Charles Lamb - The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

It was characteristic of Lamb that finding the widow at Cambridge he should have set her in the essay at Oxford. He did the same thing in his Elia essay "On Oxford in the Vacation," which he conceived at the sister university.

Page 248,line 4 of essay. The maid's aunt of Brainford. The maid's aunt of Brentford; otherwise Sir John Falstaff in petticoats (see "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Act IV., Scene 2).

Page 251.Letter to an Old Gentleman whose Education has been Neglected.

London Magazine , January, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.

De Quincey's "Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected" began in the London Magazine in January, 1823. There were five altogether, ending in July of the same year. From the date at the end of Lamb's "Letter," and from a passage in a Letter to Barton of March 5, 1823, we may suppose him to have meant his parody to appear at the same time. "Your poem," he says, "found me engaged about a humorous Paper for the London , which I had called 'A Letter to an Old Gentleman whose Education had been Neglected'—and when it was done Taylor & Hessey would not print it, and it discouraged me from doing anything else."

The problem of De Quincey's "Young Man" was contained in this sentence in the first letter: "To your first question—whether to you, with your purposes and at your age of thirty-two, a residence at either of our English universities—or at any foreign university, can be of much service."—Writing to Miss Hutchinson in January, 1825, Lamb says: "De Quincey's Parody was submitted to him before printed, and had his Probatum."

I have not been able to discover whether or no any special significance attaches to the name of Grierson; or whether Lamb took the name at random.

Page 255,line 25. Mr. Hartlib. Milton's friend, Samuel Hartlib (died about 1670), to whom the Tractate on Education , which Lamb slyly plays upon in this paragraph, was addressed by Milton in 1644. Hartlib is said to have brought himself to poverty by his generosity to poor scholars.

Page 257.Ritson versus John Scott the Quaker.

London Magazine , April, 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb.

This was a hoax, as Lamb explained in a letter to Bernard Barton (March 5, 1823): "I took up Scott, where I had scribbled some petulant remarks, and for a make-shift father'd them on Ritson." Scott was John Scott, the Quaker, better known as Scott of Amwell (1730–1783), whose Critical Essays , 1785, do actually contain the passages quoted by Lamb, with slight errors of transcription. Joseph Ritson (1752–1803), antiquary and critic, might easily have commented as Lamb has done, but with more savagery. Ritson's library was sold in December, 1803.

Page 265.Letter of Elia to Robert Southey.

London Magazine , October, 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb, except in part. See below.

It was Lamb's fate to be misunderstood by the Quarterly Review ; and in that misunderstanding lay the real origin of the "Letter to Southey." On at least four occasions Lamb was unfairly treated by this powerful organ: in December, 1811, when, in a review of Weber's edition of Ford's works, Lamb was called a poor maniac (see note on page 471); in October, 1814, when his review of Wordsworth's Excursion was hacked to pieces (see same note); in April, 1822, when a reviewer of Reid's Hypochondriasis (believed to be Dr. Robert Gooch, a friend of Southey) stated that he knew for a fact that Lamb's "Confessions of a Drunkard" were autobiographical ( see note on page 458); and lastly, in January, 1823, when Southey, in an article on "Theo-philanthropism in France and the Spread of Infidelity," remarked, incidentally and quite needlessly, of Elia , then just published, that it wanted a sounder religious feeling, and went on to rebuke Lamb's friend, Leigh Hunt, for his lack of Christian faith. It was this accumulation of affront that stirred Lamb to his remonstrance, far more than anger with Southey—although anger he naturally had. Lamb's real opponent was Gifford; as in a private letter to Southey, after the publication of the article and after Southey had written to him on the matter, he admitted (see below).

Lamb's own remark concerning the "Letter to Southey," there expressed—"My guardian angel was absent at that time"—is perhaps right, although the passage in the article in defence of his friends could be ill spared. As for Southey, while one can see his point of view and respect his honesty, one is glad that so poor a piece of literary criticism and so unlovely a display of self-righteousness should be chastised; without, however, too greatly admiring the chastisement.

Lamb's first idea was to let the review pass without notice, as we see from the following remark to Bernard Barton in July, 1823:—

"Southey has attacked 'Elia' on the score of infidelity in the Quarterly article, 'Progress of Infidelity.' I had not, nor have seen the Monthly . He might have spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights, that meant no harm to religion. If all his unguarded expressions were to be collected—! But I love and respect Southey, and will not retort. I hate his review, and his being a reviewer. The hint he has dropped will knock the sale of the book on the head, which was almost at a stop before. Let it stop, there is corn in Egypt, while there is cash at Leadenhall. You and I are something besides being writers, thank God!"

But Lamb thought better, or worse, of his first intention, and wrote the "Letter."

It appeared in October, 1823, and caused some talk among literary people. Southey had many enemies who were glad to see him trounced. The Times , for example, of October 2, said:—

The number just published of the London Magazine contains a curious letter from Elia (Charles Lamb) to Mr. Southey. It treats the laureat with that contempt which his always uncandid and frequently malignant spirit deserves. When it is considered that Mr. Lamb has been the fast friend of Southey, and is besides of a particularly kind and peaceable nature, it is evident that nothing but gross provocation could have roused him to this public declaration of his disgust.

On the other hand, Christopher North (John Wilson), of Blackwood , made the letter the text of a homily to literary men, in Blackwood , for October, 1823, under the heading of "A Manifesto." After some general remarks on the tendency of authors to take themselves, or at any rate their position in the public eye, too seriously, he continued:—

Our dearly-beloved friend, Charles Lamb, (we would fain call him Elia; but that, as he himself says, "would be as good as naming him,") what is this you are doing? Mr. Southey, having read your Essays, wished to pay you a compliment, and called them, in the "Quarterly," "a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original!" And with this eulogy you are not only dissatisfied, but so irate at the Laureate, that nothing will relieve your bile, but a Letter to the Doctor of seven good pages in "The London." Prodigious! Nothing would content your highness (not serene) of the India-House, but such a sentence as would sell your lucubrations as a puff; and because Taylor and Hessey cannot send this to the newspapers, you wax sour, sulky, and vituperative of your old crony, and twit him with his "old familiar faces." This is, our dear Charles, most unreasonable—most unworthy of you; and we know not how to punish you with sufficient severity, now that Hodge of Tortola [69]is no more; but the inflexible Higgins of Nevis still survives, and we must import him to flog you in the market-place.

[69]See note to "Christ's Hospital" essay, in Vol. II.—Ed.