Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to George Dyer, 5 December 1808
From my Desk in Leadenhall Street,
Decr 5, 1808.
Dear Dyer
Coleridge is not so bad as your fears
have represented him; it is true that he is Bury’d, altho’ he is
not dead; to understand this quibble you must know that he is at Bury St.
Edmunds, relaxing, after the fatigues of lecturing and Londonizing. The little
Rickmaness, whom you enquire after so kindly, thrives
and grows apace; she is already a prattler, and ’tis thought that on some
future day she may be a speaker. [This was Mrs.
Lefroy.] We hold our weekly meetings still at No 16, ![]()
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where altho’ we are not so high as the top of
Malvern, we are involved in almost as much mist. Miss B[etham]’s merit “in every point of
view,” I am not disposed to question, altho’ I have not
been indulged with any view of that lady, back, side, or front—fie! Dyer, to
praise a female in such common market phrases—you who are held so courtly and
so attentive. My book is not yet out, that is not my “Extracts,” my “Ulysses” is, and
waits your acceptance. When you shall come to town, I hope to present you both
together—never think of buying the “Extracts”—half guinea books
were never calculated for my friends. Those poets have started up since your
departure; William Hazlitt, your friend
and mine, is putting to press a collection of verses, chiefly amatory, some of
them pretty enough. How these painters encroach on our province! There’s
Hoppner, Shee, Westall, and I
don’t know who besides, and Tresham. It seems on confession, that they are not at the top
of their own art, when they seek to eke out their fame with the assistance of
another’s; no large tea-dealer sells cheese; no great silversmith sells
razor-strops; it is only your petty dealers who mix commodities. If Nero had been a great Emperor, he would never have
played the Violoncello! Who ever caught you, Dyer,
designing a landscape, or taking a likeness? I have no more to add, who am the
friend of virtue, poetry, painting, therefore in an especial manner,
Unalterably Thine
C. Lamb.
Mary Matilda Betham (1777-1852)
English poet and miniature painter and friend of Southey, Coleridge and the Lambs. She
was the elder sister of the antiquary Sir William Betham.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
George Dyer (1755-1841)
English poet, antiquary, and friend of Charles Lamb; author of
Poems
and Critical Essays (1802),
Poetics: or a Series of Poems and
Disquisitions on Poetry, 2 vols (1812),
History of the
University and Colleges of Cambridge, 2 vols (1814) and other works.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
John Hoppner (1758-1810)
English portrait painter and member of the Royal Academy (1795); he was a close friend of
William Gifford and the father of Byron's correspondent Richard Belgrave Hoppner.
Anne Lefroy [née Rickman] (1808-1881 fl.)
The daughter of Robert Southey's friend John Rickman; in 1841 she married Anthony
Cottrell Lefroy. Her memoirs were published as
Good Company in old
Westminster and the Temple (1925).
Nero, emperor of Rome (37-68)
Roman emperor (54-68) who made Christians scapegoats for the disastrous fire of 64
AD.
Henry Tresham (1750 c.-1814)
Irish history painter who traveled in Italy, was elected to the Royal Academy in 1709,
and taught in the Royal Academy Schools; he published several volumes of poetry.
Richard Westall (1765-1836)
English poet and illustrator who favored literary subjects and published a collection of
verse,
A Day in Spring and other Poems (1808).
