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

This preamble was probably written by Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789–1864), who became supreme editor of The Athenæum in 1830. Joseph Shepherd Munden died on February 6, 1832. He had first made his mark in 1780, when Lamb was five. His Covent Garden career lasted, with occasional migrations, from 1790 to 1811. Munden's first appearance at Drury Lane was in 1813. It was in 1815 that he created the part of Old Dozy, in T. Dibdin's "Past Ten O'clock and a Rainy Night." His farewell of the stage was taken in 1824.

Page 397,line 7. Lewis. "Gentleman" Lewis (1748?-1811), the original Faulkland in "The Rivals." It was he who said that Lamb's farce, "Mr. H.," might easily have been turned into a success by a practical dramatist. Hazlitt called him "the greatest comic mannerist perhaps that ever lived." His full name is William Thomas Lewis.

Page 397,line 8. Parsons, Dodd, etc. See note on page 465. Parsons was at Drury Lane practically from 1762 to 1795 and Dodd from 1766 to 1796.

Page 398,line 4. " Johnny Gilpin. " This benefit, for William Dowton (1764–1851), was held on April 28, 1817. The first piece was "The Rivals," with Dowton as Mrs. Malaprop. In "Johnny Gilpin" (Genest gives no author's name) Munden played Anthony Brittle.

Page 398,line 6. Liston's Lubin Log. This was one of Listen's great parts—in "Love, Law and Physic," by Lamb's friend, James Kenney (1780–1849), produced in 1812.

Page 398,at the end. A gentleman … whose criticism I think masterly. This was Talfourd, who several years before had been dramatic critic to The Champion . I quote the first portion of his article: "Mr. Munden appears to us to be the most classical of actors. He is that in high farce, which Kemble was in high tragedy. The lines of these great artists are, it must be admitted, sufficiently distinct; but the same elements are in both—the same directness of purpose, the same singleness of aim, the same concentration of power, the same iron-casing of inflexible manner, the same statue-like precision of gesture, movement and attitude. The hero of farce is as little affected with impulses from without, as the retired Prince of Tragedians. There is something solid, sterling, almost adamantine, in the building up of his most grotesque characters. When he fixes his wonder-working face in any of its most amazing varieties, it looks as if the picture were carved out from a rock by Nature in a sportive vein, and might last for ever. It is like what we can imagine a mask of the old Grecian Comedy to have been, only that it lives, and breathes, and changes. His most fantastical gestures are the grand ideal of farce. He seems as though he belonged to the earliest and the stateliest age of Comedy, when instead of superficial foibles and the airy varieties of fashion, she had the grand asperities of man to work on, when her grotesque images had something romantic about them, and when humour and parody were themselves heroic."

Page 398.Thoughts on Presents of Game, &c.

The Athenæum , November 30, 1833. Signed "Elia." Not reprinted by Lamb.

The quoted passage at the head of this little essay is from Lamb's "Popular Fallacy," XV., "That we must not look a gift-horse in the mouth." It was probably placed there by the editor of The Athenæum . The present essay may be taken as a postscript to the "Dissertation on Roast Pig." The late Mr. Charles Kent, in his Centenary edition of Lamb, printed it next that essay, under the heading "A Recantation."

Page 399,line 1. Old Mr. Chambers. The Rev. Thomas Chambers, Vicar of Radway-Edgehill, in Warwickshire, and father of Charles and John Chambers, who were at Christ's Hospital, but after Lamb's day. John was a fellow clerk of Lamb's at the India House. A letter from Lamb to Charles Chambers is in existence (see Hazlitt's The Lambs , page 138), in which Lamb makes other ecstatic remarks on delicate feeding. Incidentally he says that bullock's heart is a substitute for hare. Mr. Hazlitt says that the Warwickshire vicar left a diary in which he recorded little beyond the dinners he used to give or eat.

Page 399,line 10. Mrs. Minikin. Writing to his friend Dodwell in October, 1827, concerning the gift of a little pig (which suggests that the "Recantation" was of more recent date than the reader is asked to suppose), Lamb uses "crips" again. "'And do it nice and crips .' (That's the Cook's word.) You'll excuse me, I have been only speaking to Becky about the dinner to-morrow." This seems to establish the fact that Mrs. Minikin was Becky's name when she was exalted into print. Becky however had left long before 1833.

Page 400.Table-Talk by the Late Elia.

The Athæneum , January 4, May 31, June 7, July 19, 1834. Not reprinted by Lamb.

The phrase, "the late Elia," has reference to the preface to the Last Essays of Elia , published in 1833, in which his death is spoken of.

Page 400,line 3 of essay. 'Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. A different note is struck in the Elia essay "On the Decay of Beggars": "Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, imposition, imposture— give, and ask no questions ."

Page 400,line 4 from foot. Will Dockwray. I have not been able to find anything about this Will Dockwray. Such Ware records as I have consulted are silent concerning him. There was a Joseph Dockwray, a rich Quaker maltster, at Ware in the eighteenth century. In the poem "Going or Gone," which mentions many of Lamb's acquaintances in his early Widford days (Widford is only three miles from Ware), there is mentioned a Tom Dockwra, who also eludes research.

Page 401,line 15. " We read the 'Paradise Lost' as a task. " Johnson, in his "Life of Milton," in the Lives of the Poets , says: "'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure." For other remarks on Milton see page 428.

Page 401,foot. So ends "King Lear." Lamb means that the tragedy is virtually done. There are of course some dozen lines more, after the last of those quoted in Lamb's piecemeal; which I have corrected by the Globe Edition. Lear's praise of Caius—"he's a good fellow … and will strike"—was applied by Lamb to his father in the character sketch of him in the Elia essay "On the Old Benchers" (see also the essay on the "Genius of Hogarth," for earlier remarks, 1810, on this subject).

Page 402,first quotation. " Served not for gain. … " From the Fool's song in "Lear," Act II., Scene 4:—

That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,

And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

Page 402,second and third quotations. " The Nut-Brown Maid. " This poem is given in the Percy Reliques . The oldest form of it is in Arnolde's Chronicle , 1502. Lamb quotes from the penultimate stanza. Matthew Prior (1664–1721), who wrote a version under the title "Henry and Emma," was a favourite with Lamb. In Miss Isola's Extract Book he copied Prior's "Female Phaeton." In this connection a passage from the obituary notice of Lamb, written by Barren Field in the Annual Biography and Obituary , 1836, has peculiar interest. The doctrine referred to is "suppression in writing":—

We remember, at the very last supper we ate with him (Mr. Serjeant Talfourd will recollect it too), he quoted a passage from Prior's "Henry and Emma," in illustration of this doctrine and discipline; and yet he said he loved Prior as much as any man, but that his "Henry and Emma" was a vapid paraphrase of the old poem of "The Nutbrowne Mayde." For example, at the dénouement of the ballad, Prior made Henry rant out to his devoted Emma:—