regent. The epigrams refer to his transfer of confidence, if so it may be called, from the Whig party to the Marquis Wellesley, Perceval and the Tory party. The circumstance that the Prince of Wales was also Duke of Cornwall is referred to in the first epigram. The second of the epigrams is copied into one of Lamb's Commonplace Books with the title "On the Prince breaking with his Party."
Page 116. The Triumph of the Whale.
The Examiner, March 15, 1812. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," signed R. et R., with a note stating that it had not appeared in The Champion, but was collected with the other pieces by the author's request.
The subject of the verses was, of course, the first gentleman in Europe. The Examiner was never over-nice in its treatment of the prince, and it was in the same year, 1812, that Leigh Hunt, the editor, and his brother, the printer, of the paper were prosecuted for the article styling him a "libertine" and the "companion of gamblers and demireps" (which appeared the week following Lamb's poem), and were condemned to imprisonment for it. Lamb's lines came very little short of expressing equally objectionable criticisms; but verse is often privileged. Thelwall—and Lamb—showed some courage in reprinting the lines in 1822, when the prince had become king. Talfourd relates that Lamb was in the habit of checking harsh comments on the prince by others with the smiling remark, "I love my Regent."
In Galignani's 1828 edition of Byron this piece was attributed to his lordship.
Page 118. St. Crispin to Mr. Gifford.
The Examiner, October 3 and 4, 1819. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822.
William Gifford (1756-1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, had been apprenticed to a cobbler. Lamb had an old score against him on account of his editorial treatment of Lamb's review of Wordsworth's Excursion, in 1814, and other matters (see note to "Letter to Southey," Vol. I.). Writing to the Olliers, on the publication of his Works, June 18, 1818, Lamb says, in reference to this sonnet: "I meditate an attack upon that Cobler Gifford, which shall appear immediately after any favourable mention which S. [Southey] may make in the Quarterly. It can't in decent gratitude appear before." When the sonnet was printed in the Examiner it purported to have reference to the Quarterly's treatment of Shelley's Revolt of Islam, which treatment Leigh Hunt was then exposing in a series of articles.
Page 118. The Godlike.
The Champion, March 18 and 19, 1820. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822.
Another contribution to the character of George IV., who had just succeeded to the throne, and was at that moment engaged upon the task of divorcing his wife, Caroline of Brunswick. The eighth line must be read probably with a medical eye. The concluding three lines refer to George III.'s insanity. As a political satirist Lamb disdained half measures.
Page 119. The Three Graves.
The Champion, May 13 and 14, 1820. Signed Dante. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822, signed Dante and R. et R. Reprinted in the London Magazine, May, 1825, unsigned, with the names in the last line printed only with initials and dashes, and the sub-title, "Written during the time, now happily almost forgotten, of the spy system."
Lamb probably found a certain mischievous pleasure in giving these lines the title of one of Coleridge's early poems.
The spy system was a protective movement undertaken by Lord Sidmouth (1757-1844) as Home Secretary in 1817—after the Luddite riots, the general disaffection in the country, Thistlewood's Spa Fields uprising and the break-down of the prosecution. Curious reading on the subject is to be found in the memoirs of Richmond the Spy, and Peter Mackenzie's remarks on that book and its author, in Tait's Magazine. The spy system culminated with the failure of the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820, which cost Thistlewood his life. That plot to murder ministers was revealed by George Edwards, one of the spies named by Lamb in the last line of this poem. Castles and Oliver were other government spies mentioned by Richmond.
Line 2. Bedloe, Oates … William Bedloe (1650-1680) and Titus Oates (1649-1705) were associated as lying informers of the proceedings of the imaginary Popish Plot against Charles II.
Page 119. Sonnet to Mathew Wood, Esq.
The Champion, May 13 and 14, 1820. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822.
Matthew Wood, afterwards Sir Matthew (1768-1843), was twice Lord Mayor of London, 1815-1817, and M.P. for the city. He was one of the principal friends and advisers of Caroline of Brunswick, George IV.'s repudiated wife. Hence his particular merit in Lamb's eyes. Later he administered the affairs of the Duke of Kent, whose trustee he was, and his baronetcy was the first bestowed by Queen Victoria. The sonnet contains another of Lamb's attacks on Canning. This statesman's mother, after the death of George Canning, her first husband, in 1771, took to the stage, where she remained for thirty years. Canning was at school at Eton. The course on which Wood was adjured to hold was the defence of Queen Caroline; but Canning's opposition to her cause was not so absolute as Lamb seemed to think. The ministry, of which Canning was a member, had prepared a bill by which the queen was to receive £50,000 annually so long as she remained abroad. The king insisted on divorce or nothing, and it was his own repugnance to this measure that caused Canning to tender his resignation. The king refused it, and Canning went abroad and did not return until it was abandoned.
Line 11. Pickpocket Peer. This would be Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville (1742-1811), Pitt's lieutenant, who was impeached for embezzling money as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was acquitted, but that was a circumstance that would hardly concern Lamb when in this mood.
Page 120. On a Projected Journey.
The Champion, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822. George IV.'s visit to Hanover did not, however, occur till October, 1821. This is entitled in Ayrton's MS. book (see below) "Upon the King's embarcation at Ramsgate for Hanover, 1821."
Page 120. Song for the C——n.
The Champion, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822.
A song for the Coronation, which was fixed for 1821. Queen Caroline returned to England in June, 1820, staying with Alderman Wood (see page 361) in order to be on the spot against that event. Meanwhile the divorce proceedings began, but were eventually withdrawn. Caroline made a forcible effort to be present at the Coronation, on July 29, 1821, but was repulsed at the Abbey door. She was taken ill the next day and died on August 7. "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch" is the Scotch song by Anne Grant.
Page 120. The Unbeloved.
The Champion, September 23 and 24, 1820. Reprinted in The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion," 1822. In The Champion the last line was preceded by
Place-and-heiress-hunting elf,
the reference to heiress-hunting touching upon Canning's marriage to Miss Joan Scott, a sister of the Duchess of Portland, who brought him £100,000.
Line 4. C——gh. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and second Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), Foreign Secretary from 1812 until his death. He committed suicide in a state of unsound mind.
Line 6. The Doctor. This was the nickname commonly given to Henry
Addington, Viscount Sidmouth.
Line 8. Their chatty, childish Chancellor. John Scott, afterwards Earl of Eldon (1751-1838), the Lord Chancellor.
Line 9. In Liverpool some virtues strike. Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828), Prime Minister at the time, and therefore principal scapegoat for the Divorce Bill.
Line 10. And little Van's beneath dislike. Nicholas Vansittart, afterwards Baron Bexley (1766-1851), Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Line 12. H——t. Thomas Taylour, first Marquis of Headfort (1757-1829), the principal figure in a crim. con. case in 1804 when he was sued by a clergyman named Massey and had to pay £10,000 damages.
Page 121. On the Arrival in England of Lord Byron's Remains.
From a MS. book of William Ayrton's. In The New Times, October 24, 1825, the verses followed the "Ode to the Treadmill." The epigram, which was unsigned, then ran thus:—
THE POETICAL CASK
With change of climate manners alter not:
Transport a drunkard—he'll return a sot.
So lordly Juan, d——d to endless fame,
Went out a pickle—and comes back the same.
Lord Byron's body had been brought home from Greece, for burial at Hucknall Torkard, in 1824, and the cause of the epigram was a paragraph in The New Times of October 19, 1825, stating that the tub in which Byron's remains came home was exhibited by the captain of the Rodney for 2s. 6d. a head; afterwards sold to a cooper in Whitechapel; resold to a museum; and finally sold again to a cooper in Middle New Street, who was at that time using it as an advertisement.
The third line recalls Pope's line—
See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame.
Essay on Man, IV., 284.
Page 121. Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross.
First printed in the Englishman's Magazine, September, 1831. Lamb sent the epigram to Barton in a letter in November, 1827. The body of Caroline of Brunswick, the rejected wife of George IV., was conveyed through London only by force—involving a fatal affray between the people and the Life Guards at Hyde Park corner—on its way to burial at Brunswick.
Page 122. For the "Table Book."
This epigram accompanies a note to William Hone. It was marked "For the Table Book," but does not seem to have been printed there.
Page 122. The Royal Wonders.
The Times, August 10, 1830. Signed Charles Lamb. The epigram refers to the Paris insurrection of July 26, 1830, which cost Charles X. his throne; and, at home, to William IV.'s extreme fraternal friendliness to his subjects.
Page 122. Brevis Esse Laboro. "One Dip."
Page 123. Suum Cuique.
These epigrams were written for the sons of James Augustus Hessey, the publisher, two Merchant Taylor boys. In The Taylorian for March, 1884, the magazine of the Merchant Taylors' School, the late Archdeacon Hessey, one of the boys in question, told the story of their authorship. It was a custom many years ago for Election Day at Merchant Taylors' School to be marked by the recitation of original epigrams in Greek, Latin and English, which, although the boys themselves were usually the authors, might also be the work of other hands. Archdeacon Hessey and his brother, as the following passage explains, resorted to Charles Lamb for assistance:—
The subjects for 1830 were Suum Cuique and Brevis esse latoro. After some three or four exercise nights I confess that I was literally "at my wits' end." But a brilliant idea struck me. I had frequently, boy as I was, seen Charles Lamb (Elia) at my father's house, and once, in 1825 or 1826, I had been taken to have tea with him and his sister, Mary Lamb, at their little house, Colebrook Cottage, a whitish-brown tenement, standing by itself, close to the New River, at Islington. He was very kind, as he always was to young people, and very quaint. I told him that I had devoured his "Roast Pig;" he congratulated me on possessing a thorough schoolboy's appetite. And he was pleased when I mentioned my having seen the boys at Christ's Hospital at their public suppers, which then took place on the Sunday evenings in Lent. "Could this good-natured and humorous old gentleman be prevailed upon to give me an Epigram?" "I don't know," said my father, to whom I put the question, "but I will ask him at any rate, and send him the mottoes." In a day or two there arrived from Enfield, to which Lamb had removed some time in 1827, not one, but two epigrams, one on each subject. That on Suum Cuique was in Latin, and was suggested by the grim satisfaction which had recently been expressed by the public at the capture and execution of some notorious highwayman. That on Brevis esse laboro was in English, and might have represented an adventure which had befallen Lamb himself, for he stammered frequently, though he was not so grievous a Balbulus as his friend George Darley, whom I had also often seen. I need scarcely say that the two Epigrams were highly appreciated, and that my brother and myself, for I gave my brother one of them, were objects of envy to our schoolfellows.
The death of George IV., however, prevented their being recited on the occasion for which they were written.
"Suum Cuique," which was signed F. Hessey, was thus translated by its presumptive author:—
A thief, on dreary Bagshot's heath well known,
Was fond of making others' goods his own;
Meum was never thought of, nor was Tuum,
But everything with him was counted Suum.
At length each gets his own, and no one grieves;
The rope his neck, Jack Ketch his clothes receives:
His body to dissecting knife has gone;
Himself to Orcus: well—each gets his own.
The English epigram, which was signed J.A. Hessey, was a rhyming version of a story which Lamb was fond of telling. Three, at least, of his friends relate the story in their recollections of him: Mrs. Mathews in her life of her husband; Leigh Hunt in The Companion; and De Quincey in Fraser's Magazine. The incident possibly occurred to Lamb when as a boy—or little more—he stayed at Margate about 1790. Lamb must have written Merchant Taylors' epigrams before, for in 1803, in a letter to Godwin about writing to order, he speaks of having undertaken, three or four times, a schoolboy copy of verses for Merchant Taylors' boys at a guinea a copy, and refers to the trouble and vexation the work was to him.
Writing to Southey on May 10, 1830, Lamb said, at the end:—"Perhaps an epigram (not a very happy-gram) I did for a school-boy yesterday may amuse. I pray Jove he may not get a flogging for any false quantity; but 'tis, with one exception, the only Latin verses I have made for forty years, and I did it 'to order.'
"CUIQUE SUUM
"Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas
Fur, rapiens, spolians quod mihi, quod-que tibi,
Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, meum-que tuum-que
Omne suum est: tandem Cui-que Suum tribuit.
Dat resti collum; restes, vah! carnifici dat;
Sese Diabolo, sic bene; Cuique Suum."
Page 123. On "The Literary Gazette".
The Examiner, August 22, 1830. This epigram, consisting only of the first four lines, slightly altered, and headed "Rejected Epigrams, 6"-evidently torn from a paper containing a number of verses (the figure 7 is just visible underneath it)—is in the British Museum among the letters left by Vincent Novello. It is inscribed, "In handwriting of Mr. Charles Lamb." The same collection contains a copy, in Mrs. Cowden Clarke's handwriting, of the sonnet to Mrs. Jane Towers (see page 50). The Literary Gazette was William Jerdan's paper, a poor thing, which Lamb had reason to dislike for the attack it made upon him when Album Verses was published (see note on page 331).
The Examiner began the attack on August 14, 1830. All the epigrams are signed T.A. This means that if Lamb wrote the above, he wrote all; which is not, I think, likely. I do not reproduce them, the humour of punning upon the name of the editor of the Literary Gazette being a little outmoded.
T.A. may, of course, have been Lamb's pseudonymous signature. If so, he may have chosen it as a joke upon his friend Thomas Allsop. But since one of the epigrams is addressed to himself I doubt if Lamb was the author.
Page 123. On the Fast-Day.
John Payne Collier, in his privately printed reminiscences, An Old Man's Diary, "es this epigram as being by Charles Lamb. It may have been written for the Fast-Day on October 19, 1803, for that on May 25, 1804, or for a later one. Lamb tells Hazlitt in February, 1806, that he meditates a stroll on the Fast-Day.
Page 123. Nonsense Verses.
Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in Mary and Charles Lamb, 1874, says: "I found these lines—a parody on the popular, or nursery, ditty, 'Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home'—officiating as a wrapper to some of Mr. Hazlitt's hair. There is no signature; but the handwriting is unmistakably Lamb's; nor are the lines themselves the worst of his playful effusions." The piece suggests that Lamb, in a wild mood, was turning his own "Angel Help" (see page 51) into ridicule—possibly to satisfy some one who dared him to do it, or vowed that such a feat could not be accomplished.
Page 124. On Wawd.
Wawd was a fellow-clerk. We have this jeu d'esprit through Mr. Joseph
H. Twichell, an American who had it from a fellow-clerk of Lamb's named
Ogilvie. (See Scribner's Magazine, March, 1876.)
Page 124. Six Epitaphs.
Writing to Southey on March 20, 1799, Lamb says:—"I the other day threw off an extempore epitaph on Ensign Peacock of the 3rd Regt. of the Royal East India Volunteers, who like other boys in this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing at soldiers, but dying in the first flash of his valour was at the particular instance of his relations buried with military honours! like any veteran scarr'd or chopt from Blenheim or Ramilies. (He was buried in sash and gorget.) Sed hae sunt lamentabilis nugae—But'tis as good as some epitaphs you and I have read together in Christ-Church-yard."
The last five Epigrams were sent to the New York Tribune, Feb. 22, 1879, by the late J.H. Siddons. They were found on scraps of paper in Lamb's desk in the India House. Wagstaff and Sturms were fellow-clerks. Dr. Drake was the medical officer of the establishment. Captain Dey was a putative son of George IV. The lines upon him were given to Siddons by Kenney's son.
Page 126. Time and Eternity and From the Latin.
In The Mirror for June 1, 1833, are the two poems, collected under the general heading "The Gatherer," indexed "Lamb, C., lines by." Mr. Thomas Hutchinson first printed the second poem; but I do not feel too happy about it.
Page 127. SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE, 1831.
This ballad was published by Moxon, anonymously, in 1831, although the authorship was no secret In its volume form it was illustrated by George Cruikshank. Lamb probably did not value his ballad very highly. Writing to Moxon in 1833 he says, "I wish you would omit 'by the Author of Elia' now, in advertising that damn'd 'Devil's Wedding.'"
There is a reference to the poem, in Lamb's letter to Moxon of October 24, 1831, which needs explanation. Moxon's Englishman's Magazine, after running under his control for three months, was suddenly abandoned. Lamb, who seems to have been paid in advance for his work, wrote to Moxon on the subject, approving him for getting the weight off his mind and adding:—"I have one on mine. The cash in hand which as ***** less truly says, burns in my pocket. I feel queer at returning it (who does not?). You feel awkward at re-taking it (who ought not?) is there no middle way of adjusting this fine embarrassment. I think I have hit upon a medium to skin the sore place over, if not quite to heal it. You hinted that there might be something under £10 by and by accruing to me Devil's Money. You are sanguine—say £7 10s.—that I entirely renounce and abjure all future interest in, I insist upon it, and 'by Him I will not name' I won't touch a penny of it. That will split your loss one half—and leave me conscientious possessor of what I hold. Less than your assent to this, no proposal will I accept of."
A few months later, writing again to Moxon, he says:—"I am heartily sorry my Devil does not answer. We must try it a little longer; and, after all, I think I must insist on taking a portion of its loss upon myself. It is too much that you should lose by two adventures."
According to some reminiscences of Lamb by Mr. J. Fuller Russell, printed in Notes and Queries, April 1, 1882, Lamb suppressed "Satan in Search of a Wife," for the reason that the Vicar of Enfield, Dr. Cresswell, also had married a tailor's daughter, and might be hurt by the ballad. The correspondence "ed above does not, I think, bear out Mr. Russell's statement. If the book were still being advertised in 1833, we can hardly believe that any consideration for the Vicar of Enfield would cause its suppression. This gentleman had been at Enfield for several years, and Lamb would have either suppressed the book immediately or not at all; but possibly his wish to disassociate the name of Elia from the work was inspired by the coincidence.
The ballad does not call for much annotation. The legend mentioned in the dedication tells how Cecilia, by her music, drew an angel from heaven, who brought her roses of Paradise. The ballad of King Cophetua and the beggar maid may be read in the Percy Reliques. Hecate is a triple deity, known as Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpine in hell. In the reference to Milton I think Lamb must have been thinking of the lines, Paradise Lost, I., 27-28:—
Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell….
or, Paradise Lost, V., 542:—
And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell.
Alecto (Part I., Stanza II.) was one of the Furies.—Old Parr (Stanza IV.) lived to be 152; he died in 1635.—Semiramis (Stanza XVII.) was Queen of Assyria, under whom Babylon became the most wonderful city in the world; Helen was Helen of Troy, the cause of the war between the Greeks and Trojans; Medea was the cruel lover of Jason, who recovered the Golden Fleece.—Clytemnestra (Stanza XVIII.) was the wife and murderer of Agamemnon; Joan of Naples was Giovanna, the wife of Andrea of Hungary, who was accused of assassinating him. Landor wrote a play, "Giovanna of Naples," to "restore her fame" and "requite her wrongs;" Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt, and lover of Mark Antony; Jocasta married her son Oedipus unknowing who he was.—A tailor's "goose" (Stanza XXII.) is his smoothing-iron, and his "hell" (Stanza XXIII.) the place where he throws his shreds and debris.—Lamb's own "Vision of Horns" (see Vol. I.) serves as a commentary on Stanza XXVII.; and in his essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors" (Vol. I.) are further remarks on the connection between tailors and cabbage in Stanza I. of Part II.—The two Miss Crockfords of Stanza XVIII. would be the daughters of William Crockford, of Crockford's Club, who, after succeeding to his father's business of fishmonger, opened the gaming-house which bore his name and amassed a fortune of upwards of a million.—Semele (Stanza XXI.), whose lightest wish Jupiter had sworn to grant, was treacherously induced to express the desire that Jupiter would visit her with the divine pomp in which he approached his lawful wife Juno. He did so, and she was consumed by his lightning and thunderbolts.—The bard of Stanza XXV. is, of course, Virgil.
Page 138. Prologues and Epilogues.
Writing to Sarah Stoddart concerning Godwin's "Faulkener" Mary Lamb remarked: "Prologues and Epilogues will be his [Charles's] death."
Page 138. Epilogue to "Antonio."
Had Lamb not sent this epilogue to Manning in the letter of December 13, 1800, we should have no copy of it; for Godwin, by Lamb's advice, did not print it with the play. Writing to Godwin two days before, Lamb remarked:-"I have been plotting how to abridge the Epilogue. But I cannot see that any lines can be spared, retaining the connection, except these two, which are better out:
"Why should I instance, &c.,
The sick man's purpose, &c.,
and then the following line must run thus,
"The truth by an example best is shown."
See lines 16, 17 and 18.
Godwin's "Antonio," produced at Drury Lane on December 13, 1800, was a failure. Many years afterwards Lamb told the story of the unlucky first night (see "The Old Actors" in Appendix to Vol. II. of this edition). Godwin, its author, was, of course, William Godwin, the philosopher (1756-1836). Later Lamb wrote the prologue to another of his plays (see page 140 and note).
Lines 35 and 36. Suett … Bannister. Richard Suett (1755-1805) and
Jack Bannister (1760-1836), two famous comedians of that day. Line 62.
"Pizarro." Sheridan's patriotic melodrama, produced May 24, 1799, at
Drury Lane.
Page 140. Prologue to "Faulkener."
William Godwin's tragedy "Faulkener" was produced at Drury Lane, December 16, 1807, with some success. Lamb's letters to Godwin of September 9 and 17, 1801, suggest that he had a share in the framing of the plot. Later the play was taken in hand by Thomas Holcroft and made more dramatic.
According to Godwin's preface, 1807, the story was taken from the 1745 edition of Defoe's Roxana, which contains the episode of Susannah imagining herself to be Roxana's daughter and throwing herself in her mother's way. Godwin transformed the daughter into a son. Lamb, however, seems to have believed this episode to be in the first edition, 1724, and afterwards to have been removed at the entreaty of Southerne, Defoe's friend (see Lamb's letters to Walter Wilson, Defoe's biographer, of December 16, 1822, and February 24, 1823). But it is in reality the first edition which lacks the episode, and Mr. G.A. Aitken, Defoe's latest editor, doubts Southerne's interference altogether and considers Susannah's curiosity an alien interpolation. For Lamb's other remarks on Defoe see also the "Ode to the Tread Mill," page 72 of this volume, and "Estimate of Defoe's Secondary Novels" (Vol. I.). Writing to Walter Wilson on November 15, 1829, on the receipt of his memoirs of Defoe, Lamb exclaims: "De Foe was always my darling."
Page 140. Epilogue to "Time's a Tell-Tale."
A play by Henry Siddons (1774-1815), Mrs. Siddons' eldest son. It was produced in 1807 at Drury Lane, with Lamb's prologue, which was, however, received so badly that on the second night another was substituted for it.
Page 142. Prologue to "Remorse."
Coleridge's tragedy "Remorse," a recasting of his "Osorio" (written at Sheridan's instigation in 1797), was produced with success on January 23, 1813; and was printed, with the prologue, in the same year. Lamb's prologue, "spoken by Mr. Carr," was (according to Mr. Dykes Campbell) a recasting of some verses composed for the prize offered by the Drury Lane Committee in the previous year, 1812, in response to their advertisement for a suitable poem to be read at the reopening of the new building after the fire of 1809. It was, of course, this competition which brought forth the Rejected Addresses (1812) of the brothers James and Horace Smith.
The prologue as printed is very different from that which was spoken at the theatre by Mr. Carr. A writer in the Theatrical Inquisitor for February, 1813, in his contemptuous criticism, refers to several passages that are no longer extant. I "e from an account of the matter by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell in the Illustrated London News, October 22, 1892:—
I am afraid the true text of Lamb's "Rejected Address," even as modified for use as a prologue, has not come down to us. This is how the severe and suspicious Inquisitor describes it and its twin brother the epilogue—
The Prologue and Epilogue were among the most stupid productions of the modern muse; the former was, in all probability, a Rejected Address, for it contained many eulogiums on the beauty and magnificence of the "dome" of Drury; talked of the waves being not quite dry, and expressed the happiness of the bard at being the first whose muse had soared within its limits. More stupid than the doggerel of Twiss, and more affected than the pretty verses of Miles Peter Andrews, the Epilogue proclaimed its author and the writer of the Prologue to be par nobile fratrum, in rival dulness both pre-eminent.
The reader of Lamb's prologue will find little of all this in it, but there is no reason for doubting the critic's account of what he heard at the theatre. It is not at all unlikely that it was this paragraph which suggested to Lamb the advisability of still further revising the "Rejected Address." In the prologue there is a good deal about the size of the theatre, as compared with "the Lyceum's petty sphere," and of how pleased Shakspere would have been had he been able to hear—
When that dread curse of Lear's
Had burst tremendous on a thousand ears:
rather an anti-climax, by the way, for it means an audience of but five hundred, which would have been a beggarly account for the new Drury. There is nothing either about its "dome," or about the scenery, except commonplaces so flat that one doubts if it be quite fair to "e them—
The very use, since so essential grown,
Of painted scenes, was to his [Shakspere's] stage unknown.
This is not an improvement on the "waves not yet quite dry," a Lamb-like touch which could not have been invented by the critic, and may go far to convince us of his veracity.
Above all, there is no trace of that splendidly audacious suggestion that Coleridge was the first "whose muse had soared" within the new dome—unless we find a blind one in the closing lines, supposing them to have been converted by the simple process of inversion. Instead of Coleridge being the first whose muse had soared in the new Drury, Drury was the first place in which his dramatic muse had soared.
Lamb was not among the writers parodied by the "sneering brothers" (as he called them later), but Coleridge was. Lamb's turn came in 1825, when P.G. Patmore, afterwards his friend and the father of Coventry Patmore, wrote Rejected Articles, in which was a very poor imitation of Elia.
Line 9. Betterton or Booth. Thomas Betterton, born probably in 1635, acted for the last time in 1710, the year in which he died. Barton Booth (1681-1733) left the stage in 1728. Betterton was much at the Little Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields; also at Sir John Vanbrugh's theatre in the Haymarket.
Line 11. Quin. James Quin (1693-1766) of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, Garrick's great rival, famous as Falstaff. His last appearance was in 1753.
Line 12. Garrick. Garrick's Drury Lane, in which Lamb saw his first play, was that built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1674. It lasted, with certain alterations, including a new face by the brothers Adam, nearly 120 years. The seating capacity of this theatre was modest. In 1794 a new Drury Lane Theatre, the third, was opened—too large for comfortable seeing or hearing. This was burned down in 1809; and the new one, the fourth, and that in which "Remorse" was produced, was opened in 1812. This is the building (with certain additions) that still stands.
Lines 13-16. Garrick in the shades. Many years later Lamb used the same idea in connection with Elliston (see "To the Shade of Elliston," Vol. II.).
Line 20. Ben and Fletcher. Ben Jonson (1573?-1637) and John Fletcher (1579-1625), Beaumont's collaborator. Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour" was produced at the Globe in 1598, Shakspeare being in the caste; but in the main he wrote for Henslowe, who was connected with the Rose and the Swan, on Bankside, and with the theatre in Newington Butts, and who built, with Alleyn, in 1600, the Fortune in Golden Lane, Cripplegate Without. Beaumont and Fletcher's plays went for the most part to Burbage, who owned the Globe at Southwark and the Blackfriars' Theatre. Shakspeare also wrote for Burbage.
Page 143. Epilogue to "Debtor and Creditor."
"Debtor and Creditor" was a farce by James Kenney (1780-1849), Lamb's friend, with whom he stayed at Versailles in 1822. The play was produced April 20, 1814. Gosling's experiences as a dramatic author seem to have been curiously like Lamb's own. See note to "Mr. H." on page 392.
Line 12. They never bring the Spanish. Spanish, old slang for money.
Line 40. Polito's. Polito at one time kept the menagerie in Exeter
Change.
Line 42. Larry Whack. Larry Whack is referred to in the play. Says
Sampson, on one occasion: "Who be I? Come, that be capital! Why, ben't I
Sampson Miller? Didn't I bang the Darby Corps at York Races … and
durst Sir Harry Slang bring me up to town to fight Larry Whack, the
Irish ruffian?…"
Page 145. Epilogue to an Amateur Performance of "Richard II."
This epilogue, says Canon Ainger, who first printed it, was written for a performance given by the family of Barren Field in 1824. The family of Henry Field, Barron's father, would perhaps be more accurate; for Barron Field was childless. The verses, which I print by permission of Miss Kendall, Miss Field's residuary legatee, were given to Canon Ainger by the late Miss M.L. Field, of Hastings. In his interesting note he adds of this lady (to whom Lamb addressed the verses on page 106), "she told me that she (then a girl of 19) sat by the side of Lamb during the performance. She remembered well, she said, that in course of the play a looking glass was broken, and that Lamb turned to her and whispered 'Sixpence!' She added that before the play began, while the guests were assembling, the butler announced 'Mr. Negus!'—upon which Lamb exclaimed, 'Hand him round!'"
Lamb refers in the opening lines to Edmund Kean and John Philip Kemble.
In this connection it may be interesting to state that Lamb told Patmore that he considered John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, the grandest name in the world.
Page 146. Prologue to "The Wife."
The original form of the prologue to James Sheridan Knowles' comedy, not hitherto collected in any edition of Lamb's writings, is preserved in the Forster collection in the South Kensington Museum. It was sent to Moxon, for Knowles, in April, 1833, and differs considerably. See the large edition of this work. It is curious that the prologue was not attributed to Lamb when the play was printed. Knowles wrote in the preface: "To my early, my trusty and honoured friend, Charles Lamb, I owe my thanks for a delightful Epilogue, composed almost as soon as it was requested. To an equally dear friend, I am equally indebted for my Prologue."
Page 147. Epilogue to "The Wife."
This epilogue was spoken by Miss Ellen Tree.
Page 149. JOHN WOODVIL.
First published in 1802 in a slender volume entitled John Woodvil: a Tragedy. By C. Lamb. To which are added Fragments of Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy. The full contents of the book were:—
John Woodvil; Ballad, From the German (see page 29); Helen (see page 28); Curious Fragments, I., II., III., IV.; The Argument; The Consequence (see Vol. I., page 29, and note; also pages 30 and 35 of the present volume and notes).
John Woodvil was reprinted by Lamb in the Works, 1818, the text of which is followed here.
If Mr. Fuller Russell was right in his statement in Notes and Queries, April 1, 1882, that Lamb told him he "had lost £25 by his best effort, John Woodvil," we must suppose that the book was published wholly or partially at his own cost.
The history of the poem which follows is, with an omission and addition here and there, that compiled by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell and contributed by him to The Athenaeum, October 31 and November 14, 1891. Mr. Campbell had the opportunity of collating the edition of 1802 with a manuscript copy made by Lamb and his sister for Manning. With that patient thoroughness and discrimination which made his work as an editor so valuable, Mr. Campbell minutely examined this copy and put the results on record; and they are now for the first time, by permission of Mrs. Dykes Campbell and the Editor of The Athenaum, incorporated in an edition of Lamb's writings. The copy itself, I may add, when it came into the market, was secured by an American collector. Mr. Campbell's words follow, my own interpolations being within square brackets.
Lamb's first allusion to the future John Woodvil occurs in a letter to Southey (October 29, 1798), at a time when the two young men were exchanging a good many copies of verses for mutual criticism. "Not having anything of my own," writes Lamb, "to send you in return (though, to tell the truth, I am at work upon something which if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two that might not displease you: but I will not do that; and whether it will come to anything I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter, when I compose anything) I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old Christopher Marlowe's." Lamb must soon have got rid of his objections to cutting away and garbling, for before a month had elapsed he had sent Southey two extracts, first the "Dying Lover" [see "Dramatic Fragment," page 85], and next (November 28) "The Witch" [see page 199], both of which passages were excluded from the printed play. [The letter, which is wrongly dated April 20, 1799, in some editions, concludes (of "The Witch"): "This is the extract I bragged of as superior to that I sent you from Marlowe: perhaps you will smile."]
Charles Lloyd shared with Southey the pains and pleasures of criticising Lamb's verses, for Lamb asks the latter if he agrees with Lloyd in disliking something in "The Witch."
[Thus: "Lloyd objects to 'shutting up the womb of his purse' in my curse (which, for a Christian witch in a Christian country, is not too mild, I hope). Do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as 'shaking the poor little snakes from his door,' which suits the speaker. Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, and snakes and the shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that this last charge has been before brought against 'em nor either the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch would do if she could."]
Lamb proposes also to adopt an emendation of Southey's in the "Dying Lover"—"though I do not feel the objection against 'Silent Prayer,'" and in the event he did very sensibly stick to his own opinion, for in the London Magazine the line runs, as first written:—
He put a silent prayer up for the bride.
One wonders what harm Southey can have seen in it. At this time Southey was collecting verses for the first volume of his Annual Anthology (provisionally called the Kalendar), and inviting contributions from Lamb. In writing before November 28, 1798, "This ['The Witch'] and the 'Dying Lover' I gave you are the only extracts I can give without mutilation," Lamb may have meant that Southey was at liberty to print them in the Anthology. A year later, October 31, 1799, when the second volume was in preparation, Lamb wrote:—"I shall have nothing to communicate, I fear, to the Anthology. You shall have some fragments of my play if you desire them; but I think I would rather print it whole."
As a matter of fact, Lamb contributed nothing to the collection except the lines "Living without God in the World," printed in the first volume [see page 19. To Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, etc., 1801, edited by Dr. James Anderson, a friend of George Dyer, Lamb, however, sent "Description of a Forest Life," "The General Lover" (What is it you love?) and the "Dying Lover," called "Fragment in Dialogue." There are slight differences in the text, the chief alteration being in line 3 of the "Description of a Forest Life":—
Bursting the lubbar bonds of sleep that bound him.]
Reverting to the letter of November 28, one learns Lamb's intentions as to the play:—"My Tragedy will be a medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, wit, pathos, humour, and, if possible, sublimity; at least it is not a fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant atoms. Heaven send they dance not the 'Dance of Death'!"
The composition went on slowly and in a very casual way, for on January 21, 1799, he writes again to Southey:—"I have only one slight passage to send you, scarce worth the sending, which I want to edge in somewhere into my play, which, by the way, hath not received the addition often lines, besides, since I saw you." The "slight passage" is one which, it will be seen, was "edged in" near the end of the second act, but taken out again—that beginning:—
I saw him [John Woodvil] in the day of Worcester fight,
Whither he came at twice seven years,
Under the discipline of the Lord Falkland
(His uncle by the mother's side), etc.
Lamb naïvely asks Southey, "But did Falkland die before the Worcester fight? In that case I must make bold to unclify some other nobleman." I suppose Southey must have answered that Falkland had been killed at Newbury eight years before Worcester fight, for when the passage had been edged into the play, Naseby and Ashley were substituted for "Worcester" and "Falkland" respectively. This was as bad a shot as the first, for Sir Anthony Cooper, whether at Naseby or no, did not become Lord Ashley until sixteen years after that fight. Had the passage escaped the pruning knife, Lamb's historical research would no doubt have provided a proper battle and a proper uncle for his hero. Again Lloyd appears as a critic, and this time he is obeyed, probably because his objection to "portrayed in his face" was backed by Southey. "I like the line," says Lamb, but he altered it to
Of Valour's beauty in his youthful face
in the Manning MS. Four months later, on May 20, Lamb sends Southey the charming passage about forest-life on page 173, and defends his blank verse against Southey's censure of the pauses at the end of the lines; he does it on the model of Shakespeare, he says, in his "endeavour after a colloquial ease and spirit." Talfourd printed the passage in full, but some later editors have cut down the twenty-four lines to the six opening ones, to the loss of a point in the letter. Lamb says he "loves to anticipate charges of unoriginality," adding—"the first line is almost Shakespeare's:—
"To have my love to bed and to arise.
"'Midsummer-Night's Dream.'
I think there is a sweetness in the versification not unlike some rhymes in that exquisite play, and the last line but three is yours." This line describes how the deer, as they came tripping by,
Then stop and gaze, then turn, they know not why.
Lamb thus gives the line and his reference:—
——An eye
That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why.
"Rosamund's Epistle."
But, of course, he mis"es both line and title—though Southey would feel flattered in finding that his friend's memory had done so well. As the editors have not annotated the passage, I will say here that Lamb should have "ed
The modest eye
That met the glance, or turn'd, it knew not why.
"Rosamund to Henry."
The poem is one of those in the now scarce volume which Southey and Lovel published jointly at Bath in 1795, Poems: containing "The Retrospect." [It was this forest passage which, as Hazlitt tells us in his Spirit of the Age, so puzzled Godwin. After looking in vain through the old dramatists for it, he applied to Lamb himself.]
By the end of October the play had evidently been completed (though not yet named), for on the 31st Southey was asked, "Have you seen it, or shall I lend you a copy? I want your opinion of it." None is recorded here, but more than two years later, when Southey was in London, he gave it to Danvers (Letters of R.S., II., 184): "Lamb and his sister see us often: he is printing his play, which will please you by the exquisite beauty of its poetry, and provoke you by the exquisite silliness of its story."
The play must have been baptised as "Pride's Cure" soon after Hallowe'en, for at Christmas it was submitted under that title to Kemble, and about the same time (December 28, 1799) we find Lamb defending the title (with the vehemence and subtlety of a doubter, as I read) against the adverse criticism of Manning and Mrs. Charles Lloyd. Lamb had lately been on a visit to these friends at Cambridge, and had doubtless taken a copy of his play with him and received their objections there and then—for his defence does not seem to have been provoked by a letter. [In a letter to Charles Lloyd that has come to light since Mr. Dykes Campbell wrote, belonging to middle December, 1799, Lamb asks for his play to be returned to him, suggesting that Mrs. Lloyd shall despatch it. It was probably in the letter that accompanied the parcel that the criticism of the title was found. Lamb thus defended it:—"By-the-bye, I think you and Sophia both incorrect with regard to the title of the play. Allowing your objection (which is not necessary, as pride may be, and is in real life often, cured by misfortunes not directly originating from its own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a naughty desire is sometimes sent to cure it; I know you read these practical divines)—but allowing your objection, does not the betraying of his father's secret directly spring from pride?—from the pride of wine, and a full heart, and a proud over-stepping of the ordinary rules of morality, and contempt of the prejudices of mankind, which are not to bind superior souls—'as trust in the matter of secrets all ties of blood, etc., etc., keeping of promises, the feeble mind's religion, binding our morning knowledge to the performance of what last night's ignorance spake'—does he not prate, that 'Great Spirits' must do more than die for their friend? Does not the pride of wine incite him to display some evidence of friendship, which its own irregularity shall make great? This I know, that I meant his punishment not alone to be a cure for his daily and habitual pride, but the direct consequence and appropriate punishment of a particular act of pride.
"If you do not understand it so, it is my fault in not explaining my meaning."]
Manning seems to have begged for a copy—or reconsideration, perhaps—for Lamb, on February 13, 1800, promised him a copy "of my play and the Falstaff Letters in a day or two." There is no trace of the former having been sent, but the latter certainly was, for on March 1 he presses Manning for his opinion of it—hopes he is "prepared to call it a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humours," etc., as he was accustomed to hope when that book was in question. The next mention of the play occurs in an undated letter to Coleridge [accompanying a MS. copy of the play for the Wordsworths], dated by Talfourd and other editors "end of 1800," which must have been written in March or April, 1800 [since Coleridge was then staying with Wordsworth, engaged in completing the translation of Wallenstein, the last of the MS. being sent to the printer in April]. Talfourd's mistake in dating it perhaps led him to suppose that the copy sent through Coleridge to Wordsworth was a printed copy, and that Lamb had printed John Woodvil a year before he published it. If any other proof were needed that Talfourd guessed wrongly, it is supplied by this sentence in the letter to Manning of February 15, 1801:—"I lately received from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume [of the Lyrical Ballads] accompanied by an acknowledgment of having received from me many months since a copy of a certain Tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment sooner."
Lamb's reply to Wordsworth (January 30, 1801) is so very dry—"Thank you for Liking my Play!!"—that we may suppose that Wordsworth's expression of "liking" was not very enthusiastic.
Things become clearer when we reach November 3, 1800, on which day Lamb thus addressed Manning (I "e verbatim from the original letter):—"At last I have written to Kemble to know the event of my play, which was presented last Christmas. As I suspected, came an answer back that the copy was lost … with a courteous (reasonable!) request of another copy (if I had one by me), and a promise of a definite answer in a week. I could not resist so facile and moderate demand: so scribbled out another, omitting sundry things, such as the witch story, about half the forest scene (which is too leisurely for story), and transposing that damn'd soliloquy about England getting drunk, which like its reciter stupidly stood alone nothing prevenient, or antevenient, and cleared away a good deal besides … I sent it last night, and am in weekly expectation of the Tolling Bell and death warrant."
It will be observed that that second copy sent to Kemble must have differed essentially from the one sent to Manning, for the latter includes the witch story, and retains in its original place the soliloquy about England getting drunk.
To this copy sent to Manning we now come in chronological order, but the exact date of its despatch must remain uncertain. Clearly it was subsequent, but probably not long subsequent, to Kemble's rejection of the play, which took place soon after All Souls' Day, for Kemble must have made up his mind within half an hour of taking up the manuscript. I venture to assume that the argosy which bore all the treasures recounted in the following bill of lading sailed about Christmas, 1800. It is sad to think that the bill of lading itself and the MS. of "Pride's Cure" are the only salvage.
"I send you all of Coleridge's letters to me which I have preserved; some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious critique on 'Pride's Cure' by a young Physician from EDINBORO', who modestly suggests quite another kind of plot. These are monuments of my disappointments which I like to preserve …You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch Doctor's, which burn) in statu quo till I come to claim mine own."
On the reverse of the half-sheet is written: "For Mister Manning | Teacher of the Mathematics | and the Black Arts, | There is another letter in the inside cover of the book opposite the blank leaf that was."
[This is the other letter, written inside the board cover of the copy of the play, in Charles Lamb's hand:—
"Mind this goes for a letter. (Acknowledge it directly, if only in ten words.)
"DEAR MANNING:
"(I shall want to hear this comes safe.)
"I have scratched out a good deal, as you will see. Generally, what I have rejected was either false in feeling, or a violation of character, mostly of the first sort. I will here just instance in the concluding few lines of the dying Lover's story, which completely contradicted his character of violent and unreproachful. I hesitated a good while what copy to send you, and at last resolved to send the worst, because you are familiar with it and can make it out; a stranger would find so much difficulty in doing it, that it would give him more pain than pleasure. This is compounded precisely of the two persons' hands you requested it should be.
"Yours sincerely,
"C. LAMB."
The two persons were undoubtedly Charles Lamb and his sister.]
Before proceeding to the MS. itself, it will be desirable to refer to Lamb's letter to Manning of February 15, 1802, in which he defends himself against Manning's animadversions on the changes found in the printed John Woodvil. This letter is addressed to "Mr. Thomas Manning, Maison Magnan, No. 342 Boulevard Italien, Paris." ….The italics are in the original:—"Apropos, I think you wrong about my play. All the omissions are right. And the supplementary scene, in which Sandford narrates the manner in which his master is affected, is the best in the book. It stands where a hodge-podge of German puerilities used to stand. I insist upon it that you like that scene." …
There is one thing more to add. Its excuse is the best in the world—it is quite new. In that precious letter of February 15, 1801, is a passage [printed in Canon Ainger's édition de luxe] which shows that Lamb (probably) tried George Colman the younger with "Pride's Cure." The potentate of the Haymarket was probably less sublimely courteous in his rejection than Kemble.
"Now to my own affairs. I have not taken that thing to Colman, but I have proceeded one step in the business. I have inquired his address and am promised it in a few days."
[The Manning copy of John Woodvil is thus described by Mr. Dykes Campbell]:—It is composed of foolscap sheets stitched into a limp wrapper of marbled paper. The writing is chiefly Mary Lamb's; her brother's portion seems to have been done at various times, for the ink varies in shade, and the handwriting in style.
On the inside of the first cover, as before noted, is written the letter "ed above. Then comes a page with:—
Begun August, 1798, finished May, 1799.
This comes in beginng 2d act.
(Letter)
of Marg. to John
[this being Margaret's "Letter" (page 160 of the present volume).]
On the reverse, Mary has written out the "Characters in 'Pride's Cure,' a Tragedy." In this list Lovel and Gray are described as "two Court spies."
On the next page the play opens, but on the top margin is written:—
"Turn a leaf back for my Letter to Manning.
"C. LAMB."
The point of the underlining of "my" is to distinguish Lamb's letter from Margaret's, which chance to face one another in the MS.
Then comes:—
Pride's Cure.
A Tragedy.
Act the First. Scene the First.
A Servants' apartment in Wodvil [sic] Hall.
Servants drinking.
A Song by Daniel.
"When the King enjoys his own again."
Peter. A delicate song upon my verity.
Where didst learn it, fellow?
And so on for some leaves without material difference from print.
After the speech [page 155] "All. Truly a sad consideration" comes this continuation of the dialogue:—
Daniel. You know what he said to you one day in confidence.
Peter. I have reason to remember the words—"'Tis a pity (said he) a traitor should go unpunished."
Francis. Did he say so much? Peter. As true as I sit here. I told Daniel of it the same day. Did I not, Daniel?
Daniel. Well, I do not know but it may be merrier times with us servants if Sir Walter never comes back.
Francis. But then again, who of us can think of betraying him?
Peter. His son, John Woodvil, is the prince of good masters.
Daniel. Here is his health, and the King's. (They all drink.) Well, I cannot see why one of us should not deserve the reward as well as another man.
Martin. Indeed there is something in that.
Sandford enters suddenly.
Sandford. You well-fed and unprofitable grooms.
And so on as printed, until we come to Margaret's reply to Sandford's speech ending [page 156]:—
Since my ["our"] old master quitted all his rights here.
Margaret. Alas! I am sure I find it so.
Ah! Mr. Sandford,
This is no dwelling now for me,
As in Sir Walter's days it was.
I can remember when this house hath been
A sanctuary to a poor orphan girl
From evil tongues and injuries of the world.
Now every day
I must endure fresh insult from the scorn
Of Woodvil's friends, the uncivil jests
And free discourses of the dissolute men
That haunt this mansion, making me their mirth.
Further on in the same dialogue comes the following, after the line in
Margaret's speech [page 158, line 18],
His love, which ["that"] long has been upon the wane.
And therefore 'tis men seeing this
Have ta'en their cue and think it now their time
To slur me with their coward disrespects,
Unworthy usages, who, while John lov'd
And while one breath'd
That thought not much to take the orphan's part,
And durst as soon
Hold dalliance with the chafed lion's paw,
Or play with fire, or utter blasphemy,
As think a disrespectful thought of Margaret.
Sandford. I am too mean a man,
Being but a servant in the family,
To be the avenger of a Lady's wrongs,
And such a Lady! but I verily think
That I should cleave the rudesby to the earth
With my good oaken staff, and think no harm,
That offer'd you an insult, I being by.
I warrant you, young Master would forgive,
And thank me for the deed,
Tho' he I struck were one of his dearest friends.
Margaret. O Mr. Sandford, you must think it,
I know, as sad undecency in me
To trouble thus your friendly hearing
With my complaints.
But I have now no female friend
In all this house, adviser none, or friend
To council with, and when I view your face,
I call to mind old times,
And how these things were different once
When your old friend and master rul'd this house.
Nay, never weep; why, man, I trust that yet
Sir Walter shall return one day
And thank you for these tears,
And loving services to his poor orphan.
For me, I am determined what to do.
And so on as printed down to Margaret's line [page 158, line 3 from foot]:—
And cowardice grows enamour'd of rare accidents.
The three lines which follow in print [pages 158-9] are not in the MS.
Margaret continues thus:—
But we must part now.
I see one coming, that will also observe us.
Before night comes we will contrive to meet,
And then I will tell you further. Till when, farewell.
Sandford. My prayers go with you, Lady, and your counsels,
And heaven so prosper them, as I wish you well.
[They part several ways.]
Here follows:—
Scene the Second. A Library in Woodvil Hall; John Woodvil alone.
John Woodvil (alone). Now universal England getteth drunk.
And so on as printed in Act II. [on page 165]. After the last printed line,
A fishing, hawking, hunting country gentleman,
the MS. has these five lines, but Lamb drew his pen through them:—
Great spirits ask great play-room; I would be
The Phaeton, should put the world to a hazard,
E'er I'd forego the horses of the sun,
And giddy lustre of my travels' glory
For tedious common paces. [Exit.]
Next comes:—
Scene the Third. An apartment in Woodvil Hall; Margaret. Sandford.
Margaret. I pray you spare me, Mr. Sandford.
And so on as printed as the continuation of the former scene [page 159] to the end of that and of the first act. But in the middle of Sandford's speech comes in the "Witch" story, thus introduced:—
[Sandford.] I know a suit
Of lovely Lincoln-green, that much shall grace you
In the wear, being glossy, fresh and worn but seld,
Young Stephen Woodvil's they were, Sir Walter's eldest son,
Who died long since in early youth.
Margaret. I have somewhere heard his story. I remember
Sir Walter Rowland would rebuke me, being a girl,
When I have asked the manner of his death.
But I forget it.
Sandford. One summer night, Sir Francis, as it chanc'd,
Was pacing to and fro in the avenue
That westward fronts our house,—
Margaret. Methinks I should learn something of his story
Whose garments I am to wear.
Sandford. Among those aged oaks, etc.
And so the witch story goes on, not quite as printed as a separate poem in the Works of 1818 [see page 199], but not differing very materially….
Then comes "Act the Second. John Woodvil alone. Reading a letter (which stands at the beginning of the book)." The letter is longer in MS. than in print [see page 160], the words in italics having been withdrawn from the middle of the second sentence:—
"The course I have taken … seemed to [me] best both for the warding off of calumny from myself (which should bring dishonor upon the memory of Sir Rowland my father, if a daughter of his could be thought to prefer doubtful ease before virtuous sufferance, softness before reputation), and for the once-for-all releasing of yourself…."
No notable alteration occurs until we come to the second scene, which in the MS. (owing to the transposition of Woodvil's soliloquy) followed immediately on Lovel's reply to Woodvil's speech—
No, you shall go with me into the gallery—
printed on page 164.
Scene the Second. Sherwood Forest. Sir Walter Woodvil, Simon, drest as Frenchmen.
Sir Walter's opening speech is long in print [page 166]—in MS. it is but this:—
Sir Walter. How fares my boy, Simon, my youngest born,
My hope, my pride, young Woodvil, speak to me;
Thinkest thy brother plays thy father false?
My life upon his faith and noble heart;
Son John could never play thy father false.
There is no further material change to note until we come to the point in the conversation between Sir Walter, Simon and Margaret [page 172], where Simon calls John "a scurvy brother," to whom Margaret responds:—
Margaret. I speak no slander, Simon, of your brother, He is still the first of men.
Simon. I would fain learn that, if you please.
Margaret. Had'st rather hear his praises in the mass
Or parcel'd out in each particular?
Simon. So please you, in the detail: general praise
We'll leave to his Epitaph-maker.
Margaret. I will begin then—
His face is Fancy's tablet, where the witch
Paints, in her fine caprice, ever new forms,
Making it apt all workings of the soul,
All passions and their changes to display;
His eye, attention's magnet, draws all hearts.
Simon. Is this all about your son, Sir?
Margaret. Pray let me proceed. His tongue….
Simon. Well skill'd in lying, no doubt—
Sir Walter. Ungracious boy! will you not hear her out?
Margaret. His tongue well skill'd in sweetness to discuss— (False tongue that seem'd for love-vows only fram'd)—
Simon. Did I not say so?
Margaret. All knowledge and all topics of converse,
Ev'n all the infinite stuff of men's debate
From matter of fact, to the heights of metaphysick,
How could she think that noble mind
So furnish'd, so innate in all perfections,
The manners and the worth
That go to the making up of a complete Gentleman,
Could from his proper nature so decline
And from that starry height of place he mov'd in
To link his fortune to a lowly Lady
Who nothing with her brought but her plain heart,
And truth of love that never swerv'd from Woodvil.
Simon. Wilt please you hear some vices of this brother,
This all-accomplish'd John?
Margaret. There is no need—I grant him all you say and more,
Vain, ambitious, large of purpose,
Fantastic, fiery, swift and confident,
A wayward child of vanity and spleen,
A hair-brain'd mad-cap, dreamer of gold dreams,
A daily feaster on high self-conceit,
With many glorious faults beside,
Weak minds mistake for virtues.
Simon. Add to these,
That having gain'd a virtuous maiden's love,
One fairly priz'd at twenty times his worth,
He let her wander houseless from his door
To seek new friends and find elsewhere a home.
Sir Walter. Fie upon't—
All men are false, I think, etc.
And here we arrive at the "Dying Lover," which was printed anonymously in the London Magazine for January, 1822. But before passing from the long passage transcribed above I am bound to say that Lamb drew his pen through it all, marking some bits "bad" and others "very bad." I venture to think that in this he did himself some injustice.
To Sir Walter's sweeping indictment Margaret replies as follows. I keep to the text of the MS., noting some trifling changes made for the London Magazine [see page 85]:—
Margaret. All are not false. I knew a youth who died
For grief, because his Love proved so,
And married to 注释标题 “With” (London Magazine). another.
I saw him on the wedding day,
For he was present in the church that day,
And in his best apparel too 注释标题 “In festive bravery deck'd” (London Magazine). ,
As one that came to grace the ceremony.
I mark'd him when the ring was given,
His countenance never changed;
And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing,
He put a silent prayer up for the bride,
[For they stood near who saw his lips move.] 注释标题 This line erased in MS. and nothing substituted. In the London Magazine this took its place:—“For so his moving lip interpreted.”
He came invited to the marriage-feast
With the bride's friends,
And was the merriest of them all that day;
But they, who knew him best, call'd it feign'd mirth;
And others said,
He wore a smile like death's 注释标题 “Death” (London Magazine). upon his face.
His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth,
And he went away in tears.
Simon. What followed then?
Margaret. Oh! then
He did not as neglected suitors use
Affect a life of solitude in shades,
But lived,
In free discourse and sweet society,
Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best.
Yet ever when he smiled,
There was a mystery legible in his face,
That whoso saw him said he was a man
Not long for this world.——
And true it was, for even then
The silent love was feeding at his heart
Of which he died:
Nor ever spake word of reproach,
Only he wish'd in death that his remains 注释标题 Lamb drew his pen through the four concluding lines, and wrote in the margin “very bad.”
Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far
From his mistress' family vault, "being the place
Where one day Anna should herself be laid."
(So far in the Magazine.)
Simon. A melancholy catastrophe. For my part I shall never die for love, being as I am, too general-contemplative for the narrow passion. I am in some sort a general lover.
Margaret. In the name of the Boy-god who plays at blind man's buff with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches; what is it you love?
And so on until the end of Simon's famous description of the delights of forest life [page 173]. To this
Margaret (smiling). And afterwards them paint in simile.
(To Sir Walter.) I had some foolish questions to put concerning your son, Sir.—Was John so early valiant as hath been reported? I have heard some legends of him.
Sir Walter. You shall not call them so. Report, in most things superfluous, in many things altogether an inventress, hath been but too modest in the delivery of John's true stories.
Margaret. Proceed, Sir.
Sir Walter. I saw him on the day of Naseby Fight—
To which he came at twice seven years,
Under the discipline of the Lord Ashley,
His uncle by the mother's side,
Who gave his early principles a bent
Quite from the politics of his father's house.
Margaret. I have heard so much.
Sir Walter. There did I see this valiant Lamb of Mars,
This sprig of honour, this unbearded John,
This veteran in green years, this sprout, this Woodvil,
With dreadless ease, guiding a fire-hot steed
Which seem'd to scorn the manage of a boy,
Prick forth with such an ease into the field
To mingle rivalship and deeds of wrath
Even with the sinewy masters of the art 注释标题 Some lines intervene here in the letter to Southey of January 21, 1799, which are not in the MS. !
The rough fanatic and blood-practis'd soldiery
Seeing such hope and virtue in the boy,
Disclosed their ranks to let him pass unhurt,
Checking their swords' uncivil injuries
As both to mar that curious workmanship
Of valour's beauty in his youthful face.
Simon. Mistress Margaret will have need of some refreshment, etc.
Lamb has drawn his pen through this passage, and marked it "bad or dubious."
At the beginning of the fourth act John Woodvil's soliloquy is broken
in upon by Sandford. He has just told himself [page 186] that
Some, the most resolved fools of all,
Have told their dearest secrets in their cups,
when
Enter Sandford in haste.
Sandford. O Sir, you have not told them anything?
John. Told whom, Sandford?
Sandford. Mr. Lovel or Mr. Gray, anything concerning your father?
John. Are they not my friends, Sandford?
Sandford. Your friends! Lord help you, they your friends! They were no better than two Court spies set on to get the secret out of you. I have just discovered in time all their practices.
John. But I have told one of them.
Sandford. God forbid, God forbid!
John. How do you know them to be what you said they were?
Sandford. Good God!
John. Tell me, Sandford, my good Sandford, your master begs it of you.
Sandford. I cannot speak to you. [Goes out, John following him.]
Scene the Second. The forest.
This forest scene has been greatly altered. When Gray has said [page 188], "'Tis a brave youth," etc., there follows:—
Sir Walter. Why should I live any longer? There is my sword (surrendering). Son John, 'tis thou hast brought this disgrace upon us all.
Simon. Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you draw your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O villains, he cannot speak! One of you run for some water; quick, ye musty rogues: will ye have your throats cut? [They both slink off.] How is it with you, father? Look up, Sir Walter, the villains are gone.
"He hears" [page 188], down to "Bears in the body" [page 188], of the print is not in the MS., which goes on thus:—
Sir Walter. Barely a minute's breath is left me now,
Which must be spent in charity by me,
And, Simon, as you prize my dying words,
I charge you with your brother live in peace
And be my messenger,
To bear my message to the unhappy boy,
For certain his intent was short of my death.
Simon. I hope as much, father.
Sir Walter. Tell him I send it with my parting prayer,
And you must fall upon his neck and weep,
And teach him pray, and love your brother John,
For you two now are left in the wide world
The sole survivors of the Woodvil name.
Bless you, my sons— [Dies.]
Simon. My father's soul is fled.
And now, my trusty servant, my sword,
One labour yet, my sword, then sleep for ever.
Drink up the poor dregs left of Woodvil's name
And fill the measure of our house's crimes.
How nature sickens,
To view her customary bands so snapt
When Love's sweet fires go out in blood of kin,
And natural regards have left the earth.
Scene changes to another part of the forest.
Margaret (alone).
They are gone to bear the body to the town,
It was an error merely and no crime.
And so to the end of her long speech as printed [page 189].
At this point in the MS. comes in "the hodge-podge of German puerilities" (see the letter to Manning, February 15, 1802), the sacrifice of which so discontented Manning, who evidently considered the "supplementary scene" (closing the fourth act, [pages 189 to 191]), as Lamb called it, a poor substitute.
Scene changes to Woodvil Hall.
John reading a letter by scraps—A Servant attending.
"An event beyond the possible reach of foresight. 'Tis thought the deep disgrace of supposed treachery in you o'ercame him. His heart brake. You will acquit yourself of worse crimes than indiscretion. My remorse must end with life.
"Your quondam companion and penitent for the wrong he has done ye.
"GRAY.
"Postscript.—The old man being unhappily removed, the young man's advancement henceforth will find no impediment."
John. Impediment indeed there now is none:
For all has happened that my soul presag'd.
What hinders, but I enter in forthwith
And take possession of my crowned state?
For thy advancement, Woodvil, is no less;
To be a King, a King.
I hear the shoutings of the under-world,
I hear the unlawful accents of their mirth,
The fiends do shout and clap their hands for joy,
That Woodvil is proclaim'd the Prince of Hell.
They place a burning crown upon my head,
I hear it hissing now, [Puts his hand to his forehead.]
And feel the snakes about my mortal brain.
[Sinks in a swoon, is caught in the arms of a servant.]
Scene. A Courtyard before Woodvil Hall.
Sandford. Margaret (as just arrived from a journey).
Margaret. Can I see him to-night?
Sandford. I think ye had better stay till the morning: he will be more calm.
Margaret. You say he gets no sleep?
Sandford. He hath not slept since Sir Walter died. I have sat up with him these two nights. Francis takes my place to-night—O! Mistress Margaret, are not the witch's words come true—"All that we feared and worse"? Go in and change your garments, you have travelled hard and want rest.
Margaret. I will go to bed. You will promise I shall see him in the morning.
Sandford. You will sleep in your old chamber?
Margaret. The Tapestry room: yes. Pray get me a light. A good night to us all.
Sandford. Amen, say I. [They go in.]
Scene. The Servants' Hall.
Daniel, Peter and Robert.
Daniel. Are we all of one mind, fellows? He that lov'd his old master, speak. Shall we quit his son's service for a better? Is it aye, or no?
Peter. For my part, I am afraid to go to bed to-night.
Robert. For certain, young Master's indiscretion was that which broke his heart.
Peter. Who sits up with him to-night?
Robert. Francis.
Peter. Lord! what a conscience he must have, that he cannot sleep alone.
Robert. They say he is troubled with the Night-mare.
Daniel. Here he comes, let us go away as fast as we can.
Enter John Woodvil and Francis. [They run out.]
John. I lay me down to get a little sleep,
And just when I began to close my eyes,
My eyes heavy to sleep, it comes.
Francis. What comes?
John. I can remember when a child the maids 注释标题 Twice afterwards Lamb returned to this episode—in “The Witch Aunt” in story Mrs. Leicester's School (see Vol. III.), and in “Witches and other Night Fears,” in Elia (see Vol. II. 9).
Would place me on their lap, as they undrest me,
As silly women use, and tell me stories
Of Witches—Make me read "Glanvil on Witchcraft,"
And in conclusion show me in the Bible,
The old Family-Bible with the pictures in it,
The 'graving of the Witch raising up Samuel,
Which so possest my fancy, being a child,
That nightly in my dreams an old Hag came
And sat upon my pillow.
I am relapsing into infancy,—
And shortly I shall dote—for would you think it?
The Hag has come again. Spite of my manhood,
The Witch is strong upon me every night.
[Walks to and fro, then as if recollecting something.]
What said'st thou, Francis, as I stood in the passage?
Something of a Father:
The word is ringing in my ears now—
Francis. I remember, one of the servants, Sir, would pass a few days with his father at Leicester. The poor old man lies on his deathbed, and has exprest a desire to see his son before he dies. But none cared to break the matter to you.
John. Send the man here. [Francis goes out.]
My very servants shun my company.
I held my purse to a beggar yesterday
Who lay and bask'd his sores in the hot sun,
And the gaunt pauper did refuse my alms.
Francis returns with Robert.
John. Come hither, Robert. What is the poor man ailing?
Robert. Please your honour, I fear he has partly perish'd for want of physic. His means are small, and he kept his illness a secret to me not to put me to expenses.
John. Good son, he weeps for his father.
Go take the swiftest horse in my stables,
Take Lightfoot or Eclipse—no, Eclipse is lame,
Take Lightfoot then, or Princess 注释标题 Lamb puts his pen through these two lines, and writes across them “miserable bad.” ,
Ride hard all night to Leicester.
And give him money, money, Francis—
The old man must have medicines, cordials,
And broth to keep him warm, and careful nurses.
He must not die for lack of tendance, Robert.
Robert. God bless your honour for your kindness to my poor father.
John. Pray, now make haste. You may chance to come in time.
[Robert goes out.]
John. Go get some firewood, Francis,
And get my supper ready. [Francis goes out.]
The night is bitter cold.
They in their graves feel nothing of the cold,
Or if they do, how dull a cold—
All clayey, clayey. Ah God! who waits below?
Come up, come quick. I saw a fearful sight.
Francis returns in haste with wood.
John. There are such things as spirits, deny it who may.
Is it you, Francis? Heap the wood on thick,
We two shall sup together, sup all night,
Carouse, drink drunk, and tell the merriest tales—
Tell for a wager, who tells merriest—
But I am very weak. O tears, tears, tears,
I feel your just rebuke. [Goes out.]
Scene changes to a bed-room. John sitting alone: a lamp burning by him.
"Infinite torments for finite offences." I will never believe it. How divines can reconcile this monstrous tenet with the spirit of their Theology! They have palpably failed in the proof, for to put the question thus:—If he being infinite—have a care, Woodvil, the latitude of doubting suits not with the humility of thy condition. What good men have believed, may be true, and what they profess to find set down clearly in their scriptures, must have probability in its defence. Touching that other question the Casuists with one consent have pronounced the sober man accountable for the deeds by him in a state of drunkenness committed, because tho' the action indeed be such as he, sober, would never have committed, yet the drunkenness being an act of the will, by a moral fiction, the issues are accounted voluntary also. I lose my sleep in attending to these intricacies of the schoolmen. I lay till daybreak the other morning endeavouring to draw a line of distinction between sin of direct malice and sin of malice indirect, or imputable only by the sequence. My brain is overwrought by these labours, and my faculties will shortly decline into impotence. [Throws himself on a bed.]
End of the Fourth Act.
In the fifth act of the printed play [page 192] we have simply "Margaret enters." In the MS. Sandford prepares his master for her advent, and announces her thus:—
Sandford. Wilt please you to see company to-day, Sir?
John. Who thinks me worth the visiting?
Sandford. One that traveled hard last night to see you, She waits to know your pleasure.
John. A lady too! pray send her to me— Some curiosity, I suppose.
[Sandford goes out and returns with Margaret.]
Margaret. Woodvil!
John. Comes Margaret here, etc.
When, a page further on [page 194], John has declared to Margaret that
This earth holds not alive so poor a thing as I am—
I was not always thus,
the MS. went on (but the passage is struck out as "bad"):—
You must bear with me, Margaret, as a child,
For I am weak as tender Infancy
And cannot bear rebuke—
Would'st think it, Love!
They hoot and spit upon me as I pass
In the public streets: one shows me to his neighbour,
Who shakes his head and turns away with horror—
I was not always thus—
Margaret. Thou noble nature, etc.
The next scene—the last [page l95]—is much cut about. The long speech of Margaret beginning,
To give you in your stead a better self,
and John's reply [both printed at pages 196-7], are struck out, and "Nimis" written by Lamb's pen in large characters in the margin; but after that all goes on in harmony with the print, to the end:—
It seem'd the guilt of blood was passing from me
Even in the act and agony of tears
And all my sins forgiven.
At this point in the MS. Simon arrives:—
[A noise is heard as of one without, clamorous to come in.]
Margaret. 'Tis your brother Simon, John.
Enter Simon, with his sword in a menacing posture, John staggers towards him and falls at his feet, Margaret standing over him.
Simon. Is this the man I came so far to see—
The perfect Cavalier, the finish'd courtier
Whom Ladies lov'd, the gallant curled Woodvil,
Whom brave men fear'd, the valiant, fighting Woodvil,
The haughty high-ambitioned Parricide—
The same that sold his father's secret in his cups,
And held it but an after-dinner's trick?—
So humble and in tears, a crestfallen penitent,
And crawling at a younger brother's feet!
The sinews of my [stiff] revenge grow slack.
My brother, speak to me, my brother John.
(Aside) Now this is better than the beastly deed
Which I did meditate.
John (rising and resuming his old dignity). You come to take my life,
I know it well.
You come to fight with me—[Laying his hand upon his sword.]
This arm was busy on the day of Naseby:
'Tis paralytic now, and knows no use of weapons.
The luck is yours, Sir. [Surrenders his sword.]
Simon. My errand is of peace:
A dying father's blessing and lost prayers
For his misguided son.
Sir Walter sends it with his parting breath.
He bade me with my brother live in peace,
He bade me fall upon his neck and weep,
(As I now do) and love my brother John;
For we are only left in the wide world
The poor survivors of the Woodvil name. [They embrace.]
Simon. And Margaret here shall witness our atonement—
(For Margaret still hath followed all your fortunes).
And she shall dry thy tears and teach thee pray.
So we'll together seek some foreign land,
Where our sad story, John, shall never reach.
End of "Pride's Cure" and Charles Lamb's Dramatic Works!!
After all this [Mr. Campbell adds finally] is the reader prepared to think Manning altogether wrong and Lamb altogether right as to what was done in the process of transforming Pride's Cure into John Woodvil?
The version of 1818 here printed differs practically only in minor matters of typography and punctuation from that of 1802. There are, however, a few alterations which should be noted. On page 176, in John's first speech, "fermentations" was, in 1802, "stimuli." On page 178, in the speech of the Third Gentleman, there is a change. In 1802 he said "(dashing his glass down) Pshaw, damn these acorn cups, they would not drench a fairy. Who shall pledge," &c. And at the end of Act III, one line is omitted. In 1802 John was made to say, after disarming Lovel (page 186):—
Still have the will without the power to execute,
As unfear'd Eunuchs meditate a rape.
This simile, which one reviewer fell upon with some violence, was not reprinted.
Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, writing in The Athenceum, December 28, 1901, remarks: "The truth is that in Lamb's imitations of the elder writers 'anachronistic improprieties' (as Thomas Warton would say) are exceedingly rare. In John Woodvil it would not, I think, be easy to discover more than two: caprice, which, in the sense of 'a capricious disposition,' seems to belong to the eighteenth century, and anecdotes (i.e., 'secret Court history'), which, in its English form at least, probably does not occur much before 1686."
This note is already too long, or I should like to say something of the reception of John Woodvil, which was not cordial. The Annual Review was particularly severe, and the Edinburgh caustic.
Page 109. "THE WITCH."
In the Works, 1818, this dramatic sketch followed John Woodvil.
Lamb sent "The Witch" to Robert Lloyd in November, 1798 (see Charles Lamb and the Lloyds, page 91), in a version differing widely from that of the Works here given. The speakers are Sir Walter Woodvil's steward and Margaret. The principal variation is this, after the curse:—
Margaret. A terrible curse!
Old Steward. O Lady! such bad things are said of that old woman,
You would be loth to hear them!
Namely, that the milk she gave was sour,
And the babe, who suck'd her, shrivell'd like a mandrake,
And things besides, with a bigger horror in them,
Almost, I think, unlawful to be told!
In the penultimate line "The mystery of God" was "Creation's beauteous workmanship."
Page 202. "MR. H——."
Lamb composed this farce in the winter 1805-1806. Writing to Hazlitt on February 19, 1806, he says: "Have taken a room at 3s. a week to be in between 5 and 8 at night, to avoid my nocturnal alias knock-eternal visitors. The first-fruits of my retirement has been a farce which goes to manager tomorrow." Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart at about the same time, says: "Charles is gone [to the lodging] to finish the farce, and I am to hear it read this night. I am so uneasy between my hopes and fears of how I shall like it, that I do not know what I am doing." The next day or so, February 21, she says that she liked the farce "very much, and cannot help having great hopes of its success"—stating that she has carried it to Mr. Wroughton at Drury Lane.
The reply came on June n, 1806, saying that the farce was accepted, subject to a few alterations, and would be produced in due course (see Lamb's letter to Wordsworth, written in "wantonness of triumph," of June 26). Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart, probably in October, 1806, says that
Charles took an emendated copy of his farce to Mr. Wroughton, the
Manager, yesterday. Mr. Wroughton was very friendly to him, and
expressed high approbation of the farce; but there are two, he tells
him, to come out before it…. We are pretty well, and in fresh
hopes about this farce.
Lamb tells Manning about it, on December 5, adding after an outline of the plot:—"That's the idea—how flat it is here—but how whimsical in the farce!" Later he says: "I shall get £200 from the theatre if 'Mr. H——' has a good run, and, I hope, £100 for the copyright. Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I value myself on, as a chef-d'oeuvre." And a little later still: "N.B. If my little thing don't succeed, I shall easily survive."
"Mr. H——" was produced on December 10, 1806. The play-bill for the night ran thus:—
Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane
This present Wednesday, December 10, 1806
Their Majesties Servants will act the Operatic Drama of
The Travellers;
Or, Music's Fascination
[&c. &c.]
After which will be produced (Never Acted) a new Farce, in Two acts,
called,
Mr. H——
The Characters by
Mr. Elliston
Mr. Wewitzer, Mr. Hartley, Mr. Penley, Mr. Purser
Mr. Carles, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Placide, Mr. Webb
Miss Mellon, Mrs. Sparks
Miss Tidswell, Mrs. Harlowe
Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Maddocks, Miss Sanders
The Prologue to be spoken by Mr. Elliston
[&c., &c.]
According to Mrs. Baron-Wilson's Memoirs of (Miss Mellon)
Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans, Lamb was allowed to cast "Mr.
H——" himself. Miss Mellon played the heroine.
The Lambs sat near the orchestra with Hazlitt and Crabb Robinson, and the house was well salted with friendly clerks from the East India House and the South-Sea House. The prologue went capitally; and all was well with the play until the name of Hogsflesh was pronounced. Then disapproval set in in a storm of hisses, in which, Crabb Robinson tells us, Lamb joined heartily, standing on his seat to do so.
In a report of the first night of "Mr. H——" in Monthly Literary Recreations for December, 1806, we read that on the secret of the name being made public "all interest vanished, the audience were disgusted, and the farce went on to its very conclusion almost unheard, amidst the contending clamours of 'Silence,' 'Hear! hear!' and 'Off! off! off!'"
Writing to Wordsworth on the next day Lamb told the story:—"Mr. H—— came out last night and failed. I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have solider fare than a Letter. We are pretty stout about it, have had plenty of condoling friends, but after all, we had rather it should have succeeded. You will see the Prologue in most of the Morning Papers. It was received with such shouts as I never witness'd to a Prologue. It was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, because it was wanted—and set no great store by; and Mr. H.!! The quantity of friends we had in the house my brother and I being in Public Offices &c. was astonishing—but they yielded at length to a few hisses—"a hundred hisses—damn the word, I write it like kisses—how different—a hundred hisses outweigh 1000 claps. The former come more directly from the Heart. Well, 'tis withdrawn and there is an end. Better Luck to us."
Writing to Sarah Stoddart, Lamb put the case thus:—"Mary is a little cut at the ill success of 'Mr. H.,' which came out last night, and failed. I know you'll be sorry, but never mind. We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoking man must write smoky farces." Thereafter Lamb's attitude to "Mr. H——" was always one of humorous resignation.
Lamb should have chosen a better, by which I mean a worse, name than Hogsflesh. As a matter of fact a great number of persons had become quite accustomed to the asperities of Hogsflesh, not only from the famous cricketer of that name, one of the pioneers of the game, but also from the innkeeper at Worthing. Indeed an old rhyme current at the end of the eighteenth century anticipated some of Lamb's humour, for the two principal landlords of Worthing, which was just then beginning to be a fashionable resort, were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, leading to the quatrain:—
Brighton is a pretty street,
Worthing is much taken;
If you can't get any other meat
There's Hogsflesh and Bacon.
The Drury Lane authorities do not seem to have considered the failure as absolute as did Lamb, for on the next day—December 11—the bills announced:—
*** The New Farce of Mr. H——, performed for the first time last
night, was received by an overflowing audience with universal applause,
and will be repeated for the second time to-morrow.
But the next evening's bill—December 12, 1806—stated that "The New
Farce of Mr. H—— is withdrawn at the request of the author."
"Mr. H——" did not then disappear altogether from the stage. A correspondent of Notes and Queries, May 26, 1855, remembered seeing it at Philadelphia when he was a boy. The last scene, he says, particularly amused the audience. And in William B. Wood's Personal Recollections of the Stage, 1855, it is recorded of the Philadelphia Theatre, of which he was manager, that in 1812, "Charles Lamb's excellent farce of 'Mr. H——' met with extraordinary success, and was played an unusual number of nights." Lamb, however, did not profit thereby.
The little play was published in Philadelphia in 1813 under the title Mr. H——, or Beware a Bad Name. A farce in two acts, as performed at the Philadelphia Theatre—Lamb's name not figuring in any way in connection with it.
In England "Mr. H——" was not revived until 1885, when, as a curiosity, it was played by the Dramatic Students' Society. The performance was held at the Gaiety on October 27, 1885, the prologue being spoken by a gentleman made up to resemble Lamb. At the Cheadle Town Hall on October 19 and 20, 1910, "Mr. H——" was given again, with the difference that the secret of the name was disclosed from the start.
In Notes and Queries, August 3, 1889, the following amusing play-bill was printed, contributed by Mr. Bertram Dobell:—
Theatre Royal, English Opera House, Strand.
Particularly Private.
This present FRIDAY, April 26, 1822,
Will be presented a FARCE called
Mr. H….
(N.B. This piece was damned at Drury Lane Theatre.)
[Caste follows.]
Previous to which a PROLOGUE will be spoken by Mrs. EDWIN.
After the Farce (for the first Time in this country, and now performing
with immense success in Paris)
A French Petite Comedie, called
Le Comedien D'Etampes.
(N.B. This piece was never acted in London, and may very probably
be damned HERE.)
[Caste follows.]
Immediately after which
A LOVER'S CONFESSION, in the shape of a SONG,
by M. EMILE
(From the Theatre de la Poste St. Martin, at Paris.)
To conclude with a Pathetic Drama, in
One Act, called
The Sorrows of Werther.
(N.B. This Piece was damned at Covent Garden Theatre.)
[Caste follows.]
Brothers and Sisters of Charlotte, by six Cherubims
got for the occasion.
Orchestra.
Leader of the Band, Mr. Knight, Conductor, Mr. E. Knight.
Piano Forte, Mr. Knight, Jun. Harpsichord, Master Knight (that was).
Clavecin, by the Father of the Knights, to come.
Vivat Rex! No Money returned (because none will be taken).
On account of the above surprising Novelty, not an ORDER can
possibly be admitted:—
But it is requested, that if such a thing finds its way into the front
of the house, IT WILL BE KEPT.
Doors open at Half past Six, begin at Half past Seven precisely.
The Entrance for all parts of the House at the Private Box Door in
Exeter Street.
Lowndes, Printer, Marquis Court, Drury Lane, London.
Mr. Dobell wonders if Lamb had any knowledge of this performance, and he suggests that possibly he had a hand in the bill. Certainly the interpolations concerning damnation are in his manner.
I add a few notes:—
Page 208. The man with the great nose. See Slawkenbergius's tale in Tristram Shandy, Vol. IV.
Page 212. The feeling Hurley. Harley was the hero of Henry Mackenzie's novel, The Man of Feeling.
Page 217. Jeremiah Pry. John Poole may have taken a hint here for his farce "Paul Pry," produced in September, 1825. Lamb and he knew each other slightly. Lamb analysed the prying nature again in The New Times early in 1825, in two papers on "Tom Pry" and "Tom Pry's Wife" which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition.
Page 220. Old Q——. William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry (1724-1810), the most notorious libertine of his later days.
Page 224. John, my valet. This is a very similar incident to that described in the Elia essay on the "Old Benchers," where Lovel (John Lamb) warns Samuel Salt, when dressing him, not to allude, at the party to which he is going, to the unfortunate Miss Blandy.
Page 228, line 1. Mother Damnable. There was at Kentish Town a notorious old shrew who bore this nickname in the 17th century.
Page 238. "THE PAWNBROKER'S DAUGHTER."
Printed in Blackwood, January, 1830, and not reprinted by Lamb.
This little play was never acted. Lamb refers to it in a letter to Bernard Barton—in July, 1829—as "an old rejected farce"; and Canon Ainger mentions a note of Lamb's to Charles Mathews, in October, 1828, offering the farce for production at the Adelphi. The theme is one that seems always to have interested Lamb (see his essay on the "Inconveniences of Being Hanged," Vol. I.).
Page 243, line 3. "An Argument against the Use of Animal Food." Joseph Ritson, 1752-1803, the antiquarian, was converted to vegetarianism by Mandeville's Fable of the Bees. The work from which Cutlet "es was published in 1802. Pope's motto is from the Essay on Man, I., lines 81-84.
Page 243, last line. Mr. Molyneux … in training to fight Cribb. Cutlet's rump steak did not avail in either of the great struggles between Tom Cribb and Tom Molineaux. At their first meeting, on December 18, 1810, Molineaux went under at the thirty-third round; and in the return match, on September 28, 1811, Molineaux's jaw was broken at the ninth and he gave in at the eleventh, to the great disappointment of the 20,000 spectators. Mr. Molineaux was a negro. The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4