Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton, [8 December 1829]
MY dear B.
B.—You are very good to have been uneasy about us, and I have the
satisfaction to tell you, that we are both in better health and spirits than we
have been for a year or two past; I may say, than we have been since we have
been at Enfield. The cause may not appear quite adequate, when I tell you, that
a course of ill health and spirits brought us to the determination of giving up
our house here, and we are boarding and lodging with a worthy old couple, long
inhabitants of Enfield, where everything is done for us without our trouble,
further than a reasonable weekly ![]()
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payment.
We should have done so before, but it is not easy to flesh and blood to give up
an ancient establishment, to discard old Penates, and from house keepers to
turn house-sharers. (N.B. We are not in the Workhouse.) Dioclesian in his garden found more repose than
on the imperial seat of Rome, and the nob of Charles
the Fifth aked seldomer under a monk’s cowl than under the
diadem. With such shadows of assimilation we countenance our degradation. With
such a load of dignifyd cares just removed from our shoulders, we can the more
understand and pity the accession to yours, by the advancement to an
Assigneeship. I will tell you honestly B. B. that it has
been long my deliberate judgment, that all Bankrupts, of what denomination
civil or religious whatever, ought to be hang’d. The pity of mankind has
for ages ran in a wrong channel, and has been diverted from poor Creditors (how
many I have known sufferers! Hazlitt has
just been defrauded of £100 by his Bookseller-friend’s breaking) to
scoundrel Debtors. I know all the topics, that distress may come upon an honest
man without his fault, that the failure of one that he trusted was his calamity
&c. &c. Then let both be hang’d. O how
careful it would make traders! These are my deliberate thoughts after many
years’ experience in matters of trade. What a world of trouble it would
save you, if Friend * * * * * had been immediately hangd,
without benefit of clergy, which (being a Quaker I presume) he could not
reasonably insist upon. Why, after slaving twelve months in your
assign-business, you will be enabled to declare seven pence in the Pound in all
human probability. B. B., he should be hanged. Trade will
never re-flourish in this land till such a Law is establish’d. I write
big not to save ink but eyes, mine having been troubled with reading
thro’ three folios of old Fuller
in almost as few days, and I went to bed last night in agony, and am writing
with a vial of eye water before me, alternately dipping in vial and inkstand.
This may enflame my zeal against Bankrupts—but it was my speculation when I
could see better. Half the world’s misery (Eden else) is owing to want of
money, and all that want is owing to Bankrupts. I declare I would, if the State
wanted Practitioners, turn Hangman myself, and should have great pleasure in
hanging the first after my salutary law should be establish’d. I have
seen no annuals and wish to see none. I like your fun upon them, and was quite
pleased with Bowles’s sonnet.
Hood is or was at Brighton, but a
note, prose or rhime, to him, Robert Street, Adelphi, I am sure would extract a
copy of his, which also I have not seen. Wishing you and yours all Health, I
conclude while these frail glasses are to me—eyes.
Bernard Barton (1784-1849)
Prolific Quaker poet whose verse appeared in many of the literary annuals; he was an
acquaintance of Charles Lamb.
William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850)
English poet and critic; author of
Fourteen Sonnets, elegiac and
descriptive, written during a Tour (1789), editor of the
Works
of Alexander Pope, 10 vols (1806), and writer of pamphlets contributing to the
subsequent Pope controversy.
Diocletian (245-313)
Roman emperor 284-305 and persecutor of Christians.
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
English divine and biographer whose
Worthies of England was
posthumously published in 1662.
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).
Thomas Hood (1799-1845)
English poet and humorist who wrote for the
London Magazine; he
published
Whims and Oddities (1826) and
Hood's
Magazine (1844-5).
