Memoirs of William Hazlitt
Ch. XI 1808
Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart [Hazlitt] [16 March 1808]
“16 March, 1808.
“My dear Sarah,
“Do not be very angry that I have not written to you.
I have promised your brother to be at your wedding, and that favour you must
accept as an atonement for my offences. You have been in no want of
correspondence lately, and I wished to leave you both to your own inventions.
“The border you are working for me I prize at a very
high rate, because I consider it as the last work you can do for me, the time
so fast approaching that you must no longer work for your friends. Yet my old
fault of giving away presents has not left me, and I am desirous of even giving
away this your last gift. I had intended to have given it away without your
knowledge, but I have intrusted my secret to Hazlitt, and I suppose it will not remain a secret long, so I
condescend to consult you.
“It is to Miss
Hazlitt to whose superior claim I wish to give up my right to
this precious worked border. Her brother William is her great favourite, and she ![]()
| 162 | WHICH GOWN IS IT TO BE? | |
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would be pleased to possess his bride’s
last work. Are you not to give the fellow border to one sister-in-law, and
therefore has she not a just claim to it? I never heard in the annals of
weddings (since the days of Nausicaa, and
she only washed her old gowns for that purpose) that the brides ever furnished
the apparel of their maids. Besides, I can be completely clad in your work
without it, for the spotted muslin will serve both for cap and hat
(nota bene, my hat is the same as yours), and the gown
you sprigged for me has never been made up, therefore I can wear that. Or, if
you like better, I will make up a new silk which Manning has sent me from China. Manning
would like to hear I wore it for the first time at your wedding. It is a very
pretty light colour, but there is an objection (besides not being your work,
and that is a very serious objection), and that is, Mrs. Hazlitt tells me that all Winterslow would be in an uproar
if the bridesmaid was to be dressed in anything but white; and although it is a
very light colour, I confess we cannot call it white, being a sort of a
dead-whiteish-bloom colour. Then silk perhaps in a morning is not so proper,
though the occasion, so joyful, might justify a full dress. Determine for me in
this perplexity between the sprig and the China-Manning
silk. But do not contradict my whim about Miss Hazlitt
having the border, for I have set my heart upon the matter. If you agree with
me in this, I shall think you have forgiven me for giving away your pin; that
was a mad trick; but I had many obligations and no money. I repent me of the
deed, wishing I had ![]()
| | OBJECTS TO BE GODMOTHER. | 163 |
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it now to
send to Miss H. with the border; and I cannot, will not,
give her the Doctor’s pin, for
having never had any presents from gentlemen in my young days, I highly prize
all they now give me, thinking my latter days are better than my former.
“You must send this same border in your own name to
Miss Hazlitt, which will save me the
disgrace of giving away your gift, and make it amount merely to a civil
refusal.
“I shall have no present to give you on your
marriage, nor do I expect I shall be rich enough to give anything to baby at
the first christening. But at the second, or third child’s, I hope to
have a coral or so to spare out of my own earnings. Do not ask me to be
godmother, for I have an objection to that—but there is, I believe, no serious
duties attached to a bridesmaid, therefore I come with a willing mind, bringing
nothing with me but merry wishes, and not a few hopes, and a very little
fear—of happy years to come.
“I am, dear Sarah,
“Yours ever most affectionately,
“M. Lamb.
“What has Charles done that nobody invites him to the wedding?
“Miss Stoddart,
Winterslow, near Salisbury.”
Grace Hazlitt [née Loftus] (1746-1837)
The daughter of Thomas Loftus of Wisbech, ironmonger; in 1766 she married the elder
William Hazlitt.
Margaret Hazlitt [Peggy] (1770-1841)
The daughter of William Hazlitt (1737–1820) and elder sister of the critic; her journal
was published in 1967.
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).
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Thomas Manning (1772-1840)
Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, he traveled in China and Tibet, and was a life-long
friend of Charles Lamb.
Sir John Stoddart (1773-1856)
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he befriended Coleridge and Wordsworth and after
abandoning his early republican principles became a writer for the
Times, and afterwards editor of the Tory newspaper
New
Times in 1817 and a judge in Malta (1826-40). His sister married William Hazlitt
in 1808.
