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As it is not the aim of this work to exalt or aggrandize the
intellectual pretensions of the persons to whom it relates, but only to give true sketches
of them as they appeared from the point of view from which the writer looked at them, I
shall resort very sparingly to those daily records which I occasionally made, of my
personal intercourse with them at set literary or other meetings, where they were more or
less on show, and consequently never perfectly themselves—any more
than a sitter for his portrait is until the artist has talked and enticed him into
forgetfulness of the occasion of his visit. What I profess to know and to depict of the
persons I treat of was gathered chiefly in that familiar tête-à-tête intercourse in which alone men show themselves for what
they really are. The startling strangeness of
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“December 5, 1826.—Spent the evening at Lamb’s. When I went in, they (Charles and his sister) were alone, playing at cards together.
“I took up a book on the table—
84 | CHARLES LAMB. |
“Speaking of Northcote, he related a story of him, illustrating his love for doing and saying little malicious things. It was at a party at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, where Boswell was present, and they were talking of Malone, and somebody said that Malone seemed to live in Shakespeare, and not to have a feeling or thought connected with anything else; upon which Northcote said—‘Then he must have been the meanest of mankind. The man who sets up any other man as a sort of God, and worships him to the exclusion of all other things and thoughts, must be the meanest of men;—and everybody,’ said Northcote (who was himself the original relator of the story), ‘everybody turned and looked at Boswell.’
“We spoke of L. E. L., and Lamb said—‘If she belonged to me, I would lock her up and feed her on bread and water till she left off writing poetry. A female poet, or female author of any kind, ranks below an actress, I think.’
“—— was mentioned, and Lamb said
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“Bernard Barton was mentioned, and Lamb said that he did not write nonsense, at any rate—which all the rest of them did (meaning the Magazine poets of the day). He was dull enough; but not nonsensical. ‘He writes English, too,’ said Lamb, ‘which they do not.’
“H. C. R. came in about half-past eight, and put a stop to all further conversation— keeping all the talk to himself.
“Speaking of some German story, in which a man is made
to meet himself—he himself having changed forms with
some one else—the talk turned on what we should think of ourselves, if we could
see ourselves without knowing that it was ourselves.
R. said that he had all his life
felt a sort of horror come over him every time he caught a sight of his own
face in the glass; and that he was almost afraid to shave himself for the same
reason. He said that he often wondered how anybody could sustain an intimacy
with, much less feel a friendship for, a man with such a face. Lamb said—‘I hope you have
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“Speaking of names, Lamb said—‘John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,’ was the grandest name in the world. On this R. spoke of a Spanish pamphlet he had lately met with, describing the Reformation, in which all the English names were changed to Spanish ones, and the fine effect it had. It began by relating that a great prince named Don Henriquez (Henry VIII.) was married to a beautiful princess called La Donna Catalina (Queen Catherine)—that he was under the influence of a wily priest named il Cardinal Bolseo (Wolsey), who advised him to divorce his chaste wife la Donna Catalina, and unite himself to a foul though beautiful witch named La Donna Anna Volena (Anna Boleyn). Jane Seymour was called La Donna Joanna Sumaro, and her house (at Greenwich) the castle of Grenuccio.
“Friday, July 13.—Spent the evening at Leigh Hunt’s, with the
Lambs, Atherstone, Mrs.
Shelley, and the Gliddons.
Lamb talked admirably about Dryden and some of the older poets, in
particular of Davenant’s
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“He (Lamb) spoke of Dryden as a prodigious person, so far as his wonderful power of versification went, but not a first-rate poet, or even capable of appreciating such—giving instances from his prefaces in proof of this. He spoke of Dryden’s prefaces as the finest pieces of criticism, nevertheless, that had ever been written, and the better for being contradictory to each other, because not founded on any pretended rules.
“Hunt was asking how
it was necessary to manage in order to get Coleridge to come and dine. Lamb replied that he believed he (Cole-
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“Lamb repeated one of his own enormous puns. He had met Procter, and speaking of his little girl (then an infant), Procter said they had called her Adelaide. ‘Ah,’ said Lamb, ‘a very good name for her—Addle-head.’”
The two following anecdotes are so characteristic that, although they reached me at second-hand, and may possibly, therefore, have been printed before, I will not omit them. They were told me by James Smith (of the “Rejected Addresses”), at a dinner at the late Charles Matthews’s:—
Lamb and Coleridge were talking together on the incidents of
Coleridge’s early life, when he was beginning his career in
the Church, and Coleridge was describing some of the facts in his usual tone, when he paused, and said: “Pray, Mr.
Lamb, did you ever
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The other anecdote was of a lady—a sort of social Mrs. Fry—who had been for some time lecturing Lamb on his irregularities. At last, she said: “But, really, Mr. Lamb, I’m afraid all that I’m saying has very little effect on you. I’m afraid, from your manner of attending to it, that it will not do you much good.” “No, ma’am,” said Lamb, “I don’t think it will. But as all that you have been saying has gone in at this ear (the one next her) and out at the other, I dare say it will do this gentleman a great deal of good,” turning to a stranger who stood on the other side of him.
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