DEAR Coleridge,—I congratulate you on the appearance of “The Friend.” Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfil the promise. I had a kind letter from you some time since, which I have left unanswered. I am also obliged to you, I believe, for a review in the “Annual,” am I not? The “Monthly Review” sneers at me, and asks “if ‘Comus’ is not good enough for Mr. Lamb?” because I have said no good serious dramas have been written since the death of Charles the First, except “Samson Agonistes”; so because they do not know, or won’t remember, that “Comus” was written long before, I am to be set down as an undervaluer of Milton! O Coleridge, do kill those reviews, or they will kill us—kill all we like! Be a friend to all else, but their foe. I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself; but I have got other at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, far more commodious and roomy. I have two rooms on third floor and five rooms above, with an inner staircase to myself, and all new painted, &c., and all for £30 a year! I came into them on Saturday week; and on Monday following, Mary was taken ill with fatigue of moving, and affected, I believe, by the novelty of the home; she could not sleep, and I am left alone with a maid quite a stranger to me, and she has a month or two’s sad distraction to go through. What sad large pieces it cuts out of life—out of her life, who is getting rather old; and we may not have many years to live together! I am weaker, and bear it worse than I ever did. But I hope we shall be comfortable by and bye. The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going. Just now it is dry. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it’s like living in a garden. I try to persuade myself it is much pleasanter than Mitre Court; but, alas! the household gods are slow to come in a new mansion. They are in their infancy to me; I do not feel them yet; no hearth has blazed to them yet. How I hate and dread new places!
I was very glad to see Wordsworth’s book advertised; I am to have it to-morrow
lent me, and if Wordsworth don’t send me an order
for one upon Longman, I will buy it. It
is greatly extolled and liked by all who have seen it. Let me hear from some of
you, for I am desolate. I shall have to send you, in a week or two, two volumes
of Juvenile Poetry, done by
Mary and me within the last
| 1809 | “IF EVER I MARRY A WIFE” | 401 |
Nevertheless, do not understand by this that I have not quite enough for my occasions for a year or two to come. While I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch’d away my books which you had at the “Courier” Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, containing “The White Devil,” “Green’s Tu Quoque,” and the “Honest Whore,”—perhaps the most valuable volume of them all—that I could not find. Pray, if you can, remember what you did with it, or where you took it out with you a walking perhaps; send me word; for, to use the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes (you had three), the “Arcadia,” and “Daniel,” enriched with manuscript notes. I wish every book I have were so noted. They have thoroughly converted me to relish Daniel, or to say I relish him, for, after all, I believe I did relish him. You well call him sober-minded. Your notes are excellent. Perhaps you’ve forgot them. I have read a review in the “Quarterly,” by Southey, on the Missionaries, which is most masterly. I only grudge it being there. It is quite beautiful. Do remember my Dodsley; and pray do write, or let some of you write. Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky house. Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of smoking. Our little poems are but humble, but they have no name. You must read them, remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents would not have found so many. Have you read “Cœlebs?” It has reached eight editions in so many weeks; yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been something. I borrowed this “Cœlebs in Search of a Wife” of a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff written in the beginning:—
“If ever I marry a wife I’d marry a landlord’s daughter, For then I may sit in the bar. And drink cold brandy-and-water.” |
| 402 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | June |
I don’t expect you can find time from your “Friend” to write to me much, but write something, for there has been a long silence. You know Holcroft is dead. Godwin is well. He has written a very pretty, absurd book about sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about books; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write; but I could not let “The Friend” pass without a congratulatory epistle. I won’t criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell me how I shall send my packet to you?—by what conveyance?—by Longman, Short-man, or how? Give my Kindest remembrances to Wordsworth. Tell him he must give me a book. My kind love to Mrs. W. and to Dorothy separately and conjointly. I wish you could all come and see me in my new rooms. God bless you all.
