Instead of bread, we are giving him a stone. Instead of the locality recalling the noblest moment of his existence, it is a place at which his friends (that is, himself) blow to the world, "What a good man is he!" I sat down upon a hillock at Forty Hill yesternight,- -a fine contemplative evening,-with a thousand good speculations about mankind. How I yearned with cheap benevolence! I shall go and inquire of the stone-cutter, that cuts the tombstones here, what a stone with a short inscription will cost; just to say, "Here C. Lamb loved his brethren of mankind." Everybody will come there to love. I can't well put my own name, I shall put about a subscription: As I scribble in haste from here, where we shall be some time. Pray request Mr. Montagu to advance the guinea for me, which shall faithfully be forthcoming, and pardon me that I don't see the proposal in quite the light that he may. The kindness of his motives, and his power of appreciating the noble passage, I thoroughly agree in. With most kind regards to him, I conclude, dear madam, yours truly, C. LAMB. From Mrs. Leishman's, Chase, Enfield. To B. R. HAYDON. LETTER CCCXXVIII.] August 1828. Dear Haydon-I have been tardy in telling you that your Chairing the Member gave me great pleasure-'tis true broad Hogarthian fun, the High Sheriff capital. Considering, too, that you had the materials imposed upon you, and that you did not select them from the rude world as H. did, I hope to see many more such from your hand. If the former picture went beyond this I have had a loss, and the King a bargain. I longed to rub the back of my hand across the hearty canvas that two senses might be gratified. Perhaps the subject is a little discordantly placed opposite to another act of Chairing, where the huzzas were Hosannahs! but I was pleased to see so many of my old acquaintances brought together notwithstanding. Believe me, yours truly. C. LAMB. TO BERNARD BARTON. LETTER CCCXXIX.] October 11, 1828.. A splendid edition of "Bunyan's Pilgrim!" Why, the thought is enough to turn one's moral stomach. His cockle-hat and staff transformed to a smart cock'd beaver and a jemmy cane; his amice gray, to the last Regent Street cut; and his painful palmer's pace to the modern swagger. Stop thy friend's sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair, and the Pilgrims there-the silly-soothness in his settingout countenance—the Christian Idiocy (in a good sense) of his admiration of the shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; the lions, so truly allegorical, and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's; the great head (the author's), capacious of dreams and similitudes, dreaming in the dungeon. Perhaps you don't know my edition, what I had when a child. If you do, can you bear new designs from Martin, enamelled into copper or silver plate by Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Hemans's pen, O how unlike his own! "Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? Dost thou love picking meat? or wouldst thou see And find thyself again without a charm? Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowest not what, By reading the same lines? O then come hither, "JOHN BUNYAN." Show me such poetry in any of the fifteen forthcoming combinations of show and emptiness, yclept "Annuals." So there's verses for thy verses; and now let me tell you, that the sight of your hand gladdened me. I have been daily trying to write to you, but paralysed. You have spurred me on this tiny effort, and at intervals I hope to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in an opprest way for a long long time, and they are things which must be to you of faith, for who can explain depression? Yes, I am hooked into the "Gem," but only for some lines written on a dead infant of the Editor's, which being, as it were, his property, I could not refuse their appearing; but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in first page, and whistled through all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort of emulation, the immodest candidateship, brought into so little space-in those old "Londons," a signature was lost in the wood of matter, the paper coarse (till latterly, which spoiled them); in short, I detest to appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (and a quiet good soul withal) is Hood! He has fifty things in hand: farces to supply the Adelphi for the season; a comedy for one of the great theatres, just ready; a whole entertainment, by himself, for Mathews and Yates to figure in; a meditated Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by himself. You'd like him very much. Wordsworth, I see, has a good many pieces announced in one of 'em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch among 'em. Of all the poets, Cary has had the good sense to keep quite clear of 'em, with clergy-gentlemanly right notions. Don't think I set up for being proud on this point; I like a bit of flattery, tickling my vanity, as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks (naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides, they infallibly cheat you; I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, I only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been here. He too is deep among the prophets, the year-servers, the mob of gentlemen annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know. And now, dear B. B., the sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday having washed their own faces clean with their own rain, tempts me to wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can get a few days up to the great town. Believe me, it would give both of us great pleasure to show you all three (we can lodge you) our pleasant farms and villages. We both join in kindest loves to you and yours. To C. COWDEN CLARKE. LETTER CCCXXX.] [Enfield, October 1828.] Dear Clarke-We did expect to see you with Victoria and the Novellos before this, and do not quite understand why we have not. promised us after the York named before, which fail'd. autumn leaves drop gold, and Mrs. N. and V. [Vincent] expedition; a day being 'Tis not too late. The Enfield is beautifuller-to a common eye-than when you lurked at the Greyhound. Benedicks are close; but how I so totally missed you at that time, going for my morning cup of ale duly, is a mystery. 'Twas stealing a match before one's face in earnest. But certainly we had not a dream of your appropinquity. I instantly prepared an Epithalamium, in the form of a Sonata—which I was sending to Novello to compose; but Mary forbid it me as too light for the occasion-as if the subject required anything heavy: so in a tiff with her I sent no congratulation at all. Tho' I promise you the wedding was very pleasant news to me indeed. Let your reply name a day this next week, when you will come as many as a coach will hold; such a day as we had at Dulwich. My very kindest love and Mary's to Victoria and the Novellos. The enclosed is from a friend nameless, but highish in office, and a man whose accuracy of statement may be relied on with implicit confidence. He wants the exposé to appear in a newspaper as the " greatest piece of legal and Parliamentary villainy he ever remember'd," and he had experience of both; and thinks it would answer afterwards in a cheap pamphlet printed at Lambeth in 8° sheet, as 16,000 families in that parish are interested. I know not whether the present "Examiner" keeps up the character of exposing abuses, for I scarce see a paper now. If so, you may ascertain Mr. Hunt of the strictest truth of the statement, at the peril of my head. But if this won't do, transmit it me back, I beg, per coach—or better, bring it with you. Yours unaltered, To VINCENT NOVELLO. LETTER CCCXXXI.] C. LAMB. [Enfield, November 6, 1828.] My dear Novello-I am afraid I shall appear rather tardy in offering my congratulations, however sincere, upon your daughter's marriage. The truth is I had put |