Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton, [late 1827]
MY dear B.—We
are all pretty well again and comfortable, and I take a first opportunity of
sending the Adventures of
Ulysses, hoping that among us—Homer, Chapman, and Co.—we shall afford you some pleasure. I fear, it is out
of print, if not, A. K. will accept it,
with wishes it were bigger; if another copy is not to be had, it reverts to me
and my heirs for ever. With it I send a trumpery book;
to which, without my knowledge, the Editor of the Bijoux
has contributed Lucy’s verses: I
am asham’d to ask her acceptance of the trash accompanying it. Adieu to
Albums—for a great while, I said when I came here, and had not been fixed two
days but my Landlord’s daughter (not at the Pot house) requested me to
write in her female friend’s, and in her own; if I go to thou art there
also, O all pervading Album! All over the Leeward
Islands, in Newfoundland, and the Back Settlements, I understand there is no
other reading. They haunt me. I die of Albo-phobia!
Bernard Barton (1784-1849)
Prolific Quaker poet whose verse appeared in many of the literary annuals; he was an
acquaintance of Charles Lamb.
Lucy Barton (1808 c.-1898)
The daughter of the Quaker poet Bernard Barton; she married the poet Edward Fitzgerald in
1856, but they soon separated. She published religious works.
George Chapman (1560-1634)
English poet and playwright remembered for his translations of Homer's
Iliad (1612) and
Odyssey (1614-1615).
William Fraser (1805 c.-1852)
The brother of James Fraser of
Fraser's Magazine; a friend of
Thomas Carlyle, he edited
The Bijou and
Foreign Review and
Critical Miscellany. R. S. Mackenzie described him as a dandy.
Homer (850 BC fl.)
Poet of the
Iliad and
Odyssey.
Anne Knight [née Waspe] (1792-1860)
Quaker writer for children, the daughter of Jonathan Waspe; in 1818 she married James
Knight. She was a Woodbridge friend and of Bernard Barton, not the Quaker abolitionist of
the same name (1786-1862).
