Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to John Howard Payne, [Autumn 1822]
DEAR Payne—A
friend and fellow-clerk of mine, Mr.
White (a good fellow) coming to your parts, I would fain have
accompanied him, but am forced instead to send a part of me, verse and prose,
most of it from 20 to 30 years old, such as I then was, and I am not much
altered.
Paris, which I hardly knew whether I liked when I was in
it, is an object of no small magnitude with me now. I want to be going, to the
Jardin des Plantes (is that right, Louisa?) with you—to Pere de la Chaise, La Morgue, and all the
sentimentalities. How is Talma, and his
(my) dear Shakspeare?
N.B.—My friend White knows Paris thoroughly, and does not want a guide. We
did, and had one. We both join in thanks. Do you remember a Blue-Silk Girl
(English) at the Luxembourg, ![]()
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that did not much
seem to attend to the Pictures, who fell in love with you, and whom I fell in
love with—an inquisitive, prying, curious Beauty—where is she?
Votre Très Humble Serviteur,
Charlois Agneau,
alias C. Lamb.
Guichy is well, and much as usual. He seems blind to
all the distinctions of life, except to those of sex. Remembrance to
Kenny and Poole.
James Kenney (1780-1849)
Irish playwright, author of
The World (1808); he was a friend of
Lamb, Hunt, Moore, and Rogers.
Louisa Kenney [née Mercier] (1780 c.-1853)
The daughter of the French writer Louis-Sébastien Mercier and former (fourth) wife of
Thomas Holcroft; in 1812 she married the Irish playwright James Kenney.
John Howard Payne (1791-1852)
American dramatist and friend of Washington Irving who worked in England and France from
1813 to 1832; he was author of
Brutus, or, the Fall of Tarquin: an
Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts (1818).
John Poole (1786-1872)
English comic writer and playwright; he contributed to the
London
Magazine and scored a great theatrical success with
Paul
Pry (1825). He spent his later years living impoverished in Paris.
François-Joseph Talma (1763-1826)
French tragic actor and reformer of the stage who was admired by Napoleon.
Edward White (1840 fl.)
A clerk at the East India House where he was a friend and colleague of Charles Lamb; he
was an amateur painter and connoisseur of art.
