PR 
 
 /^99 ■ 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Benrg laU. Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 4.mt<;.!LA /^^/A^/. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4863.H43L2 1899 
 
 Lamb and Haziitt; further letters and rec 
 
 n 1Q94 013 495 076 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013495076 
 
LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 FURTHER LETTERS AND RECORDS 
 HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED 
 
 EDITED BY 
 WILLIAM CAREW HAZLITT 
 
 I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCXCIX 
 
 k 
 
v« 
 
 CopyM&HT, 1899, BY DoDD, Mead & Company '6I 
 
 j\ .l^.«^^.-:.\ 
 
 Typography by D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston 
 Presswork by The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IntrodMctkm 
 
 vii 
 
 The Earlier Hazlitts 
 
 1 
 
 HazliWs School Days 
 
 19 
 
 Hazlitt at Hackney College 
 
 SS 
 
 Between Two Paths 
 
 63 
 
 A Curious Historiette 
 
 68 
 
 The Subject Continued 
 
 83 
 
 Hazlitfs Earlier Married Lvfe 
 
 105 
 
 Liber Amoris. Part II. 
 
 119 
 
 A Packet qfNew Lamb Notes and Verses 
 
 m 
 
 Index 
 
 159 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN the autumn of 1898 a circumstance 
 occurred which placed in my hands a 
 remarkable assemblage of papers illus- 
 trative of the lives of Charles Lamb and Wil- 
 liam Hazlitt. A very old and intimate friend 
 of the present writer and of his father, and a 
 warm admirer of the essayist and critic of our 
 name, the late Mr. Raymond Yates, shortly be- 
 fore his death, did me the favour to restore to 
 us certain letters and other documents which 
 my father presented to him, it now appears, in 
 1838, and of which the existence or where- 
 abouts was previously unknown. The acquisi- 
 tion of this small treasure coincided with my 
 independent ownership by gradual means of 
 several other inedited pieces by both authors, 
 and it seemed to be worth while, and even ex- 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 pedient, to take steps to preserve them from 
 destruction. 
 
 The long and close friendship between Lamb 
 and Hazlitt, and the nature of some of these 
 new additions to our stores, have led to the 
 adoption of a plan, by which the whole of the 
 matter hereinafter given is, as far as possible, 
 aiTanged in chronological order, and although 
 the material placed at my disposal by Mr. Yates 
 comprises letters hitherto inaccurately and im- 
 perfectly printed by all the editors, it was 
 thought advisable, on the whole, to limit the 
 present undertaking to what I believe to be un- 
 published compositions, with a connecting ex- 
 planatory gloss. The little volume may be 
 treated as a sequel and companion to Messrs. 
 Bell & Sons' edition of the Letters, 1886, and 
 the book edited by me in 1897 under the title 
 of The Lambs. The remainder of the matter 
 must be held over till a really final edition — at 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 present impracticable from the want of certain 
 important desiderata known to exist — of such 
 of Lamb's writings as may be judged worth per- 
 petuation, is undertaken. 
 
 I shall in a prefatory way endeavour to point 
 out the change and progress which only a year 
 or two have accomplished in reference to a sub- 
 ject on which the discoveries appear to be al- 
 most as inexhaustible as the public interest. 
 
 u 
 
 I. CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Lamb's Family, the Brutons, Fields, 
 and Gladmans. 
 
 IAMB preserved his acquaintance with the 
 _J Brutons of Wheathampstead down at 
 least to 1823, when we find a letter of thanks 
 addressed to Farmer Biniton and his wife for 
 the present of a sucking-pig. But the writer 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 had spoken of ,Mrs. Bruton in a letter of 1819 
 to Manning, who also knew the family. 
 Under date of December 30th, 1898, Mr. D. 
 Yeo Bruton writes to me : — 
 "Have you, may I ask, at any time met with any 
 information showing Charles Lamb's connection 
 with the Hertfordshire Brutons ? I imagine they 
 were an old yeoman family, who settled in Hert- 
 fordshire about 1690. On Mockery End is one of 
 his most personal essays, where he avows his con- 
 nection with the Bruton family, and their con- 
 nection with the Fields and the Gladmans, who 
 were certainly among the oldest and most re- 
 spectable families in the County. One is almost 
 tempted to think that the essay upon Mackery 
 End might well be annotated into a small vol- 
 ume. There are still descendants of the Mackery 
 End Brutons living in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood, and if the Fields and Gladmans were also 
 included, I should say the whole district of Wheat- 
 hampstead, Harpenden, and St. Albans, is all 
 alive with them." 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 Mr. Bruton farther informed me that his family 
 came from Lincolnshire, that Mr. Field, Lamb's 
 grandfather on the maternal side, married a 
 Miss Bruton, and that a descendant was not 
 long since residing at Lea Bridge Farm, near 
 Mackery End. 
 
 If John Lamb, the Elder. 
 
 Since The Lambs appeared, two or three copies 
 of the 4to. volume of Poems printed by John 
 Lamb the elder have come to light. One (a 
 very bad one) is in the British Museum. The 
 title is : Poetical Pieces on several Occasions. 
 [Quotation from Pope.] Printed for P. Shot- 
 well. Without date. 4to., pp. 76 + iv. The sole 
 interest of the book is biographical and indi- 
 rect, as the productions themselves are of no 
 literary significance. They may be considered 
 the prototype of the Poetry for Children, 
 Prince Dorus, &c. 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Mr. Samuel Salt, M. P., the Bencher of the 
 Inner Temple, to whom Lamb's father stood in 
 the relation of servant, was the son of the Rev. 
 John Salt, of Audley, Staffordshire. He was 
 admitted as a Student at the Middle Temple 
 in 1741, removed to the Inner in 1745, and at 
 least as early as the succeeding year rented the 
 premises, of which No. 2, Crown Office Row, 
 formed part. John Lamb and his wife, and 
 their three children, resided there with him. 
 Mr. Salt was called in 1753, was Reader in 
 1787, and Treasurer of his Inn in 1788. He 
 was also a Governor of the South Sea Com- 
 pany, and thus the Lambs enjoyed the advan- 
 tage of a double influence in that quarter, Mr. 
 Thomas Coventry, of the Inner Temple, being 
 also on the Board. Salt is almost certainly the 
 same person who is mentioned by J. T. Smith 
 in his Booh Jor a Rainy Day. The author 
 states that Mr. Salt was introduced to him in 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 1785 at Tottenham, and that he spoke to him 
 of himself as one of the four who contributed 
 to btiry Sterne. The Bencher died in Crown 
 Ofl&ce Row, July 27, 1792, and was buried in 
 the Temple Church. In 1793, his library was 
 sold by auction ; it is the collection of books to 
 which Lamb himself hints at having obtained 
 access, and which may have inspired the father 
 with his touches of literary taste. Farther par- 
 ticulars of Salt may be found in Notes and 
 Queries, August 4, 1888. 
 
 But we seem as if we had yet to ascertain where 
 and how Mr. Salt and his attendant first be- 
 came acquainted, and when the latter originally 
 migrated from Lincoln or Stamford to the me- 
 tropolis. He must have been born about 1725. 
 
 H John Lamb the Younger. 
 
 The conjectures as to the existence and iden- 
 tity of the pamphlet written and printed by 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 John Lamb the younger have at last been set 
 at rest by the discovery of a copy in a volume 
 of tracts on sale by Messrs. Dodd, Mead, & Co., 
 of New York, in 1898-9. Readers of the Lamb 
 Letters will call to mind that the author of 
 Elia, in a letter to Crabb Robinson of 1810, 
 speaks of his relative's book about humanity as 
 then out, and forwards Robinson a copy ; but 
 the difficulty was, that no clue was obtainable 
 to the production, which was anonymous. The 
 collection of pamphlets above mentioned, how- 
 ever, contains a list of the contents in Lamb's 
 own hand, and although he has for some un- 
 known reason scored out this and another item, 
 the particulars are decipherable, and the rid- 
 dle is solved. The title is : A Letter to the 
 Right Hon. William Windham, on his Opposi- 
 tion to Lord Ershine's BUI, for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals. London, 1810, 8vo., 
 pp. 38. 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 The second piece which Lamb sought to dis- 
 guise was the Confessions of a Drunkard, by 
 himself. 
 
 1[ Charles Lloyd and his Family. 
 Apropos of the new volume, giving for the first 
 time in a collective form the letters of Lamb to 
 Robert Lloyd, there is much that is new about 
 the latter family, and Lamb's communications 
 to Robert must take high rank among the cor- 
 respondence in any ultimate edition. But the 
 book adds comparatively little to our know- 
 ledge of Charles Lloyd — the more interesting 
 member of this house. The letters to Robert, 
 however, are a treasure for ever. What young 
 man of three and twenty could write such now- 
 adays ? In the New Dublin Review for March, 
 1898, there is the following passage : — 
 "In 1797 Coleridge and his wife, 'honest, simple, 
 lively-minded woman that she was,' had settled 
 down at Nether Stowey in Somersetshire, to a 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 life of Arcadian simplicity. Here, though the rent 
 was but a poor seven or eight pounds a year, the 
 poet had for some time unsuccessfully carried on a 
 desultory warfare with two leagued giants, ' Bread 
 and Cheese.' Towards the close of the year his anx- 
 ieties were lessened, so far as the giants were con- 
 cerned, by taking into his family, as a boarder, 
 Charles Lloyd, a kindly and intellectual youth, 
 with a nice taste for literature, but a sufferer from 
 the terrible disease of epilepsy. Poor Lloyd's 
 'fantastic wantonness of woe' must at times have 
 acted adversely upon Coleridge's own phases of 
 gloom ; but, upon the whole, the young married 
 couple and their visitor had many things to make 
 them happy. 
 
 "There was a comfortable bed-room and sitting- 
 room for C. Lloyd, another for themselves, a ser- 
 vant's room, a kitchen and an out-house." 
 
 This is the arrangement to which Coleridge 
 refers in his verses, To a Friend, On his pro- 
 posing' to domesticate with the Author. 
 My late brother's old and intimate friend, Ar- 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 thur Lloyd, son of James Farmer Lloyd, and 
 grandson of Charles, tells me that he heard his 
 father speak of the last time he saw Lamb, and 
 it was at a bookstall in Copthall Court about 
 1825. The same gentleman also gave me an ac- 
 count of a convivial meeting — possibly at Al- 
 sager's — where Coleridge and Wordsworth (the 
 latter then in the Revenue Department), and a 
 gentleman high up at Somerset House, were 
 present. Wordsworth was very reserved toward 
 the latter ; and then the official grandee began 
 to put questions to the poet on critical mat- 
 ters, as to what he thought of Milton, &c., while 
 
 Lamb persisted in interrupting with, 
 "Hey diddle diddle, 
 My man John 
 
 Went to bed with his breeches on — " 
 and other nonsense, till one of the party coaxed 
 him away. This irrepressible hilarity and these 
 high animal spirits were characteristic of his 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 earlier life. It was while Lamb was in his rooms 
 at Mitre Court Buildings that he insisted one 
 evening, when Coleridge was there, on carrying 
 the latter upstairs, and then on Coleridge carry- 
 ing him down again. The anecdote was related 
 to me by Mr. George Daniel of Canonbury. 
 
 IT The Pipe and the Glass. 
 
 Lamb's propensity for wandering beyond the 
 line of prudence in drinking and smoking is a 
 point which has divided his biographers. In 
 one of his earlier letters he alludes with regret 
 to the intemperate habits of a friend at whose 
 house he visited. "It is a blemish," says he, "in 
 the greatest characters." But there is a dis- 
 position to think that a very small amount of 
 stimulant upset him. So far as smoking is con- 
 cerned, we know that he gave it up about the 
 time that Mr. H. failed, and imagined that 
 he should get on better without it. "A smoky 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 man must write smoky farces." But he returned 
 to the practice as vehemently as ever. I have 
 heard my father say that he used strong Ori- 
 noco tobacco. His Ode on the subject was 
 written about 1805, as I judge from a letter 
 to Manning of Februaiy 24th that year; in one 
 to Hazlitt of the ensuing year he speaks of 
 having had ten pipes overnight, and signs him- 
 self ^owr* Fumosissimus. 
 
 We can hardly fancy Lamb, "when he was a 
 Rechabite of six years old," drinking water 
 from the pump in Hare Court. The court pos- 
 sessed three trees and this pump ; and Lamb's 
 room, when he subsequently lived in Inner 
 Temple Lane, overlooked it. 
 As regards the delicate and rather shirked 
 question of intemperance in drinking among 
 our more immediate forefathers, one rises from 
 a study of the Club and Coffee-house life of 
 the last century and the opening years of the 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 present with an inclination to view that ques- 
 tion in another and more lenient light. During 
 their earlier life, Lamb and the two Hazlitts 
 (John and William) were in the midst of a so- 
 ciety which still preserved the old toping tradi- 
 tions; and the modem domestic hospitality, 
 only modified by a more refined and limited use 
 of the Club, had yet to come. Probably Lamb 
 and Hazlitt, so far from drinking more than 
 others, drank much less, if merely for the rea- 
 son that in both instances a slight amount 
 went a long way. Lamb adhered to his porter 
 and weak diluted gin to the last; his friend 
 during many years partook exclusively of water 
 and tea. The decline of cofiee-house, and of the 
 original type of club, life, may be ascribed to 
 the changes in our social habits. Convivial 
 institutions, which necessitate attendance at 
 stated hours, have almost ceased to be in hai'- 
 mony with our average habits. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 H LarnVs Library. 
 
 In Mary and Charles Lamb, 1874, and in The 
 Lambs, 1897, a strong attempt was made to re- 
 construct the bookshelves of Lamb and their 
 contents, as they stood in the lifetime of the 
 owner, saving only a number of presentation 
 copies of contemporary literature, some of 
 which he did not retain, but gave or even 
 threw away. Since 1897, however, a few addi- 
 tions, which I proceed to enumerate, have oc- 
 curred to me : — 
 
 Bistonio (Tigrinio), Gli Elogi del Porco Capitoli 
 Berneschi. In 7-line stanzas, 4to., Modena, 1761. 
 § Mentioned by me in 1874 as the original of the 
 Dissertation on Roast Pig : I was not, however, 
 aware that Lamb actually possessed the book. 
 But a writer in Notes and Queries, October 5, 
 1878, points out a prototype in the Turkish Spy. 
 
 Tracts. A volume in 8vo., contaming : 
 Antonio : a Tragedy in Five Acts. By W. God- 
 win. 1800. 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Confessions of a Drunkard. By C. Lamb. From 
 
 the Philanthropic Magazine. Reprinted in 1814 
 
 by Basil Montagu as part of another volume, 
 
 again in the London Magazine for 1822, and 
 
 eventually in Elia. 
 
 Recollections of Christ's Hospital. By C. Lamb. 
 
 From Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1813, and 
 
 Supplement. 
 
 § See infrd. 
 
 Remorse : a Tragedy. By S. T. Coleridge. Third 
 
 Edition. 1813. 
 
 Antiquity: a Farce in Two Acts. By Barron 
 
 Field. 1808. 
 
 Speech of the Right Hon. W. Windham in the 
 
 House of Commons, June 13th, 1809, on Lord 
 
 Erskine's Bill for the more efiFectual prevention 
 
 of cruelty towards animals. 1810. 
 
 A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham. 
 
 [By John Lamb, Charles's brother.] 1810. 
 
 § An answer to the preceding. 
 Ramsay (Allan), Chrisfs Kirk on the Green, 
 1718; The Scribblers Lashed, 1718; The 
 Morning Interview, 1719 ; Content, 1719 ; 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 Scots Song's, 1719; and The Prospect of Plenty, 
 
 mo. 
 
 In a vol., 8vo., from the libraries of Dr. Farmer 
 
 and J. M. Gutch, and with a MS. note by Lamb 
 
 on back of title. 
 
 Robinson (Robert), Miscellaneous Works. 8vo. 
 
 1807. 4, vols. 
 
 Shdkespear (W.), Hamlet, 1603. Reprinted. 
 
 Svo., 1825. 
 
 Given in 1829 to the Rev. John Mitford. See 
 
 letter to Barton of March 25th, 1829. 
 
 Blake (William), A Descriptive Catalogue of 
 
 Pictures painted by himself. I'Zmo. 1809. 
 
 Coleridge (S. T.), Christabel, a Transcript by 
 
 Sarah Stoddart, afterwards Mrs. Hazlitt, and 
 
 other MS. matter by Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt 
 
 (rough memoranda, culinary receipts, &c.). 
 
 Svo. 
 
 §This volume has been in the hands of C. 
 Lamb, his sister, W. Hazlitt, and John Payne 
 Collier. Inside the cover is the bookplate of S. 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 Stoddart, St. Ann's Street, Sarum. It has lately 
 gone to America. 
 
 IT The Lamb Correspondence. 
 There is little doubt that the Lamb corres- 
 pondence, extensive as it has gradually shown 
 itself to have been, has suffered more or less 
 from the ravages of carelessness or neglect. 
 Within the covers of the Elogi del Porco, by 
 Bistonio, 1761, mentioned above, occurs, in the 
 copy said to have been Lamb's, a small frag- 
 ment of a note to some one, including the sig- 
 nature of the essayist. It was during a long 
 period a not unfrequent practice on the part of 
 autograph-hunters to cut off the subscription 
 and cast away the rest. 
 
 The correspondence with the Norris family, 
 printed in The Lambs, 1897, and formerly in 
 the possession of Mrs. Arthur Ineen, one of 
 Norris's daughters, who died in 1891, was an 
 unexpected and welcome accession. It appears 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 from a communication to Notes cmd Queries, 
 August 26, 1893, that the address given by 
 Miss Lamb is identifiable with No. 4, York 
 Cottages, near the Priory Bridge, where, in 
 1825, Mrs. Gibbs advertised one sitting-room 
 and three bed-rooms to let. Not far off, a Mr. 
 Hogsflesh had a large lodging-house. Could 
 Lamb have heard of him in earlier years ? 
 The Barton Letters, by the generosity of the 
 late Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald (Lucy Barton), 
 are now deposited in the British Museum (Add. 
 MS. 35256). They have been preserved with 
 the most religious care; but the series is un- 
 fortunately not quite complete, as the masterly 
 and beautiful letter to Barton of 1822 on Wil- 
 liam Blake, first printed entire by myself in 
 1886, appears to have gone astray. 
 The unexpected and fortunate restoration of a 
 parcel of autograph and other MSS. papers to 
 our family in 1898 adds, so far as Lamb is con- 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 cemed, a letter to Hazlitt, two to Joseph 
 Hume, and one to W. Hazlitt, the younger. 
 The Epistemon of a letter to Hazlitt himself 
 (1810) appears to have been a name borrowed 
 from Rabelais, as the Menenius introduced into 
 the paper On Persons One Would Have Wished 
 to Have Seen is taken from Shakespear's Corio- 
 lanus, ii., 1. 
 
 The courtesy of Messrs. Dodd, Mead, & Co., of 
 New York, has enabled me to supply an inedited 
 note to Allan Cunningham — the sole relic of 
 the kind ; and Mr. Way, of Chicago, kindly fur- 
 nished me with a transcript of a second one to 
 Harley the comedian, which, however, is printed 
 in my 1886 edition of the Correspondence. 
 A remote correspondent was to have forwarded 
 to me an inedited letter from Lamb to Miss 
 Fanny Kelly, the actress — apparently the only 
 one known — but it has not arrived in time for 
 publication. It was described to me, rather tan- 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 talizingly, as " full of puns and humour.'" Fanny 
 
 (Frances Maria) Kelly had a sister Lydia. 
 
 There is a letter, not in the editions, to John 
 
 Scott, belonging to 1814, in Hill's Tcdhs on 
 
 Autographs ; but, being in type, I merely make 
 
 a note of it here. 
 
 There are no ascertained or even rumoured 
 
 letters to the Bumeys. Admiral Burney was 
 
 Southey's Capitaneus. Referring to a statement 
 
 in The Lambs relative to Miss Burney, Mrs. 
 
 Foss writes to me as follows. I give the lady's 
 
 letter entire, because it supplies a few other 
 
 points of interest : — 
 
 The Priory, 
 
 Totteridge, Herts. 
 January 6th, 1897. 
 
 DEAR Sir, — Feeling sure that you wish your 
 lately published work on The Lambs, &c., 
 to be as correct as possible, permit me to call your 
 attention to a note on page 230. Mrs. Payne was 
 the only daughter of Admiral Burney and sister of 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Martin Burney. And Elia's essay called The 
 Wedding is a real account of her wedding, ini- 
 tials and all correct. " One of the handsome Miss 
 T — s " alluded to was my aunt. Miss S. B. 
 Thomas, fourth daughter of Honoratus Leigh 
 Thomas, sometime President of the Royal College 
 of Surgeons. Mrs. Payne was a fine performer on 
 the pianoforte. Her husband was for many years 
 partner with my brother-in-law, Henry Foss, in 
 Pall Mall, and the firm procured and supplied 
 many treasures to the Grenville Library. My hus- 
 band, the late Edward Foss, author of The 
 Judges of England, was closely connected with 
 the Burney family. His mother, daughter of the 
 Rev. Wm. Rose of Chiswick, sister of Samuel Rose, 
 Cowper's friend, was also sister of Mrs. Charles 
 Burney, whose husband was son of the Historian 
 of Music and father of Archdeacon Burney, late 
 of St. Alban's, and grandfather of the present 
 Archdeacon Charles Burney, of Kingston-on- 
 Thames. Apologizing for the length of this letter. 
 Believe me. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Maria E. Foss. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 A few months only before his death, on August 
 6, 1834, the Rev. J. Fuller Russell paid a visit 
 to Lamb, of which an interesting record is pre- 
 served in: Notes and Queries, April 1, 1882. 
 
 II The Works of Lamb. 
 
 In The Lambs, 1897, p. 79, it was perhaps too 
 positively stated that the verses contributed by 
 Lamb to the elegiac collection on Priscilla 
 Farmer, folio, 1796, was his earliest appearance 
 in type ; for it may be a question whether his 
 share in the Coleridge volume of the same year 
 is not entitled to this distinction. It was issued 
 in the early months of 1796. There Coleridge, 
 in lines To a Friend together with an Un- 
 finished Poem, refers to a similarity of do- 
 mestic or personal circumstances in having also 
 had an only sistez*, and he adds : — 
 
 " Cheerily, dear Charles, 
 Thou thy best friend shall cherish many a year." 
 The minor works of Lamb have long formed a 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 field of research and controversy, less from their 
 independent than from their indirect value ; for 
 if they had never existed, the fame of the au- 
 thor would have stood at least as high and 
 have proved as permanent. The ill-fated farce, 
 Mr. H., produced at Drury Lane, December 
 10th, 1806, with EUiston and Miss Mellon in 
 the cast, was never printed separately in Eng- 
 land, but was included in the so-called Works 
 in 1818. In 1813, however, it was published at 
 Philadelphia, as performed at the Philadelphia 
 Theatre, in an octavo volume of 36 pages. 
 Lamb himself told Fuller Russell (see just 
 above) that he lost £25 by John Woodvil — a 
 serious sum in 1801 ; he seemed to regard it 
 after all those years as his best production. 
 Some uncertainty has prevailed, not only as re- 
 gards the earliest appearance, but as regards 
 the parentage of Beauty and the Beast, while 
 Prince Dorus is accepted as Lamb's on the au- 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 thority of Crabb Robinson, who saw Mm at 
 work upon it in 1811. 
 
 Now, among the advertisements at the end of 
 a copy, in its original binding, of Godwin's 
 Essay on Sepulchres, 1809, occur as Presents 
 for Youth of both Sexes, Jrom Ten Years qf 
 Age and Upwards, ^^ Beauty and the Beast; 
 or, a Rough Outside, &c. 5*. Qd. coloured, or 3*. 
 6d. plain," with a note — "This Work is bound 
 in a way to lay conveniently open on a Music 
 Desk"; and immediately follows, " Prince Dorus; 
 or, Jittery put out of Countenance : A Poem, 
 with 9 elegant Engravings. 2*. 6c?. coloured or 
 1*. 6d plain," with a Note— "This Work, as 
 well as the preceding, may be considered as a 
 well-adapted introductory step to a higher 
 range of Poetry." There is no reference to the 
 author in either case. 
 
 The previous notice is not exactly conclusive, 
 but it seems to go so far as to shew that both 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 volumes were by an author who desired to pre- 
 serve his anonymity, which is done in the 
 printed copies ; and with our accidental know- 
 ledge through Robinson that the Prince Dorus 
 was written by his friend, I should be disposed 
 to hazard a guess that the other was so too. 
 Then comes the difficulty that both are adver- 
 tised as ready in 1809. So far as Beauty and the 
 Beast is concerned, this may harmonize with the 
 fact that no copy of the first edition with the 
 title appears to have been found ; but I cannot 
 reconcile Godwin's advertisement with Robin- 
 son's entry in his Diary, unless the latter has 
 given a wrong date. A copy of Beauty and the 
 Beast, on sale by Messrs. Dodd, Mead, and Co., 
 appears to be dated on the cover 1813 ; but on 
 page 3 is a watermark, 1810. The copy of God- 
 win's Essay, 1809, may have been put into 
 boards a little later, and the book under con- 
 sideration may have been issued in 1810 or 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 1811, and had a fresh cover, dated 1813, added 
 to the then unsold stock. At the same time 
 there was, according to Messrs. Dodd & Co.'s 
 account, a distinct undated impression without 
 a watermark ; and a third, called Second Edi- 
 tion, in 1825. 
 
 Henry Crabb Robinson was, perhaps, so named 
 after a Mr. Henry Crabb, whom I specify in my 
 Catalogue of Book-Collectors. 
 The account of the Chambers family, introdu- 
 cing the letter of 1817 from Lamb to Charles 
 Chambers, was communicated to me verbally 
 by my friend, Mr. Algernon Black. Mr. Black 
 now tells me that I misunderstood a few points. 
 Edward Chambers should be Edmund Cham- 
 bers. Both Charles and Edmund married, but 
 had no issue. The former practised as a medical 
 man for a few years, and died in 1857. He 
 wrote occasional poems for his friends, but was 
 so discreet as not to print them. The other 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 brother, John, died in 1862. He used to be 
 fond of repeating the horse-stealing story, and 
 of startling people by prefacing that he was 
 once nearly hanged for this offence. He would 
 frequent a particular chop-house, and speak of 
 a man who went there and ordered the same 
 dinner every day in the year, except Christ- 
 mas Day and Good Friday, when he ordered 
 sausages. 
 
 In The Lambs, 1897, p. 171, occurs a letter 
 from Miss Lamb to Mrs. Kenney, of 1822, in 
 which there is a mention of the diligence, called 
 a Cuckoo, which then plied between Paris, St. 
 Cloud and Versailles. My informant was Mrs. 
 Kenney herself. The usual account is that these 
 public vehicles were not established in Paris 
 till 1827.* 
 
 I possess collations of many letters, of which the 
 originals have passed into or through my hands 
 • Beckmann, 1846, i., 82. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 since 1897 ; but I reserve these details for a fii- 
 ture occasion or for the use of a future Editor. 
 A brief memoir of Lamb by Edward Moxon 
 was privately printed, 8vo., 1835, and in the 
 Oxford University Magazine for the same year 
 occm-s some account of him. By the way, the 
 expression " agnize " — Lambize, is found in 
 the paper, Oxford in the Vacation, and again 
 in a letter to Procter of 1824. 
 Certain occasional compositions by Lamb still 
 await their turn for insertion in his collected 
 works, if it is deemed imperative to hand down 
 to posterity trifles which the author would 
 have probably judged unworthy of such a dis- 
 tinction. Here are some, at all events : — 
 
 1. Prologue and Epilogue to Godwin's Anto- 
 nio, 1800. 
 
 2. Epilogue to Time V a Tell-Tale, by Henry 
 Siddons, 1807. 
 
 3. Epilogue to Kenney's Debtor and Creditor, 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 1814. Biographically interesting as antedating 
 the acquaintance with the Kenneys. 
 4s. Epigrams printed in the Chamjpion under 
 the signature R. Sf R., and not included in the 
 editions. 
 
 6. Supposed contributions to Leigh Hunt's In- 
 dicator, 1819-21. No. 74 contains a paper en- 
 titled ^jElia V. Indicator, where there is a semi- 
 serious discussion on the identity of Elia with 
 Mr. L h, and the writer intimates an uncer- 
 tainty, ostensibly jocular, whether the name is 
 Lomb or Lamb. 
 
 6. Conjectured papers in the Liberal. I am 
 afraid that there is very slight probability that 
 either of the essays, signed respectively Carlone 
 and Carluccio, were written by Lamb. See Notes 
 and Queries, May 19, 1877. 
 In the Catalogue Raisonnie of Mr. Mathews's 
 Gallery of Theatrical Portraits, 1833, Lamb's 
 essay on the " Old Actors " was reprinted from 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxvii 
 
 the London Magazime of October, 1822, or 
 from Eliuy 1823. 
 
 His Recollections of Chrisfs Hospital were 
 printed separately, in 1835, 8vo., under the 
 following title : Recollections of Chrisfs Hos- 
 pital, Reprinted hy some of his School^fellows 
 and Friends in testimony of their Respect Jbr 
 him, with Notes and a Preface. 
 In the London Magazine for December, 1823, 
 appeared A Note to Elia on the Passage in the 
 Tempest, signed Lcelius. 
 
 A copy of the caricature by Gillray, issued 
 with the first number of the A nti- Jacobin 
 Magazine, and representing Coleridge, Southey, 
 Lamb, and Lloyd, the two former with asses' 
 heads and the others as a frog and a toad re- 
 spectively, was to have been inserted in my 
 Mary and Charles Lamb book, 1874 ; but the 
 publisher forgot all about it, and although it 
 is referred to in the text, it is not there. 
 
xxxvlU INTRODUCTION 
 
 I cannot forbear to include in these pages, as 
 a biographical document, a letter addressed by 
 the most valued and in a manner most interest- 
 ing of Lamb's later correspondents, Bernard 
 Barton, to his friend James Keymer, brother- 
 in-law of Laman Blanchard, and a gentleman 
 formerly well-known in a certain literary circle. 
 The communication speaks for itself, and I am 
 indebted for it to Notes and Queries for Octo- 
 ber 18, 1879. Barton, whom we chiefly judge 
 from the tenor of Lamb's letters to him, pre- 
 sents himself here as a man of independent 
 critical discernment, and as a careful observer 
 of character ; we are perhaps rather too prone 
 to regard him as a foil. It is the most thought- 
 ful contemporary appreciation of the author of 
 Elia which has fallen under my eyes. It would 
 have been interesting to have had Keymer's 
 reply. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 BERNARD BARTON TO JAMES KEYMER. 
 
 JVoodbridge, 
 Jan. 4, 18S5. 
 
 DEAR Keymer, — Thy account of poor 
 Lamb's death, though it did not take me 
 by surprise, for I saw it in the Times the day be- 
 fore, could not but deeply interest and painfully 
 affect me. I had given him up as a correspondent, 
 after, I think, three unanswer'd letters, from a 
 feeling that the reluctance he had often expressed 
 to letter writing was so increased by indulgence, 
 any further efforts to force him into Epistolizing 
 would only give him pain, without being very 
 likely to obtain any rejoinder, or were such ex- 
 torted, it would be compulsory, instead of con 
 amore, so I had given up all hope of hearing from 
 him. Then came thy Message, through Miss C, 
 which induced me to make one more trial. Yet I 
 am glad I did make it, for although the notion 
 may be an altogether erroneous one, I cheat my- 
 self with the thought I might perhaps be his last 
 Correspondent, if indeed he ever chanced to open 
 my letter, which perhaps he might. If thou can'st 
 
xl INTRODUCTION 
 
 give me any further account of his few last days, 
 pray do! for I should like to hear all I can of 
 him. Was he at all aware, ere his close, that it 
 was drawing nigh? I should like to know how 
 such a man would meet death. With all his wit 
 and humour, unrivalled as it was, he was too 
 good, I would hope too rich in right feeling, to 
 die jesting as Hume did. Often as his sportive 
 sallies seemed to border on what appeared irrev- 
 erent, and to some rigid people the verge of pro- 
 fanity, I am disposed to acquit him of all inten- 
 tional offence of that kind. He was not heartless, 
 however his playful imagination might betray him 
 into frequent improprieties of expression. His vast 
 and desultory reading, his constitutional tempera- 
 ment, his habits of life, his eccentricities of man- 
 ner, all combined to render him the very sort of 
 character likely to be completely misunderstood 
 by superficial observers. A cold philosophical scep- 
 tic might have set him down as a crack-brained 
 enthusiast, while with a high-flown formal pro- 
 fessor of Orthodoxy he would have passed for an 
 Infidel and a Scomer. I believe him to have been 
 as remote from the one as from the other. But to 
 
INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 pourtray such a character were a hopeless eflFort ; 
 Hazlitt in one of his better moods could perhaps 
 have done it as well as any one ; or Leigh Hunt, 
 if he could lay aside his jennery-jessamy pretti- 
 nesses of style and mannerism. Perhaps Lamb's 
 own account of himself, as given in the prefatory 
 paper to the Last Essays of Elia, is the best 
 sketch of him we ever shall have. I should like 
 a copy of his tribute to Coleridge, and pray teU 
 me anything in thy power about him — his close, 
 and poor Mary, for I feel not a httle interested 
 in knowing what is to be done with and for her. 
 At some time or other I hope to string my own 
 thoughts of Lamb in Verse, but I have no ability 
 even to think of attempting it now. I can now 
 only think and feel that I have lost him. 
 We are all in the turmoil and squabble of elec- 
 tioneering politics, things I never was very fond 
 of, and now I hate with a perfect hatred. Do 
 write again ere long, I will gladly pay postage to 
 hear ought more about Lamb. 
 
 Thine in haste, 
 
 Bernard Barton. 
 Mr. J. Keymer, Stationer, IJfi, Cheapside. 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 1 
 II. WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 IT will be evident, by a reference to the body 
 of the volume before the reader, that many 
 interesting new particulars of Hazlitt transpire 
 in the course of its pages. Of his early married 
 life we seem to be more ignorant than of his 
 boyhood and his youth, where his sister's Diary 
 and the correspondence between his father and 
 himself from 1785 to 1802 are so helpful. The 
 additional letters recovered by me from time to 
 time have rendered my distinguished relative's 
 later career somewhat less obscure than I found 
 it when I first took up the subject more than 
 thirty years ago; but much uncertainty re- 
 mains, and even with the fresh matter printed 
 herewith, the story is far from being as complete 
 in regard to many biographical and literary 
 facts as one could wish. Nor am I acquainted 
 
INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 with any unexplored channels or any missing 
 clues likely to improve our means of supplying 
 lacuncE in the record. Indeed, as I mentioned in 
 1867, had not Hazlitt been in his works to a 
 considerable extent his own biographer, we 
 should be still more greatly at a loss. In the 
 case of a contemporary — of Lamb, whose circle 
 of acquaintance was so large and appreciative, 
 and whose extant letters are so numerous, how 
 often we encounter difficulties and grounds for 
 doubt; and Hazlitt was, of all letter- writers, 
 the most sparing. We have to be grateful, how- 
 ever, for what we can get, and this latest contri- 
 bution to Lamb-Hazlitt literature may prove 
 not unacceptable or unfruitful. 
 The peculiar intimacy of Hazlitt and Lamb 
 constitutes my plea for blending the contents 
 of my new book ; and it was an intimacy main- 
 tained under rather difficult circumstances, in- 
 asmuch as the two men, in their political opin- 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION 
 
 ions (or, rather perhaps, their ways of looking 
 at public concerns) were so widely discordant. 
 Lamb enjoyed from the outset an official in- 
 dependence, and was what it is the fashion 
 to term a literary amateur. While, therefore, 
 through his acquaintance with Coleridge, Lov- 
 ell, Lloyd, &c., he involved himself in early 
 days in the attacks of the Anti-Jacobin re- 
 viewers and caricaturists, he may be said to 
 have observed during his maturer life an atti- 
 tude of neutrality ; so that he counted among 
 his friends men the most opposite in their pub- 
 lic views ; even his noble letter to Southey was 
 in defence of others as much as in his own. 
 Hazlitt, on the contrary, a man of peculiarly 
 sensitive and irritable temperament, had through 
 his whole life to owe his maintenance to literary 
 task-work, and was, moreover, an ardent and 
 honest Liberal in politics — a Liberal as the 
 designation was understood in his time. 
 
INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 Hazlitt imbibed from his father, with a sympa- 
 thy for the cause of American independence, a 
 steadfast faith in the beneficial effects on human 
 happiness of the first Revolution in France — a 
 view not without its share of truth and reality, 
 when we regard the old system which the new 
 one superseded, but too Utopian and optimistic 
 when we judge its merits in retrospect. The theo- 
 logical school, to which the Unitarian minister 
 belonged, was all along at heart republican. 
 My grandfather has been charged with incon- 
 sistency in admiring and upholding Napoleon ; 
 but Hazlitt had in fact transferred the alle- 
 giance, which he inherited from his father, to 
 the principles of the French Revolution, so far 
 as its mission of political enfranchisement went, 
 to the man who stepped out of the crowd, and 
 by his superlative and dazzling genius erected 
 on the ruins of the former absolutism a new 
 one of his own. 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 Hazlitt saw with chagrin and anger the seces- 
 sion of so many of the Liberal party from 
 the cause — Coleridge, Southey, Stoddart, and 
 others whom he had known, or with whom he 
 was connected; and he and they consequently 
 exchanged not very complimentary criticism ; 
 he barely tolerated the indifference of Lamb. 
 Cobbett, Hone, and my grandfather remained 
 staunch to the old flag. 
 
 I refer in the Memoirs, 1867, to the accusa- 
 tion levelled by Southey at Hazlitt of seeing 
 his likeness in one of Michael Angelo's devils ; 
 but, curiously enough, the same writer else- 
 where (in a letter to Duppa) says precisely the 
 same thing of the author of The Road to Ruin. 
 They both belonged to the camp which he had 
 forsaken. 
 
 At the Southampton Arms my grandfather 
 was accustomed to confer with Hone and 
 Cruikshank on the next political squib to be 
 
INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 launched by the two latter in partnership. Of 
 Hone my grandfather must have seen a good 
 deal, although I have no epistolary evidences 
 of their intercourse. Hone, like Cobbett, suf- 
 fered severely for his opinions, and was tried 
 before Lord Ellenborough for publishing a 
 pamphlet decried by the authorities as blas- 
 phemous. It was on this memorable occasion 
 that the defendant handed up to the Bench 
 one written on similar lines by EUenborough's 
 father, the Bishop of Carlisle. Hone published 
 Hazlitfs Political Essays in 1819 ; some papers 
 had been contributed to Hone's Yellow Dwarf, 
 a title borrowed from the Nain jaune of Paris, 
 1815. 
 
 The Rural Rides of Cobbett, in whose Register 
 Hazlitt wrote a little, forms a necessary Intro- 
 duction to the Reform Bill of 1832, which my 
 grandfather was not spared to witness. Never 
 was there such a fearless and scathing exposure 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of villainy, cruelty, and cowardice in high 
 places, such a humiliating, disillusionizing pic- 
 ture of our aristocracy, titled and otherwise, 
 as in the pages of those Rides, where we see so 
 many of our greatest names brought forward 
 to be branded as the enemies of their country 
 and their species, and the younger Pitt let 
 lightly off, when he is dismissed in company 
 with his sovereign as a fool, but an honest one. 
 Another of the men whom my grandfather re- 
 garded as political renegades was John Stod- 
 dart, subsequently knighted and Chief Jus- 
 tice of Malta. His earliest literary effort was 
 a translation from the French in 1797 of Les 
 Cinq, by Joseph Despaze, an account of the 
 five men who formed the executive government 
 of France between the fall of Robespierre and 
 the rise of Napoleon. 
 
 It becomes indirectly important to state that 
 Stoddart received his early education at the 
 
INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 school in Salisbury Close, his father, a retired 
 lieutenant in the Royal Navy, then residing in 
 St. Ann's Street, in the Cathedral City. For 
 there the under-master was the Rev. E. Cole- 
 ridge, an elder brother of the poet and philoso- 
 pher, and this circumstance may be fairly taken 
 to have been the channel through which Stod- 
 dart was introduced to the Lambs and the 
 Hazlitts. I have elsewhere spoken of the Jaco- 
 binical group, of which my great-uncle made 
 for some time one, and to which Holcroft and 
 Thelwall belonged. The latter was during a 
 few years editor of the Champion, and in 1822 
 published an octavo volume, now tolerably 
 scarce, entitled Poetical Recreations of the 
 Champion, including his own and many by 
 Lamb. Lamb's are to be found, with a few ex- 
 ceptions, in the collected edition of his works, 
 1892. 
 Stoddart, by experience perhaps rather than 
 
1 INTRODUCTION 
 
 natural temperament a cautious man, was not 
 exempt in earlier life from perpetrating a few 
 tactical mistakes. One of them was the estab- 
 lishment of the New Times, of which Hazlitt 
 said that, if any one wanted to keep a secret, 
 the best plan was to put it in the columns of 
 his relative's paper, which proved a failure, al- 
 . though it continued in print during some 
 years. The New Times professed to be uncon- 
 nected with the paper called The Times, and 
 was published every morning at six o'clock, 
 price sevenpence. The first Number, called No. 
 5415, appears to have been issued January 1st, 
 1818. It preserved the original name till Octo- 
 ber 4th, 1828, when the title was changed to 
 The Morning Journal. The latter seems to 
 have ceased on May 13th, 1830 ; but Sir John 
 Stoddart must have severed his connection with 
 the enterprize many years prior. 
 I possess well-executed plaister busts of Sir 
 
INTRODUCTION li 
 
 John and Lady Stoddart, most probably mo- 
 delled at Malta about 1825. Sir John in his 
 younger days was a member of the Lunar So- 
 ciety, otherwise Lunatics, to which social club 
 his intimate friend Sir Benjamin Brodie, James 
 Watt, Joseph Priestley, and others belonged. 
 The meetings were held at the full moon. 
 One of Stoddart's sons, the Rev. W. Wellwood 
 Stoddart, of St. John's College, Oxford, was a 
 particular friend of Thackeray. There is a copy 
 of Esmond, with the inscription : " ReV*- W. 
 W. Stoddart, with the Author's affectionate 
 regards, October 28, 1852, W. M. T." 
 Leigh Hunt, on the other hand, publicly 
 blamed Hazlitt for weakening their common 
 political interests by assailing him; but his 
 friend vindicated himself from the charge in a 
 letter, which may be read in the Hazlitt Me- 
 moirs of 1897. Byron was scarcely to be counted 
 as a political advocate outside his generous 
 
lu INTRODUCTION 
 
 fight for Greek freedom ; but Hazlitt and he 
 were never cordial. His lordship refers to Haz- 
 litt's mode of writing as not gentlemanly ; and 
 the other dubbed the author of Childe Harold 
 "a sublime coxcomb." I believe that Hazlitt 
 entertained a sincere regard for Hunt, with 
 the slightest possible jealousy of his personal 
 accomplishments. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, before his marriage, lived with 
 my grandfather and grandmother Reynell at 
 Pimlico, and when my uncle Charles, as a 
 schoolboy at Dr. Duncan's Ciceronian Acade- 
 my in that neighbourhood, was required to 
 write a thesis on the Horse, Leigh Hunt helped 
 him by giving him as a start : " The horse is a 
 noble animal, and eats hay and straw with equal 
 facility." 
 
 It was Hazlitt who advised Leigh Hunt to 
 print in the Indicator the famous song out of 
 Lyly's Campaspe, as a favourable specimen of 
 
INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 the class of composition. It is in the number 
 for Feb. 28, 1821, with this remark by Hunt : 
 "We cannot refer to what Mr. HazHtt has 
 said of it in his books, as we are always having 
 reason to find, when we most want them, being 
 of that description of property which may be 
 called borrowable ; but we remember his advis- 
 ing us to do the very thing we are now doing 
 with it." 
 
 It has been already stated that the houses 
 open to Hazlitt, especially when his reputation 
 was established, were numerous enough. He had 
 no occasion to limit himself to the Southamp- 
 ton Arms, even if he had not latterly divided 
 his time between London and Salisbury. But 
 I might have added that he also occasionally 
 made one at Talfourd's Wednesdays, when the 
 author of Icm was residing in Castle Street, Hol- 
 bom, a barrister in moderate practice, and as 
 yet only known to a select circle of admirers. 
 
liv INTRODUCTION 
 
 My grandfather also attended Charles Kemble's 
 conversazioni. 
 
 In the Memoirs of Hazlitt, 1867, i., 183, I 
 printed a letter from my grandfather, origi- 
 nally inserted in the November number of the 
 London Magazine, 1823, under the Lion's 
 Head, in reply to De Quincey, on the Malthu- 
 sian question. I conclude the idea of the Lion's 
 Head to have been borrowed more immediately 
 from that designed by Hogarth for Button's 
 Coffee-house in Covent Garden. But it is trace- 
 able to the Bocca di Leone at Venice. 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 
 
 AND THEIE SUEROUNDINGS IN IRELAND 
 ENGLAND, AND AMERICA 
 
 THE design of the present project for 
 offering in consecutive order a series of 
 papers, in which Lamb and Hazlitt are 
 partly mixed up, accidentally yields the prece- 
 dence to the latter, as my earliest material con- 
 cerns the fortunes of his family, before they re- 
 moved from Ireland, and then proceeds to illus- 
 trate, by letters and otherwise, the careers of the 
 Rev. W. Hazlitt and his son prior to their fomia- 
 tion of an acquaintance with the Lambs through 
 John Hazlitt, the miniaturist. 
 In the Memoirs of William Hazlitt, 1867, the pres- 
 ent writer made a cursory reference to John 
 Damer as a friend of the earliest Hazlitt — John 
 Hazlitt the flax factor (of whom there is not any 
 authentic or tangible record), and as his fellow- 
 emigrant from the North to the South of Ireland 
 in the reign of George I. The place whither the 
 two removed was, as we know, Shrone-hill or 
 Shronell, near Tipperary. 
 
2 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 A correspondentj who is a native of Shronell, 
 writes to me: — 
 
 " I know Shrone-hill well, and have heard hun- 
 dreds of times of John Damer, no doubt the same 
 whom you state to have been the companion of 
 John Hazlitt, when he settled at Shrone-hill in the 
 time of George I. There is no name better known 
 to the people of Tipperary — I meai\ the town, from 
 which Shrone-hill is distant about two miles — or, 
 indeed, to the whole country thereabout, than that 
 of John Damer. 'As rich as Damer' is a proverbial 
 expression still current in Tipperary, and likely to 
 remain so for many a day. For miles round Shrone- 
 hill the ruins of what the peasantry call ' Damer's 
 Court' may still be seen — a conspicuous object in 
 the landscape, with its many lightless windows and 
 crumbling walls slowly, but surely, passing away. 
 "I venture to say that no traveller passes by with- 
 out making some enquiry about a ruin at once so 
 extensive and so unlike the many that are to be 
 met in a land of ruins, and there is scarcely a 
 man, woman, or child that would not be able to 
 tell him something or other about the singular 
 person to whom it belonged. 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 3 
 
 " But the name of Damer does not depend for its 
 preservation upon tradition alone. On referring to 
 Swift's Works you will find some verses written on 
 the death of one whom I think he calls ' Damer 
 the usurer,' which throw some light on the occu- 
 pation of the man — a point about which you have 
 not been able to find any reliable information. 
 "■ There are none left at present in Shrone-hill or 
 Tipperary of Darner's name; but it is still borne 
 — having been probably assumed from the female 
 line — a point upon which Sir Beraard Burke's 
 Peerage would no doubt throw some light — by 
 the noble house of Portarlington, whose family 
 name is Dawson-Damer. 
 
 "I have stood, when a child, by the grave of 
 John Damer in Shrone-hill Churchyard. It is not 
 marked by monument or headstone, or by any- 
 thing which bears his name ; and yet there is not 
 the slightest difficulty in finding it. Any little boy 
 or girl in the neighbourhood would be able to 
 point it out. It was only in keeping with the 
 character of this singular man, who, as I have 
 often heard, was in the habit of walking into Tip- 
 perary on market days, or when business called 
 
4 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 him, clad in plain frieze like any plain farmer, to 
 desire upon his death that he should have neither 
 monument nor headstone erected to his memory, 
 but that he should be laid in a grave which 
 should have a fresh covering of green turf laid on 
 it every year. That is done to this day, and hence 
 the grave of Damer is easily distinguished from 
 the graves of his humble companions in death, 
 which lie around." 
 
 Burke furnishes a full account of Joseph Damer, 
 who was a trusted officer of cavalry and diplo- 
 matist under Cromwell, and who had possessed 
 estates in Somerset and Dorset, but who sold 
 them at the Restoration, and purchased other 
 property in Ireland, where he might expect, as a 
 Cromwellian, less danger of molestation from the 
 new government. He died July 6, 1720, aged 92 ; 
 and if the current statement as to his fortune 
 applies to him, he left £400,000. His nephew and 
 heir, John Damer, of Shrone-hill, died without 
 issue in 1768 ; leaving as his heir his brother, 
 Joseph Damer, of Came, Co. Dorset, a gentleman 
 of considerable parliamentary and social position, 
 whose eldest son became Baron Milton, Viscount 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 6 
 MUton, and Earl of Dorchester (1753-92). A later 
 John Damer (1744-67) married Anne Seymour 
 Conway, only child of Field- Marshal Conway, and 
 the well-known friend of Horace Walpole. 
 The Darners, who were originally of Chapel, Co. 
 Devon, having become extinct in the male line, 
 Henry Dawson, third Earl of Portarlington (1786- 
 1841), on the death of Lady Caroline Damer, 
 youngest daughter and heiress of the second and 
 last Earl of Dorchester of this family, in 1829 ac- 
 quired the estates and took the name. 
 Thus much for the Damer who is traditionally as- 
 sociated with John Hazlitt. The poor, silly, dog- 
 gerel verses by Swift and others on " Demar the 
 usurer," seem to imply that his uncle Joseph be- 
 came in later life penurious in his habits. 
 The paragraph respecting the Hazlitt emigrants 
 from Coleraine in the last century, in Four Genera- 
 tions of a literary Family, 1897, may be fortified 
 and corrected by a letter which my father received 
 some years since from a member of the Historical 
 Society of Pennsylvania. Under date of February 
 21st, 1885, this gentleman (then temporarily resi- 
 dent in England) writes : — 
 
6 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 " I am anxious on behalf of a friend of mine at 
 home to trace the ancestry of four brothers^ John, 
 Joseph, William, and James Hazlitt, who emi- 
 grated to America from Coleraine, Ireland, some 
 time previous to the American War of Indepen- 
 dence. The elder brother, John, who was killed at 
 the head of his regiment at the battle of Prenes- 
 ton in 1777, having been a distinguished Colonel 
 of the Continental Army." 
 
 Looking at the title chosen by its ennobled mem- 
 bers, it seems by no means improbable that the 
 Loftus family of Wisbeach was some offshoot of 
 the Irish house, of Loftus Hall, Fethard, near 
 Tipperary, whence the Hazlitts immediately came 
 on their settlement in England. The Loftuses 
 were at Fethard in the reigns of Elizabeth, James 
 I., and Charles I. ; and the family intermarried 
 with the Gorges family of Coleraine, a part of 
 Ireland from which a branch of the Hazlitts was, 
 as we have seen, derived. 
 
 The residence of the Hazlitts at Maidstone from 
 1770 to 1780 has been to some extent illustrated 
 in the Four Generations, 1897. I have now, how- 
 ever, to offer a few additional remarks on that 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 7 
 period. Margaret or Peggy Hazlitt (the Diarist) 
 was born there December lOth, l770j as appears 
 from the parish register, and both her brother 
 WiUiam and herself were baptized by their father 
 at his chapel — the former on the 21st June, 
 1778, the latter on the 30th January, 1771. 
 The house in Mitre, apparently the same as Bul- 
 lock, Lane, where the family lived, does not seem 
 to be identifiable ; it may have been demolished, 
 as extensive alterations have occurred hereabout. 
 In the parish rating-book it is assessed at £12 
 rental, and the name of the tenant is spelled 
 Hayzlitt. The chapel in the same lane (now a 
 thoroughfare running by the side of the Mitre 
 Hotel) has been much modernized inside, but 
 remains in the exterior mainly in its original 
 state. In front, in the brickwork, is the date 1737. 
 I note that Mr. Hazlitt 's predecessor is described 
 as presiding over Earle Street Chapel. When he 
 came to Maidstone the Minister was 33, his 
 wife 24. 
 
 It deserves mention that a number of Maidstoni- 
 ans migrated long since to New England, and 
 formed a settlement there under the old name. 
 
8 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 and that there is an ancient inn in the place bear- 
 ing the arms of some of the original colonists. 
 The family of LewiSj of Maidstone and elsewhere, 
 of which the Rev. Israel Lewis was a member, be- 
 haved in the most generous manner to the Haz- 
 litts during many years, and probably assisted 
 them to a larger extent, so long as their own cir- 
 cumstances permitted, than we shall ever know. 
 The Rev. Israel Lewis himself, Mr. Hazlitt's im- 
 mediate predecessor, was minister of Earle Street 
 Meeting House from 1744 to 1770. 
 The Rev. D. D. Jeremy writes in 1897 : — 
 "One of your great-grandfather's nearest and 
 most beloved friends was the Rev. Samuel 
 Thomas, of Dublin, and it has just occurred to 
 me that a fine portrait of Mr. Thomas (now in the 
 vestry of Stephen's Green Unitarian Church, Dub- 
 lin,) is the work of Mr. John Hazlitt or of his sis- 
 ter. When 37 years ago I settled in Dublin, I be- 
 came intimately acquainted with an old lady aged 
 96, and her daughter aged 76, from whom I heard 
 a great deal that was interesting about the Haz- 
 litts. The old lady was a daughter of Mr. Swan- 
 wick, a prominent member of your great-grand- 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 9 
 father's congregation at Wem. If I remember 
 aright, the ladies used to speak of Miss Margaret 
 Hazlitt as being highly gifted, like her brother, 
 and very artistic. I presume I am right in identi- 
 fying the David Williams referred to with the 
 founder of the Literary Fund." 
 The portrait above named, if by one of the Haz- 
 litts, was, of course, by John. 
 Two original and hitherto unprinted documents 
 relevant to Mr. Hazlitt's movements, just prior to 
 his removal to America in 1783, possess sufficient 
 interest perhaps to deserve preservation in their 
 entirety, more especially as they illustrate the 
 personal relations of my ancestor with Dr. Price 
 of Newington, Dr. Kippis, and Dr. Rees, of whom 
 we know the first from many sources to have been 
 a gentleman of considerable standing and influ- 
 ence in his day. The former paper is a reply to a 
 communication (probably lost) in which Mr. Haz- 
 litt had evidently drawn a most unfavourable and 
 gloomy picture of his position, and had broached 
 the idea of emigration from which his correspon- 
 dent, as we shall see, dissuades him. 
 It strikes me as extremely likely that Hazlitt 
 
10 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 owed his introduction to the Unitarian College at 
 Hackney to the successive connection with that 
 neighbourhood and institution of his father's 
 friends, Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price. 
 
 Neivington Green, 
 
 June 28th, 1782. 
 
 DEAR SiRj — I am very sorry for the account 
 in your letters to me and Mr. Palmer of the 
 distress you are in. In conformity to your desire I 
 requested the favour of L''' Shelburne to convey 
 a letter from me to Col'- Fitzpatrick. In this letter 
 I stated to him some of the particulars of your 
 case, and at the same time assured him of my 
 favourable opinion of you, and the irreproach- 
 ableness of your character. He was so polite as 
 immediately to answer my letter, and to inform 
 me that all possible attention had been paid to 
 your complaints ag^'- the officers ; that he saw noth- 
 ing in your conduct with respect to them that was 
 blameable, and that an order had been given to 
 censure them. I learn from Mr. Palmer that your 
 difficulties since you vn-it to me have increased, 
 and that you are determined to quit Ireland in 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS li 
 
 August. I heartily wish you may be extricated out 
 of your troubles and find a provision for yourself 
 and family. You mention going over to Americaj 
 but I cannot advise you to this. I am afraid you 
 would only find your difficulties increased by this. 
 Deliver my complim" to Mrs. Hazlitt. 
 I remain. Dear S'- 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 RicHD. Price. 
 To 
 
 The Rev^- Mr. Hazlitt. 
 
 I HAVE known Mr. Hazlitt, the bearer of this, 
 many years. I was concerned with the late 
 D'- Chandler and D'- Prior in examining him be- 
 fore his entrance on the ministry, and in giving 
 him a testimonial of approbation. His moral char- 
 acter is unblemish'd, and he has always been a 
 zealous friend to civil and religious liberty, and 
 the cause of America. His last settlement has 
 been with a congregation of Protestant Dissenters 
 near Cork, in Ireland, where he exerted himself 
 successfully in favour of some American prisoners. 
 Believing him to be a man of integrity and abil- 
 
12 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 ity, I wish him success in his endeavours to obtain 
 a settlement for himself and his family in one of 
 the United American States. 
 
 Rich"- Price. 
 Netvington Green, 
 
 near London, March Srd, 17 83. 
 
 WE whose names are underwritten, from a 
 personal Intimacy with Mr. Hazlitt, sin- 
 cerely join in the above Recommendation. 
 
 And. Kippis. 
 John Palmer. 
 A. Rees. 
 
 It was while the Rev. Mr. Hazlitt remained at 
 Hallowell that he wrote the following graphic 
 letter to the Rev. Dr. Howard at Boston. He 
 most probably wrote many others; but they do 
 not seem to have survived : — 
 
 DEAR Sir, — The morning after we parted, 
 I arrived at the mouth of Kennebec ; but, 
 the wind being then contrary, and the fresh in 
 the river so violent, occasioned by the late un- 
 common heavy rains, as to prevent the flowing of 
 the tide, we could not enter the river until late 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 13 
 
 in the evening. The whole day was altogether 
 disagreeable. The ship was incessantly tossed 
 about Uke a piece of cork in a tumultuous eddy. 
 Almost all the passengers were extremely sick. 
 We could have no dinner dressed^ and we were 
 in hourly expectation of being driven out to sea, 
 and of being forced upon an unequal contention 
 with the rocks and boisterous waves. But our sit- 
 uation was more dangerous the preceding night. 
 The vessel was old, unmanageable, and rotten as 
 a pear. She leaked, I believe, above a foot of 
 water every hour. The wind was very high. The 
 captain and mate were drunk in their beds : the 
 other raw and ignorant sailors were in the same 
 state. Providentially, as the vessel could not be 
 made to move but in a direct line with the wind, 
 the wind was as fair as it could blow, kept us ex- 
 actly in our course, and preserved us from other- 
 wise probable destruction. We had a very tedious 
 passage up the river to Bomley Hook. I did not 
 arrive here before Sunday morning, and then only 
 time enough to preach once to the people at 
 HoUywell. I can as yet form no judgment of the 
 place. The climate and the face of the country 
 
14 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 are much like Nova Scotia ; I think more agree- 
 able. The people seem greatly pleased at my com- 
 ingj particularly as I have come under the direc- 
 tion of Mr. Vaughan. But, though the place is 
 more out of the world than accords with my 
 inclination, I will endeavour to accommodate my- 
 self to it, if, after a few weeks' trial, I find myself 
 acceptable to the people. When I shall have the 
 power of more particularly informing you of my 
 situation here, you may expect to hear from me. 
 I wish for your good advice to my son. I do not 
 petition for your other services, because I know it 
 is unnecessary. Be pleased to carry the enclosed to 
 Mrs. Hazlitt as soon as you can. With my respect- 
 ful comphments to Miss Mayhew, Dr. Lathrop, 
 and all inquiring friends, 
 
 I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Your very affectionate, &c., 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 
 Hollywell [Hallorvell], 
 
 Kennebec River, 
 Nov. 4ih, 1785. 
 
 In a letter from the Rev. J. Lathrop, dated Boston, 
 August 4th, 1788, to Mr. Hazhtt, the writer says: — 
 
THE EARLIER HAZLITTS 16 
 
 " Your very affectionate letter, in answer to mine 
 by Mrs. Hazlitt, after a long passage, reached 
 me, and gave the first information of her safe 
 arrival -wjth the children. Some time after I heard 
 of your happy settlement at Wem. . . . The pain 
 which we feel at parting with amiable friends 
 would be exceedingly great were it not for the 
 hope which we entertain of seeing them again. 
 . . . Your Betsy, in particular, frequently ex- 
 presses the tender feelings of her heart, in sincere 
 wishes that she could see her beloved friend, 
 Peggy Hazlitt." 
 
 Miss Hazlitt notes in her Diary, so often cited in 
 Four Generations, 1897 : — 
 
 " The first six years subsequent to our settlement 
 at Wem he [her brother William] devoted to 
 study, and under his father's guidance he made 
 a rapid progress. He was at this time the most 
 active, lively, and happiest of boys ; his time, di- 
 vided between his studies and his childish sports, 
 passed smoothly on. Beloved by all for his amiable 
 temper and manners, pleasing above his years. The 
 delight and pride of his own family." 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 
 
 WE hear a good deal in the years suc- 
 ceeding to the return from America 
 in 1787 of visits by the boy Hazlitt 
 to friends at Liverpool^ of whom the Tracys were 
 the most prominent and intimate. Mrs. Tracy was 
 a West-Indian and a widow who, having taken up 
 her abode during some length of time at Wem, to 
 be near her daughters, whom she had placed at 
 school there, was now passing a year with them at 
 Liverpool previously to a final return to Jamaica. 
 William Hazlitt, having formed the acquaintance 
 of the Tracys in Shropshire, was repeatedly in- 
 vited to their house at Liverpool, and utilised a 
 portion of his time in the course of these visits in 
 learning French, which he had not an opportu- 
 nity of acquiring at home. He and the Misses 
 Tracy studied in fact together, and Miss Tracy 
 was in some things his pupil, he having begun to 
 teach her Latin before they left Wem. It was at 
 Liverpool, as I have observed, that Hazlitt in 
 1790 first came across Telemachus, and his sister 
 the Diarist mentions that the book was stiU a 
 
20 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 favourite with her in 1835, and perhaps for the 
 reason that William liked it. 
 Besides the Tracys, our family made the ac- 
 quaintance of those of Yates and Railton, the 
 latter descendants of an ancient border family in 
 the north. 
 
 I append a series of letters addressed by Mr. 
 Hazlitt to his son and by the latter to his father 
 from Hackney College, and his brother's house 
 in London, in 1793, when the experimental train- 
 ing at Hackney commenced. The latter are inter- 
 esting for the same reason that I gave in the 
 Four Generations, 1897, for inserting that long one 
 of my grandfather to his mother in 1790, when he 
 was a precocious child of twelve. He promised to 
 more than fulfil the criticism of Montaigne, that 
 those who are going to distinguish themselves in 
 life, must shew indications before they reach their 
 twentieth year : — 
 
 1. 
 
 MY DEAR William, — We received letters 
 from your brother and sister on Sunday 
 last, by which we learned that they were well, 
 that your brother had two new pictures engaged. 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 21 
 
 and that your sister is to leave London next 
 Thursday evening in company with Miss Thom- 
 thwaite. They both were very affectionate in their 
 enquiries after you. They had heard nothing of 
 Isaac Kingston since they had your letter con- 
 cerning him. Your brother said that your letter to 
 him was very long, very clever, and very enter- 
 taining. On Wednesday evening we had your 
 letter, which was finished on the preceding Mon- 
 day. The piety displayed in the first part of it was 
 a great refreshment to me. Continue to cherish 
 those thoughts which then occupied your mind, 
 continue to be virtuous, and you will finally be 
 that happy being whom you describe, and to 
 this purpose you have nothing more to do than to 
 pursue that conduct, which will always jrield you 
 the highest pleasures even in this present life. 
 But he who once gives way to any known vice, 
 in the very instant hazards his total depravity and 
 total ruin. You must, therefore, fixedly resolve 
 never, through any possible motives, to do any 
 thing which you believe to be wrong. This will be 
 only resolving never to be miserable, and this I 
 rejoycingly expect will be the unwavering resolu- 
 
22 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 tion of my William. Your conversation upon the 
 Test Act did you honour. If we only think justly 
 we shall always easily foil all the advocates of 
 tyranny. The inhospitable ladies whom you men- 
 tion were, perhaps, treated by you with too great 
 severity. We know not how people may be cir- 
 cumstanced at a particular moment, whose dispo- 
 sition is generally friendly. They may then hap- 
 pen to pass under a cloud, which unfits them for 
 social intercourse. We must see them more than 
 once or twice to be able to form a tolerable judg- 
 ment of their characters. There are but few, like 
 Mrs. Tracy, who can always appear what they 
 really are. I do not say, however, that the Eng- 
 lish ladies whom you mentioned are not exactly 
 as you described them. I only wish to caution you 
 against forming too hasty a judgment of char- 
 acters, who can seldom be known at a single 
 interview. I wish you, if you can, to become 
 master of the gamut whilst you are there. I am 
 glad that you have made so great a progress in 
 French, and that you are so very anxious to hear 
 Mr. Clegg's lectures. It is a pity that you cannot 
 have another month at the French, &c. But, as 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 23 
 
 matters arCj I hope you will be soon able to 
 master that language. I am glad that you em- 
 ployed the last Sunday so well, and that the em- 
 ployment afforded you so much satisfaction. Noth- 
 ing else can truly satisfy us but the acquisition of 
 knowledge and virtue. May these blessings be 
 yours more and more every day. On Thursday 
 morning we had a letter from Mr. Booth, written 
 at Boston, 24 June, just five weeks before we re- 
 ceived it. He was forty-six days on his passage 
 from England, with agreeable company. They 
 had sometimes very heavy weather, and so ex- 
 tremely cold that the sails were frozen to the 
 yards. The last winter was very extraordinary and 
 very unhealthy in America. Consequently, many 
 persons died in Boston and in other parts of the 
 country. He says, concerning you, ' I read Billy's 
 'letter to Fanny, and she was delighted with it. 
 'She sends her love to him, but Fanny has lost 
 'the recollection of her little playfellow. The 
 'letter does Billy much credit. He has uncom- 
 ' mon powers of mind, and if nothing happens to 
 'prevent his receiving a liberal education, he 
 ' must make a great man.' This compliment, I 
 
24 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 know, will not make you proud or conceited, but 
 more diligent. He, also, desires his and Mrs. 
 Booth's affectionate regards to Billy. You see how 
 careful I am to transmit to you all the news in 
 my power. I must now give you some information 
 and directions concerning your return home. 
 Mrs. Dicken is to send Sandlin with horses for 
 George, at the time Miss Shepherd proposes to 
 return. Mr. Swanwick has made me an offer of 
 his white horse to go for you. Therefore, if you 
 be not afraid to ride him and if you do not dislike 
 this mode of travelling, the horses will be ready 
 for you at Eastham on the day and hour you 
 expect to be there. You will come forward the 
 same day to a tenant of Miss Walford's, five miles 
 on this side of Chester, and on the next day you 
 will dine at Mrs. Wicherley's, at Whitchurch, and 
 afterwards come home. But if the weather be 
 blowing, or if it be not very fine, when Miss Shep- 
 herd comes upon the water, you are not to ac- 
 company her, but to wait until it be just what 
 you could wish. You will mention the day and 
 the hour that are fixed upon for you to set out in 
 your next, or propose to me any other preferable 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 25 
 
 mode of returning, that I may prepare accordingly. 
 And you will take care to leave none of your books 
 or other things behind you in your hurry, and 
 also to bring my shirt, stock, stockings, and 
 handkerchief. I hope to hear, from you again on 
 Wednesday evening next, and I propose to write 
 to you the day following, to mention any further 
 particulars that may occur with respect to your 
 coming. I leave it entirely to yourself to thank 
 Mrs. Tracy in the manner you think you ought 
 for her friendship. You will stop at Mr. Nichols's 
 as you come through Chester, and you may ask 
 him to assist you in purchasing the best hat you 
 can at the price of 8*., if you find yourself rick 
 and choose to do so. Before you leave Liverpool, 
 you will not neglect to call upon all persons who 
 have shewn you any particular civilities. You will 
 thank Mr. Nichols for the trouble you have given 
 him, and especially your masters for their atten- 
 tion to you, and Mr. Yates for his books, which 
 you will be careful to return in the good order in 
 which you received them. You will give my re- 
 spects to Mr. Yates. I wish that he amongst his 
 friends could procure for your brother engage- 
 
26 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 ments for about a score of pictures at Liverpool 
 this summer, that we might have the pleasure of 
 seeing him there. Your mother gives her love, 
 and she unites with me in affectionate regards to 
 Mrs. and all the Miss Tracys. 
 
 I am, my dear William, 
 
 Your truly affectionate father, 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 Wem, SI July, 1790. 
 
 Kynaston attends the school at present. How 
 long he will continue to do so, I cannot pretend 
 to say. Jos. Swanwick talked of writing to you 
 by last Thursday's post. 
 
 2. 
 
 MY DEAR William, — We had letters from 
 your brother and sister, by which we 
 learned that they were both well, that Isaac 
 Kingston was returned to London, that Mrs. 
 Large is also there, and that Peggy is to set off 
 this evening on her return home, in the Baloon 
 Coach, in company with Miss Thornthwaite. Your 
 brother wUl go to Canterbury as soon as Peggy 
 leaves town, where he expects some employment 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 27 
 to help him to lay in provision for the winter. I 
 wish he may succeed no worse than he did last 
 year in Kent. Yesterday evening we had your 
 letter, which gave us much satisfaction, though 
 you disappointed us in not being more particular 
 in answer to my enquiries concerning the time 
 the water will serve and the hour you propose to 
 set off from Liverpool on Monday next. But I 
 perceive that your paper was almost filled before 
 you received my letter, and that you left yourself 
 scarce any room to make me any reply to my 
 questions. Sandland is to take your great coat 
 and spatterdashes to protect you from the wea- 
 ther. The horses will be ready for you at Eastham 
 at 1 1 o'clock on Monday morning. You will take 
 care to leave none of your things nor mine behind 
 you, that Mrs. Tracy may not have the trouble 
 of sending them afterwards. Take leave of Mr. 
 Yates on Sunday afternoon in the vestry, and, as 
 I before directed you, call upon all your friends 
 who have taken any notice of you. When you are 
 at Whitchurch, call at Mr. Jenkins's, if you can 
 spare time, and bring with you the last part of 
 Dr. Priestley's Familiar Letters, which he bor- 
 
28 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 rowed from me when he was last here. I am, at 
 present, hurried, and therefore you must expect 
 but a very short letter. I cannot, however, neglect 
 acquainting you that young Mrs. Hincks, the late 
 Susan Swanwick, is at Chester, and will be here 
 this evening. She came over quite unexpectedly, 
 with her aunt, her mother-in-law, and two boar- 
 ders, who are coming to the school. Your siste/ 
 will be quite glad to see her friend, though not 
 quite so much so as to see you. The only othei 
 intelligence I can recollect is that old Mr. Walm^ 
 sley of Cromer died this morning, and that Ky 
 naston, I believe, will stay here until Christmas. 
 Enquire which is the best of the cheap French 
 Dictionaries. Enquire at the bookseller's there 
 for Watts's Geography and Astronomy, and if it 
 be there and you can purchase it for about half a 
 crown, bring it with you. Do not forget to thank 
 Mr. Nichols for his civilities. But what must you 
 say to Mrs. Tracy ? I leave that entirely to your- 
 self. But present her with your mamma's respect 
 and mine, and our sincere thanks for all favours, 
 and tell her that we wish to see her again, and 
 that we also hope for this pleasure with all the 
 
HAZLITT'S SCHOOL DAYS 29 
 
 young ladies, and all of them quite happy. My 
 sermons will soon be printed. I shall embrace the 
 very first opportunity of sending Mrs. Tracy her 
 copy. I have lately come to a resolution of taking 
 half-a-dozen of boys to educate, if such should 
 offer, under ten years of age, at 25 guineas a year 
 each. You may mention this where you are, as 
 there are multitudes in the West Indies who 
 want a good education. Mrs. and the Miss Cottons 
 are to be here this evening. Your mamma unites 
 in love to you with. 
 
 My dear William, 
 
 Your ever affectionate father, 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 Wem, August 6, 1790. 
 
 Dear William, you must excuse my writing to 
 you now. \In his mother's hand.^ 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY COLLEGE 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 
 COLLEGE 
 
 WE now leave behind us the school- 
 days and the Liverpool visits, and 
 must follow Hazlitt to his next des- 
 tination, with his father's profession still in view. 
 
 3. 
 [Hacknei/ College, 17 93.} 
 
 DEAR Father, — I rec''- your kind letter 
 on Monday evening at five o'clock, the 
 usual time. I was very much pleased you liked 
 the plan of my essay. You need not fear for the 
 execution of it, as I am sensible that, after I have 
 made it as perfect as I can, it will have many 
 imperfections, yet I know that I can finish in a 
 manner equal to the introduction. I have made 
 some progress, since I wrote last. The essay on 
 laws will make a part of it. I will here give you 
 an account of my studies, &c. On Monday I am 
 preparing Damien's lectures from seven until half- 
 past eight, except the quarter of an hour in which 
 I say Corrie's grammar lecture, and from nine till 
 ten. From ten till twelve we are with him. His 
 
34 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 lectures are Simpson's elements of gram, and 
 Bonnycastle's algebra. By the hye, the Ass's 
 bridge is the tenth proposition of the geometry. 
 From twelve to two I am preparing Belsham lec- 
 tures in shorthand, and the Hebrew grammar, 
 which I am saying till then. The shorthand is to 
 write out eight verses, [of the] Bible. From half- 
 past three till five I walk. From five to six, I have 
 my g. grammar for the morning. At liberty from 
 six to seven. From seven to eight, preparing Bel- 
 sham's evening lectures in L[eviticus ?] and Heb. 
 With them from eight to nine. And from half 
 after nine till eleven I am reading Dr. Price's 
 lecture for the next day. On Tuesday I am from 
 seven tUl h. p. eight preparing Corrie's classical 
 lecture, only the time that I am saying my gram- 
 mar. And again from nine to h. p. ten, from which 
 time to h. p. eleven I attend Dr. Priestley's lec- 
 ture in history. From then till a little after twelve 
 is C.'s classical lecture, which is Sophocles one 
 week and Quintilian the next. In the greek we 
 have two of the old students, in the latin five. 
 J[oseph] S[wanwick] is now in my classes, at first 
 he was not. But on his requesting it, he is now 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 35 
 
 with me. You will take care not to mention this. 
 From twelve till one, I am at Corrie's lecture in 
 g. antiquities. With him till half-past one. From 
 which till three I study my essay. Walking as 
 before. From iive till six, preparing my evening 
 lecture in geography with Corrie, and my g. for 
 the next day. And from seven to nine, except 
 about half-an-hour at geography with Corrie, I 
 again studying my essay. From half-past nine to 
 eleven, reading David Hartley. I go on in the 
 same course rest of the week, except the differ- 
 ence that not having Dr. P.'s lecture makes, and 
 that I now study after supper on Saturday night. 
 On Sundays, too, I am always idle. I like Hebrew 
 very well, the mathematics very much. They are 
 very much suited to my genius. The Reid whom 
 I mentioned is about eighteen, a Bristol lad, and 
 a pupil of Mr. Eslin. I was in town to-day. I was 
 glad to hear of the increase of my yearly allow- 
 ance, and of what Corrie told Rowmann. They are 
 veiy well. I am sorry to hear that my mother is 
 poorly. My love to her and Peggy. I am. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 
36 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 I forgot to give you an account of my expenses, 
 and, as I am tired, shall defer till next time. I 
 have spent only 8s. since Thursday fortnight, 
 though I have had everything I wanted. Adieu. 
 
 4. 
 
 Sunday Evening. 
 
 DEAR Father, — I rec'' your letter safely on 
 Monday. 
 On the preceding Saturday, I finished the in- 
 troduction to my essay on the political state of 
 man, and shewed [it] to Corrie. He seemed very 
 well pleased with it, and desired me to proceed 
 with my essay as quickly as I could. After a few 
 definitions, I give the following sketch of my 
 plan. 
 
 ' In treating on the political state of man, I shall, 
 ' first, endeavour to represent his natural political 
 'relations, and to deduce from these his natural 
 ' political duties, and his natural political rights ; 
 'and secondly, to represent his artificial political 
 ' relations, and to deduce from these his artificial 
 ' political duties, and his artificial rights.' This I 
 think an excellent plan. I wish I could recite it 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 37 
 
 to my own satisfaction. I hope, however, to do 
 it tolerably by Christmas. I have already got the 
 greatest part of the ideas necessary, though in a 
 crude and undigested state ; so that my principal 
 business will [be] to correct and arrange them. 
 But this will be a terrible labour, and I shall re- 
 joice most heartily when I have finished it. 
 Corrie seemed much pleased with some of my 
 translations this week. 
 
 I passed the Ass's Bridge very safely, and very 
 solitarily, on Friday. I like Dominie (that is the 
 name which Dr. Rees gave him) and his lectures 
 very much. 
 
 A young fellow, whose name is Reid, is by much 
 the cleverest of the students. 
 Since I wrote last, I have had seven more lec- 
 tures in the week ; and at a little after ten on 
 Tuesday with Dr. Priestley on history, and one 
 every morning at nine in the greek grammar 
 with Corrie. 
 
 I have been in town to-day, as I generally go 
 once a fortnight. J. Swanwick was with me. John 
 and Mary are very well. They are to come and 
 drink tea with me on Saturday. Since I came 
 
38 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 here I have spent above eight guineas. You need 
 not, however, be alarmed at this, as in future I 
 shall not spend, or, at least, shall not spend more 
 than five shillings a week. About a shilling a 
 week for washing; about two for fire; another 
 shUling for tea and sugar ; and now another for 
 candles, letters, &c. Books, furniture, and other 
 necessaries have run away with a good deal, but 
 these expenses are extraordinary. 
 J. S. has had nine guineas from Mr. Lawrence, 
 and being entirely stripped, he called at Law- 
 rence's when we were in town to-day. When he 
 had told him his errand, the little gentleman 
 seemed very much surprized, and said that he 
 must write to his father about it. But, sir, says 
 Jo, I have a farthing, and I 'd be glad if you 'd 
 let me have a guinea. Well, well, if you want it, 
 you may. But, as he did not offer to get it and as 
 we were rather in haste, I whispered to Jo, that 
 I would lend him some money, till he could pro- 
 cure his ; and so away we came, a good deal di- 
 verted with the citizen's prudence. 
 The weather here is charming. We had some of 
 the clearest days last week I ever saw. 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 39 
 
 My love to my mother and Peggy. 
 
 I am your aiFectionate son, 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 I have not read this letter; so you will correct 
 any slips. 
 
 5. 
 [Hacknm/ College, 1793.] 
 
 DEAR Father, — I was very sorry to hear 
 from your two last letters that you wish 
 me to discontinue my essay, as I am very desirous 
 of finishing it, and as I think it almost necessary 
 to do so. For I have already completed the two 
 first prop, and the third I have planned and shall 
 be able to finish in a very short time ; the fourth 
 prop., which will be the last, will consist only of 
 a few lines. The first section you know I have 
 done for some time ; and the first, second, and 
 fourth propositions are exactly similar to the first, 
 second, and fourth of the second section, so that 
 I have little else to do than to alter a few words. 
 The third will consist principally of observations 
 on government, laws, &c., most of which will be 
 the same with what I have written before in my 
 essay on laws. My chief reason for wishing to 
 
40 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 continue my observations is, that, by having a 
 particular system of politics I shall be better able 
 to judge of the truth or falsehood of any prevari- 
 cation which I hear, or read, and of the justice, or 
 the contrary, of any political transactions. More- 
 over, by comparing my own system with those of 
 others, and with particular facts, I shall have it 
 in my power to correct and improve it contin- 
 ually. But I can have neither of these advantages 
 unless I have some standard by which to judge 
 of, and of which to judge by, any ideas, or pro- 
 ceedings, which I may meet with. Besides, so far 
 is my studjdng this subject from making me 
 gloomy or low-spirited, that I am never so per- 
 fectly easy as when I am, or have been, studjring 
 it. With respect to theories, I really think them 
 rather disserviceable than otherwise. I should not 
 be able to make a good oration from my essay. It 
 is too abstruse and exact for that purpose. I shall 
 endeavour to write one on providence, which will, 
 I think, be a very good subject. I shall certainly 
 make it my study to acquire as much politeness 
 as I can. However, this is not the best place pos- 
 sible for acquiring it. I do not at all say that the 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 41 
 
 fellows who are here do not know how to behave 
 extremely well ; but the behaviour which suits a 
 set of young fellows^ or boys, does not suit any 
 other society. This disadvantage, however, is of 
 very httle consequence, as little else is necessary 
 to politeness than care and a desire of pleasing. 
 I have nothing new to add. My lectures go on as 
 usual. We began the lectures on logic on Friday 
 last. These, I fancy, will be easy and entertain- 
 ing, though the students who have gone through 
 them say they are not. We have two lectures a 
 week on logic, which are on Wednesday and Fri- 
 day. I was in town this day week. My brother 
 and sister were very well. But I suppose you 
 have heard from him since that time. He has not 
 been here to-day. I wrote to J. Wickstead Friday 
 week. Present my respects to Mr. Jenkins ; also 
 to Mr. Rowe. Compliments to all inquirers. I 
 hope my mother and P. are quite well before this 
 time. I long to see you. I wish they could come 
 too. 
 
 I am, dear father. 
 
 You afF. son 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 
42 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 I forgot to tell you that Come has not returned 
 me the first part of my essay. 
 
 The next two letters seem to have been written 
 from the residence of John Hazlitt, 139, Long 
 Acre ; but Hazlitt was still at Hackney. He was 
 permitted to come up to town once a fortnight. 
 
 6. 
 
 Lmdon, Oct. 6th, 1793. 
 
 DEAR Father, — I rec* your very kind let- 
 ter yesterday evening. With respect to my 
 past behaviour, I have often said, and I now assure 
 you, that it did not proceed from any real dis- 
 affection, but merely from the nervous disorders 
 to which, you well know, I was so much subject. 
 This was really the case ; however improbable it 
 may appear. Nothing particular occurred from the 
 time I wrote last till the Saturday following. On 
 the Wednesday before, C. had given me a thesis. 
 As it was not a subject suited to my genius, and 
 from other causes, I had not written anything on 
 it ; so that I was pleased to hear his bell on Sat- 
 urday morning, which was the time for shewing 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 43 
 
 our themes. When I came to him, he asked me 
 whether I had prepared my theme. I told him I 
 had not. You should have a very good reason, in- 
 deed, sir, says he, for neglecting it. Why really, 
 sir, says I, I could not write it. Did you never 
 write anything, then ? says he. Yes, sir, I said, I 
 have written some things. Very well, then, go 
 along and write your theme immediately, said he. 
 I accordingly went away, but did not make much 
 progress in my theme an hour after, when his 
 bell rang for another lecture. My eyes were much 
 swollen, and I assumed as sullen a countenance 
 as I could, intimating that he had not treated me 
 well. After the lecture, as I was going away, he 
 called me back, and asked me very mildly if I had 
 never written anything. I answered, I had written 
 several things. On which he desired me to let him 
 see one of my compositions, if I had no objection. 
 I immediately took him my essay on laws, and 
 gave it to him. When he had read it, he asked 
 me a few questions on the subject, which I an- 
 swered very satisfactorily, I believe. Well, sir, 
 says he, I wish you 'd write some more such 
 things as this. Why, sir, said I, I intended to 
 
44 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 write several things, which I have planned, but 
 that I could not write any of them in a week, or 
 two or three weeks. What did you intend to 
 write? says he. Among other things I told him 
 that I intended to inlarge and improve the essay 
 he had been reading. Aye, says he, I wish you 
 would. Well ! I will do it then, sir, said I. Do so, 
 said he ; take your own time now ; I shall not ask 
 you for it ; only write it as soon as you can, for I 
 shall often be thinking of it, and very desirous of 
 it. This he repeated once or twice. On this I 
 wished him a good morning, and came away, very 
 well pleased with the reception I had met. 
 My course is as follows : on Monday at eleven 
 I attend Dr. Rees on mathematics and algebra. 
 This lecture lasts till twelve. At two I have a lec- 
 ture, with several others, in shorthand, and one 
 in Hebrew with Jo. Swanwick. These two detain 
 us till dinner-time, and we have another lecture 
 in shorthand and another in Hebrew at eight at 
 night. On Tuesday we have a lecture with Corrie, 
 at eleven, in the classics, one week Greek, an- 
 other Latin, which continues till twelve ; and an- 
 other lecture with CorriCj on Greek antiquities. 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 45 
 irom one to two. On Wednesday we have the 
 same business as on Monday, on Thursday as on 
 Tuesday, and so on. 
 
 The greek class which I have been in this week 
 consists of two old students, J. Mason, and my- 
 self. I think that I translate more correctly and 
 much better than any of them. The other day 
 Mason was laughing at me, while I was translat- 
 ing a passage, on account of my way of speaking. 
 Says Corrie to him, 'Mr. Mason, you should be 
 sure you can translate yours as well as Mr. Haz- 
 litt does his, before you laugh at your neigh- 
 bours.' 
 
 I believe I am liked very well by the students in 
 general. I am pretty well intimate with one of 
 them, whose name is Tonson. J. Swanwick has 
 been hitherto in a different class. But on apply- 
 ing to Corrie, he has been put into the same class 
 with me. Farewell. 
 
 I am, your aff. son, 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 
46 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 7. 
 [London] Sunday, Oct. 23rd, {1798.} 
 
 MY DEAR Father, — I write not so much be- 
 cause I have anything particular to com- 
 municate, as because I know that you, and my 
 mother, and Peggy will be glad to hear from me. 
 I know well the pleasure with which you will re- 
 cognise the characters of my hand, characters 
 calling back to the mind with strong impression 
 the idea of the person by whom they were traced, 
 & in vivid & thick succession, all the ready asso- 
 ciations clinging to that idea, & the impatience 
 with which you will receive any news which I can 
 give you of myself. I know these things : & I feel 
 them. Amidst that repeated disappointment, & 
 that long dejection, which have served to over- 
 cast & to throw into deep obscurity some of the 
 best years of my life, years which the idle & illu- 
 sive dreams of boyish expectation had presented 
 glittering, & gay, & prosperous, decked out in all 
 the fairness and all the brightness of colouring, & 
 crowded with fantastic forms of numerous hues [?] 
 of ever- varying pleasure, — amidst much dissatis- 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 47 
 faction and much sorrow, the reflection that there 
 are one or two persons in the world who are [not] 
 quite indiiFerent towards me, nor altogether un- 
 anxious for my welfare, is that which is, perhaps, 
 the most ''soothing to my wounded spirit." 
 
 Monday. 
 We have just received your letter. With respect 
 to that part of it which concerns my brother's 
 business, I have information to give you of one 
 new 7 guinea picture. As to my essay, it goes on, 
 or rather it moves backwards & forwards ; how- 
 ever, it does not stand still. I have been chiefly 
 imployed hitherto in rendering my knowledge of 
 my subject as clear & intimate as I could, & in 
 the arrangement of my plan. I have done little 
 else. I have proceeded some way in a delineation 
 of the system, which founds the propriety of vir- 
 tue on it's coincidence with the pursuit of private 
 interest, & of the imperfections inseparable from 
 it's scheme. I have written in all about half a 
 dozen pages of shorthand, & have composed one 
 or two good passages, together with a number of 
 scraps & fragments, some to make their appear- 
 ance at the head of my essay, some to be affixed 
 
48 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 to the tail, some to be inserted in the middle, & 
 some not at all. I know not whether I can augur 
 certainly of ultimate success. I write more easily 
 than I did. I hope for good. I have ventured to 
 look at high things. I have toiled long & pain- 
 fully to attain to some stand of eminence. It were 
 hard to be thrown back from the mid-way of the 
 steep to the lowest humiliation. I must conclude. 
 You will not fail to give my love, & all our loves, 
 to my mother & Peggy. Give my love to J. S. 
 Remember me to Wicksteed & to Kynaston, when 
 you see him. Compliments according to form. I 
 am sorry Molly has been so ill. Farewell. 
 
 I am your affectionate son, 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 
 The Rev. W. Hazlitt and his wife lie buried in 
 the same grave in Crediton Churchyard. On the 
 headstone is the following inscription : " Beneath 
 this stone lie the remains of the late Rev''- 
 Will-"- Hazlitt, Died July l6* 1820, in the 84,"^ 
 year of his age. Also Grace, Wife of the above, 
 died June 10*. 1837, aged 90." 
 It is to be gathered from a letter from Dr. Kippis 
 
HAZLITT AT HACKNEY 49 
 
 to Mr. Hazlitt that the income of the latter was 
 derived from an annual grant out of the Presby- 
 terian Fund, occasionally supplemented by spe- 
 cial allowances, and doubtless by donations from 
 the members of the flock. 
 
 In a letter of 1821, his widow dates from "Pa- 
 lace," meaning the remains of the episcopal pa- 
 lace, fitted up as a residence. Alphington, near 
 Exeter, where the old lady lived during a brief 
 part of her widowhood, is remembered as the vil- 
 lage, where Charles Dickens acquired a cottage 
 for the use of his parents in their last days. 
 
BETWEEN TWO PATHS 
 
BETWEEN TWO PATHS: 
 PAINTING AND LETTERS 
 
 THE notions and theories which the writ- 
 er of these juvenile news-letters thus 
 propounded to his excellent father in 
 and about 1790, might be traced in substance 
 or principle, no doubt, in his riper work ; he seems 
 to have been in the habit of writing and re-writ- 
 ing his boyish conceptions, and the project for a 
 New System of Civil and Criminal Legislation, 
 commenced in these years, doubtless underwent 
 repeated castigation before it appeared, after the 
 author's death, in the columns of the Atlas for 
 1832, where the publication was announced be- 
 forehand in the following terms. The Reform Bill 
 of 1832 was then impending : — 
 
 Notice. 
 The importance of the great question that now 
 almost exclusively occupies the public mind, 
 and to which we have, in our present number, 
 sacrificed our ordinary departments of Litera- 
 ture and Criticism, justifies us in bespeaking 
 the attention of our readers to a series of pa- 
 
64 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 pers on constitutional government, the first of 
 which we propose to publish on the 1st Jan- 
 uary, 1832. The intrinsic value of those papers 
 is enhanced by the circumstance of their au- 
 thorship, as they are from the pen of William 
 Hazlitt, and are now for the first time to be 
 submitted to the public. In those articles, the 
 distinguished author enters at large upon the 
 philosophy of government, and defines political, 
 personal, and moral rights, with a truth and 
 eloquence of which we knew hardly another 
 example in our language. These posthumous 
 productions may be said to contain 
 
 THE CONFESSION OF FAITH OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 At the present moment these papers will be of 
 more than ordinary interest. They appear at 
 the era of the approaching triumph and con- 
 firmation of the principles for which Hazlitt 
 suffered prosecution during his life, and died in 
 neglect. We need hardly recommend them to 
 all literaiy and political inquirers. They may 
 be received as the most remarkable work of a 
 man who is admitted by his opponents to have 
 been a profound thinker and a luminous writer. 
 
BETWEEN TWO PATHS 56 
 While he remained at Wem, that historical inter- 
 view took place between him and Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge in l798jSovividlyportrayed bymy grand- 
 father in print, and so familiar to the world of letters 
 under the title of My First Acquaintance with Poets. 
 My grandfather was then a youth of twenty, and 
 the meeting with Coleridge powerfully impressed 
 him. It was almost like a newly gained sense. 
 The famous artistic visit of Hazlitt to Paris in 
 1802 still awaits some farther elucidation. We 
 have been made acquainted in the Four Genera- 
 tions with the circumstance which rendered the 
 visit possible, and was the primary motive for it. 
 His sister in her Diary says : " He spent the 
 winter in Paris, working in the Louvre from ten 
 in the morning until four in the afternoon, suffer- 
 ing much from cold and many other deprivations. 
 But he cared little for these things, while he had 
 those noble specimens of genius before his eyes." 
 He brought away the annexed certificate :^ 
 
 MR. W. Hazlitt, the bearer of this, is an 
 English painter, who has been studying 
 for his improvement in the National Museum at 
 
66 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 Paris, and has made copies of the following pic- 
 tures. — !"• Copy of the death of Clorinda, con- 
 taining two figures as described in the Catalogue, 
 No. 852. — 2'")'- Copy of a portrait of a man in 
 black, by Titian, No. 942. — S'")'- Two sketches 
 from the portrait of HippoUte de Medicis, by the 
 same, No. 76. — 4''''5'- Copy of two of the figures 
 in the picture of the Marquis del Guasto, No. 
 70.— S'h')'- Titian's mistress. No. 74,.—6'^^y- Sketch 
 of three of the figures in the Transfiguration of 
 Raphael. — 7. A holy family, from Raphael, No. 
 935. — 8. Another head from the Transfiguration. 
 — 9- Sketch of a head, from Tintoret. — 10. The 
 deluge, by Poussin, No. 82. 
 
 Le Directeur GdnA-al du Mitsie 
 certifie que M. Haslitt s'est oc- 
 cupe dans la Galerie de la Copie 
 mentionSe dans la presente Decla- 
 ration. • 
 Fait au bureau du Musie le 12 
 Pluviose an 11. 
 
 Le Directeur GSn^al, 
 
 Derron. 
 
BETWEEN TWO PATHS 67 
 
 One of his fellow-studerits was a certain Dr. Ed- 
 wardsj whom, he informs us, he had the good for- 
 tune to meet again during his tour in France and 
 Italy in 1824. Edwards accompanied him in many 
 of his visits to the sights of Paris. They frequen- 
 ted the fruit and flower market together, and my 
 grandfather was enchanted by the politeness of the 
 people with whom he came in contact. "What must 
 the higher classes be, if these are so polished?" he 
 remarked to his newly-recovered acquaintance. 
 "You shall judge for yourself, if you like," the 
 other replied; and he mentioned that he had a card 
 for the Duchesse de Noaille's reception that very 
 evening, and would take my grandfather with him. 
 The former agreed, and they proceeded together. 
 But Hazlitt was not so greatly struck — did not 
 discern a proportionate difference. The duchess re- 
 ceived in her bed-room, sitting at a card-table near 
 her bed, a four-post one with a good deal of gilding 
 about it. The adjoining apartments full of company 
 and lacqueys, who also played at cards. There was 
 none of the stiffness of an English ceremony of 
 the same class. My gi'andfather was introduced to 
 the duchess, and stayed till he was tired. 
 
68 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 In a letter of January 15thj 1806, Lamb informs 
 Hazlitt that Johnson the publisher had then 
 promised to come to a decision in respect to the 
 abridgement of the Light of Nature Pursued in a 
 month. From a postscript to the present inedited 
 and, unfortunately, mutilated one we readily infer 
 that this term had not yet expired. It appears 
 that Lamb had undertaken to procure for Haz- 
 litt' s cousin, Tom Loftus, a print or prints, so far 
 without success. The "Tingry" returned by Lamb 
 was the volume by P. F. Tingry, entitled, The 
 Painter's and Vamisher's Guide, 8vo., 1804. The 
 communication is twice endorsed, Mr. Hazlitt and 
 Mr. W. Hazlitt, but did not pass through the 
 post. 
 
 It may not be irrelevant to notice that Mr. 
 Joseph Johnson the publisher, who had so much 
 to do with the publications of my great-grand- 
 father and his son, and whose name has already 
 repeatedly occurred in the Four Generations, 1897, 
 died at his house at Walham Green, December 
 20th, 1809. The connection of Johnson with the 
 Hazlitts dated from 1790. 
 
BETWEEN TWO PATHS 69 
 
 8. 
 [January — February, 1806.'\ 
 
 DEAR H., — I send you Tingry (pro[mising 
 you instruction] and [some] entertain- 
 ment). I should not have delayed it [so] long, 
 but have been waiting for Loftus's commission. I 
 have made several graphical tours round & in the 
 metropolis without discovering any trees that I 
 would venture to recommend : id est, I have 
 gone no further than the shop [window], for such 
 is my modesty, that if I explored internal se[crets 
 I] should be laying out complimentary shillings 
 rather than give trouble without remuneration. I 
 have sent you a pretty emblematical thing which 
 I happen to have in my possession : you may get 
 some hints from it, though perhaps you may 
 think it too tame : not sufficiently romantic, — the 
 boughs not shooting fantastically enough, &c. 
 But to supply poetry & wildness, you may read 
 the American Farmer over again. Nevertheless, if 
 you desire it, I will put my head within the 
 shops — only speak your wants. 
 
60 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 N. B. — If I do not hear in 4 days that you have 
 received Tingry, &c., safe, I shall put you to the 
 expence of a Letter to ascertain whether this 
 parcel have [sic] been deliver'd to you. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. L. 
 Johnson shaU not be forgot at his month's end. 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 
 
 TOWARD the close of the year 1807 a 
 singularly strange and melodramatic in- 
 cident happened. A report of the most 
 circumstantial nature was circulated that Wil- 
 liam Hazlitt had died by his own hand ; but 
 I do not observe in the Morning Post of Decem- 
 ber 29th the passage cited below. The original 
 instigator of this elaborate hoax is as unknown as 
 the account of it, which I now for the first time 
 print, and which still farther augments the store 
 of letters addressed to the Lambs, at one time 
 supposed to have without exception perished ; 
 but one is disposed to suspect that the whole af- 
 fair was concocted between Lamb and Joseph 
 Hume, of the Victualling Office, Somerset House, 
 the common friends of the alleged victim of the 
 tragedy ; Hazlitt expressly charges the former, as 
 we shall presently see, with being the ringleader. 
 It is extremely difficult to appreciate, as one 
 ought perhaps to do, the humour of the business, 
 and the jest strikes one as drawn out to its maxi- 
 mum possibility, yet it is evident enough that 
 
64 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 during a few days it occupied the attention of 
 the actors in it^ HazUtt included, to a consider- 
 able extent. It may be regarded as a practical joke 
 more characteristic of the boisterous hilarity of 
 Lamb's earlier career than of a time when he had 
 emerged from youth. He was now thirty-three; 
 Hazlitt was in his twenty-ninth year, and had so 
 far produced nothing beyond a metaphysical es- 
 say, a political pamphlet, and one or two compi- 
 lations. Perhaps, however, none of the parties 
 concerned regarded the matter seriously, since in 
 Hazlitt' s Petition there is no symptom or vestige 
 of vexation or resentment. As to the "unfortu- 
 nate passion" alluded to in the first letter, the 
 marriage to Miss Stoddart was arranged, and took 
 place on the 1st May following ; and in the only 
 letter preserved of the ante-nuptial period (al- 
 though it is certain that many passed), that of 
 January or February, 1808, her future husband, 
 in alluding to the report of his death, lays on it 
 no stress, nor had the lady heard the news. It is 
 well to remember, however, that Lamb was ad- 
 dicted to these mystifications, and in the letter 
 of February 18th, 1808, to Hazlitt's father, there 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 65 
 
 is a touch of the same sort of thing on a less se- 
 rious scale. Hazlitt and he drew up that letter 
 together. 
 
 Hume, though well known as a friend of the 
 Lambs and of HazUtt, has not hitherto found a 
 place in the correspondence of either, because 
 the papers to be presently given afford the sole 
 testimony to any letters having passed between 
 the parties. Hume had six daughters, to whom 
 (or some of whom) there is a note in my volume 
 of 1896 on The Lambs. Mr. Thomas Webster, of 
 Kensington, has favoured me with the following 
 account of them : " Amelia Hume became Mrs. 
 Bunnett, and Julia married Vice-Admiral George 
 Davies, R. N., and was the mother of Mrs. Tod- 
 hunter (the wife of the eminent mathematician). 
 Another of her daughters was my late wife, the 
 well-known poetess, Augusta Webster." The plea- 
 santry, which occurs in the letter to these ladies, 
 and other similar witticisms on the part of Lamb, 
 might easily be supplied with prototypes in the 
 received biographies of Swift and his contempo- 
 raries, of which Lamb could scarcely have been 
 ignorant. 
 
66 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 9. 
 
 C. LAMB TO JOSEPH HUME. 
 
 ALAS, Sir, I cannot be among you. My fate 
 . is still not to know on which side my bread 
 is butter'd. I hang between two Engagements 
 perpetually, and the worst always comes first. 
 The Devil always takes care to clap in with a 
 retainer when he sees God about to offer a fee — 
 cold bones of mutton and leather-roasted pota- 
 toes at Pimlico at ten must carry it away from a 
 certain Turkey and a contingent plumb-pudding 
 at Montpelier at four (I always spell plumb-pud- 
 ding with a b, p-l-u-m-6 — I think it reads fatter 
 and more suetty). 
 
 I suppose you know what has happen'd to our 
 poor friend Hazlitt. If not, take it as I read it in 
 the Morning Post or Fashionable World of this 
 morning : — 
 
 " Last night Mr. H., a portrait painter in South- 
 ampton Buildings, Holborn, put an end to his 
 existence by cutting his throat in a shocking 
 manner. It is supposed that he must have com- 
 mitted his purpose with a pallet-knife, as the 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 67 
 
 edges of the cicatrice or wound were found be- 
 smeared with a yellow consistence, but the knife 
 could not be found. The reasons of this rash act 
 are not assigned ; an unfortunate passion has 
 been mentioned ; but nothing certain is known. 
 The deceased was subject to hypochondria, low 
 spirits, but he had lately seemed better, having 
 paid more than usual attention to his dress and 
 person. Besides being a painter, he had written 
 some pretty things in prose & verse." 
 God bless me, ten o'clock! I have cut out the 
 paragraph, and wUl shew it you entu-e. I have 
 
 not time to transcribe more. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 29 Dec, 1807. 
 
 10. 
 
 JOSEPH HUME TO CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 MY DEAR Sir, — I have this moment read a 
 scrawl of 8 pages professing to be a peti- 
 tion with the signature of W. Hazlitt, written in a 
 manner resembling that of our deceased friend ; 
 and which ridiculously assumes him to be alive. 
 There are some whacking sentences in it against 
 
68 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 me and particularly against you. I would there- 
 fore advise you not to go near his lodgings, lest 
 you might meet with any body there ; and judg- 
 ing that person (be he whom he may) to be the 
 Impostor, your friendly rage and a laudable desire 
 to protect your own character may urge you to 
 be boisterous and pugilistic, much to your un- 
 easiness and probably to the diminution of your 
 purse. In the meantime, I wUl not rest till I have 
 discovered who is the author of the manuscript 
 before me (I guess him to be a Quaker). 
 In a day or two you shall see this abominable 
 production : by which time I hope your wrath 
 may be somewhat appeased. 
 
 Yours (with much emotion), 
 
 Joseph Hume. 
 V. 0., 11 Jany., 1808. 
 
 P. S. — You have never called to let me know 
 how the subscription goes on. Poor dear friend, 
 we will contrive to pay the expenses for him as 
 quick as possible ! 
 \Endorsed\ 
 
 Charles Lamb, Esq., 
 Mitre Court Buildings, Temple. 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 69 
 
 Here is the Petition promised in the last letter. 
 So far from being "a scrawl," it is written in 
 Hazlitt's peculiarly clear hand throughout, and is 
 his largest extant contribution to epistolary- 
 literature : — 
 
 11. 
 
 THE humble petition & remonstrance of Wil- 
 Uam HazUtt,* now residing at No. 
 
 34, Southampton Buildings, in the parish of S*- 
 Ann's, Holborn, shewing that he is not dead, as 
 has been pretended by some malicious persons, 
 calling themselves his friends (the better to con- 
 ceal their base purposes), & praying that his 
 funeral, for which he understands a paltry sub- 
 
 *N. B. — A blank is here left which the modesty of the 
 writer would not permit him to fill up. Perhaps he be- 
 longed to the class of nonrdeseripts rather than any 
 other. The opinion of the world was divided : some per- 
 sons being inchned to regard him as a gentleman, and 
 others looking upon him as a low fellow. It is hard to 
 say whether he ought to be considered as an author, or 
 a poiutrait-painter. It is certain that he never painted 
 any pictures but those of persons that he hired to sit for 
 him, and though he wrote a number of books, it does 
 not appear they were ever read by any body. 
 
70 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 scription has been entered into, may not take 
 place as was intended. 
 
 This petition sheweth that the best way of prov- 
 ing clearly that a man is not dead is by setting 
 forth his manner of life. 
 
 And, first, that he, the said W. Hazlitt, has regu- 
 larly for the last month rang the bell at eleven at 
 night, which was considered as a sign for the girl 
 to warm his bed, & this being done, he has gone 
 to bed, & slept soundly for the next twelve or 
 fourteen hours. 
 
 Secondly, that every day about twelve or 1 
 o'clock he has got up, put on his clothes, drank 
 his tea, & eat two plate-fulls of buttered toast, 
 of which he had taken care to have the hard 
 edges pared off as hurtful to the mouth & gums, 
 & that he has then sat for some hours with his 
 eyes steadfastly fixed upon the fire, like a per- 
 son in a state of deep thought, but doing no- 
 thing. 
 
 Thirdly, that not a day has passed in which he 
 has not eat & drank like other people. For in- 
 stance, he has swallowed eight dozen of pills, nine 
 boluses, & as many purgative draughts of a most 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 71 
 
 unsavoury quality. What he has fed on with the 
 most rehsh has been a mess of chicken-broth, & 
 he has sent out once or twice for a paper of 
 almonds & raisins. His general diet is soup-meagre 
 with bread & milk for supper. That it is true that 
 the petitioner has abstained both from gross 
 feeding & from all kinds of intoxicating hquors ; a 
 circumstance, he conceives, so far from denoting 
 a natural decay & loss of his faculties, that on the 
 contrary it shews more wisdom than he was al- 
 ways possessed of. 
 
 Fourthly, that in regard to decency he has been 
 known to walk out at least once a week to get 
 himself shaved. 
 
 Fifthly, that growing tired of his sedentary pos- 
 ture, he has occasionally got up from his chair & 
 walked across the room (not as an automaton or a 
 dead man puUed with wires might be supposed to 
 do, but with an evident intention to \sic\ his man- 
 ner of rising, & an inequality in his gait, resem- 
 bling a limp). At one time he turned the front of 
 his great picture to the light, but finding the 
 subject painful to him, he presently turned it to 
 the wall again. Also, that he has twice attempted 
 
72 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 to read some of his own works, but has fallen 
 asleep over them. 
 
 Sixthly, that the said W. H. has, it being Christ- 
 mas time, received several invitations to enter- 
 tainments & parties of pleasure, which he politely 
 declined ; but that on occasions he has generally 
 about the hour of four in the afternoon been 
 tormented with the apparition of a fat goose or a 
 sirloin of beef. 
 
 Seventhly, that in compliment to the season, & 
 to shew a fellow-feeling with his absent friends, 
 he has ordered a wine-glass & a decanter of water 
 to be set upon the table, & has drank off a glass 
 or two, making a shew as if it were port or sherry, 
 but that he desisted from this practice after a 
 few trials, not finding it answer. 
 Eighthly, be it known that the person, concern- 
 ing whom such idle reports are prevalent, has 
 actually within the given time written a number 
 of love-letters, & that a man must be dead in- 
 deed, if he is not alive when engaged in that 
 agreeable employment. And lest it should be sug- 
 gested that these epistles resemble Mrs. Rowe's 
 Letters from the Dead to the Living, being just 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 73 
 
 such vapid, lifeless compositions, it may be proper 
 to state, by way of counteracting any such ca- 
 lunmy, that on the contrary they are full of noth- 
 ing but ingenious conceits & double entendres, 
 without a single grave remark or sickly sentiment 
 from beginning to end. Farther that they had 
 some hfe in them, he is assured by the quickness 
 of the answers, which he received with that sort 
 of pleasing titillation & gentle palpitation com- 
 mon to flesh and blood, reading them with alter- 
 nate smiles & sighs, & once letting fall a tear at 
 a description given by the lady of the ruinous 
 state of a cottage or tenement, which he hopes 
 one day to call his own. 
 
 It should also be especially noted that within the 
 last three weeks he has borrowed money of his 
 friends, which was at aU times his constant custom. 
 Again, that he has held more than one argument 
 which nobody could understand but himself. In- 
 deed his ideas seemed so thin & attenuated that 
 they may be thought not unlike the notions of a 
 disembodied spirit. But it should be remembered 
 that his conversation was in general of that kind 
 that it was difficult to make head or tail of it. 
 
?4 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 That he has made several good resolutions to be 
 put in practice as soon as he recovers, which he 
 hopes shortly to do without undergoing the ancient 
 ceremony of sacrificing a Cock to JBsculapius : as 
 namely to live better than he has lately done, not 
 to refiise an invitation to a haunch of venison, nor 
 to decline drinking to a lady's health, to pay a 
 greater attention to cleanliness, and to leave off 
 wenching, as injurious both to the health & morals. 
 That as it is possible he may not after all be able 
 to defeat the arts of his calumniators, who may 
 persuade the young lady before alluded to that 
 the petitioner is a dead man, not able to go 
 through the ordinary functions of life, that he 
 has therefore formed divers plans for his future 
 maintenance & creditable appearance in the 
 world, as writing a tragedy, setting up quack- 
 doctor, or entering into holy orders. 
 That as the most effectual means of suppressing 
 such insinuations for the future, & to prevent his 
 friends from persevering in their misrepresenta- 
 tions, it may be proper to inform them that they 
 will get nothing by his death, whenever it happens. 
 Lastly, as there are some appearances against 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 76 
 hinij & as he is aware that almost every thing 
 goes by appearances, in case it should be deter- 
 mined that he is a dead man & that he must be 
 buried against his will, he submits to this deci- 
 sion, but with two provisos, first, that he shall be 
 allowed to appear as chief mourner at his own 
 funeral, secondly that he shall have liberty to ap- 
 point Joseph Hume, Esq., of the Victualling Of- 
 fice his executor & administrator of his efiects, as 
 a man of prudence and discretion, well-looked on 
 in the world, & as the only person he knows, who 
 will not be witty on the occasion ! * 
 The said effects & valuables should be principally 
 appropriated to pay his apothecary's & washer- 
 women's bills. 
 
 Here follows a schedule of those of the greatest 
 account : — 
 
 * Alas, vain are the hopes of man ! How are we deceived 
 to the very last ! It is plain the writer had not at this 
 time seen a burlesque account of his last illness & miser- 
 able exit written by this very friend in whom he trusted, 
 in a vein of irony & humour, shewing a turn for satirical 
 description, but reflecting little credit on the feelings of 
 his heart. 
 
76 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 1. A picture of an old woman, painted in strong 
 
 shadow, nearly invisible. Valued at 5 pounds. 
 
 2. Sketch of a large picture of Count Ugolino, the 
 
 canvass as good as new. Valued at 15s. 
 
 3. A nymph and Satyr. — As there is something 
 
 indecent in the subject, it is suggested that, 
 if a prosecution could be procured against it 
 by the Society for the suppression of vice, 
 it might then be disposed of by raffle to great 
 advantage. 
 
 4. Three heads of the father of Dr. Stoddart, in 
 
 naval uniform, done from description. It is 
 supposed they will do equally well for any 
 other naval officer, deceased, who has left 
 behind him pious relatives. Their value will 
 depend on the fancy of the purchaser. 
 
 5. A parcel of rubbishly copies of old masters. — 
 
 It is proposed that Mr. Tickell should have 
 the refusal of these, as he will easily be able 
 to dispose of them as originals. The price to 
 be left to his generosity. 
 
 6. A bundle of manuscripts, exceedingly abstruse 
 
 & unintelligible. It is hoped they may occa- 
 sion great disputes among the learned. If 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 77 
 they are refused by the booksellers, they 
 may be oiFered to the British Museum for a 
 trifling sum, which if not advanced they may 
 be deposited there for the inspection of the 
 curious. 
 7, & lastly, a small Claude Lorraine mirror, which 
 Mr. Lamb the other evening secretly pur- 
 loined after a pretended visit of condolence 
 to his sick friend ; & which will doubtless be 
 found shamelessly hung up in the chambers 
 of the fraudulent possessor as a final trophy 
 & insult over the memory of the deceased. It 
 is probable that when charged with the ir- 
 regular transfer of property he will say that 
 it was won at a game at cribbage. But this is 
 an entirely false pretence. 
 With all the sincerity of a man doubtful between 
 life & death, the petitioner declares that he looks 
 upon the said Charles Lamb as the ring-leader in 
 this unjust conspiracy against him, & as the sole 
 cause & author of the jeopardy he is in : but that 
 as losers have leave to speak, he must say, that, 
 if it were not for a poem he wrote on Tobacco 
 about two years ago, a farce called Mr. H he 
 
78 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 brought out last ■winter with more wit than dis- 
 cretion in it, some prologues & epilogues he has 
 since written with good success, & some lively 
 notes he is at present writing on dead authors, he 
 sees no reason why he should not be considered 
 as much a dead man as himself, & the undertaker 
 spoken to accordingly. 
 
 A true copy. 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 Dated Sunday the 10th of Jam/. 
 
 1808. 
 P.S. — Whereas it is scandalously & falsely as- 
 serted in a written paper circulated at the ex- 
 pence of the above-named W. H. that he has 
 been heard to spout amourous verses, & sing Hcen- 
 tious ditties & burthens of old songs with his lat- 
 est breath, a number of penny ballads & verses 
 being also strewed about his room in an indecent 
 manner, he begs leave to state that the only song 
 he has once thought of of late is the Cuckoo song, 
 but that this has run a good deal in his head, & 
 that he has often broken out into the following 
 verse. 
 
 Mocks married men from tree to tree. 
 
A CURIOUS HISTORIETTE 79 
 Also once, upon receiving some expressions of 
 tender concern & anxious inquiries into the cause 
 of his illness from a person that shall be name- 
 less, he sung in a faint manner the following pa- 
 rody on two lines in the Beggar's Opera : — 
 " For on the pill that cures my dear, 
 " Depends poor Polly's life ! " 
 \Endorsed] 
 
 Joseph Hume, Esq., 
 
 Victualling Office, Somerset Place. 
 The post-mark is : " 12 o'clock, Ja. 11, 1808." 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
 THERE succeeds a long letter (four pa- 
 ges folio) from Lamb to Hume, with- 
 out any subscription, but signed all 
 over : — 
 
 12. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB TO JOSEPH HUME. 
 
 12 January, 1808. 
 
 DEAR Sir, — The strange rumours which have 
 been spread about since the death of our 
 respected friend, as well as some things which 
 have come under my own observation, which I 
 do not care to trust to the ordinary communica- 
 tion of a Post, but reserve them for the especial 
 confidence of your most valued ear in private, — 
 these things, without much help from a rainy 
 day or time of the year which usually disposes 
 men to sadness, have contributed to make me not 
 a little serious and thoughtful of late. I have run 
 over in my mind the various treatises which I 
 have perused in the course of a studious, and, I 
 hope, innocently employed Hfe, on the nature of 
 disembodied Spirits & the causes of their revisit- 
 
84 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 ing the earth. The fact I will take for granted; 
 presuming that I am not addressing an Atheist. 
 I find the most commonly assigned reason to be, 
 far the revealing of hidden Treasures which the De- 
 ceased had hoarded up in his or her Lifetime. Now 
 though I cannot sufficiently admire the provi- 
 dence of God who by this means has ofttimes re- 
 stored great heaps of Gold & Silver to the circu- 
 lation of the Living, thereby sparing the iterately 
 plowed and now almost efFoete wombs of Peru 
 & Mexico, which would need another Sarah's 
 miracle to replenish, yet in the particular case of 
 the Defunct I cannot but suspect some other 
 cause, and not this, to have called him from his 
 six foot bed of earth. For it is highly improbable 
 that He should have accumulated any such vast 
 treasures, for the revealing of which a miracle 
 was needed, without some suspicion of the fact 
 among his friends during his Lifetime. I for my 
 part always looked upon our dear friend as a man 
 rich rather in the gifts of his mind than in earth- 
 ly treasures. He had few rents or comings in, 
 that I was ever aware of, small (if any) landed 
 property, and by all that I could witness he sub- 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 85 
 
 sisted more upon the well-timed contributions of 
 a few chosen friends who knew his worth, than 
 upon any Estate which could properly be called 
 his own. I myself have contributed my part. God 
 knows, I speak not this in reproach. I have never 
 taken, nor indeed did the Deceased offer, any 
 written acknowledgements of the various sums which 
 he has had of me, by which I could make the 
 fact manifest to the legal eye of an Executor or 
 Administrator. He was not a Man to affect these 
 niceties in his transactions with his friends. He 
 would often say. Money was nothing between in- 
 timate acquaintances, that Golden Streams had 
 no Ebb, that a Purse mouth never regorged, that 
 God loved a chearful giver but the Devil hated a 
 free taker, that a paid Loan makes angels groan, 
 with many such hke sayings : he had always free 
 and generous notions about money. His nearest 
 friends know this best. Induced by these consid- 
 erations I give up that commonly received notion 
 of Revealable Treasures in our friend's case. Nei- 
 ther am I too forward to adopt that vulgar super- 
 stition of some hidden Murder to be brought to 
 light ; which yet I do not universally reject : for 
 
86 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 when I revolve, that the Defunct was naturally 
 of a discoursible and communicative temper 
 (though of a gloomy and close aspect, as bom 
 under Saturn), a great repeater of conversations 
 which he generally carried away verbatim & 
 would repeat with syllabic exactness in the next 
 company where he was received (by which means 
 I that have staid at home have often reaped the 
 profit of his travels without stirring from my el- 
 bow chair), I cannot think that if He had been 
 present at so remarkable circumstance as a mur- 
 der he would so soon have forgotten it as to 
 make no mention of it at the next place where 
 he dined or supt, or that he could have restrained 
 himself from giving the particulars of a matter of 
 fact like that in his life time. I am sure I have of- 
 ten heard him dilate upon occurrences of a much 
 less interesting sort than that in question. I am 
 most inclined to support that opinion which fa- 
 vours the Establishing of some Speculative Point 
 in Religion: a frequent cause, says Wierus, for 
 Spirits returning to the Earth, to confute Athe- 
 ists, &c. When I consider the Education which 
 our friend received from a venerable Parent, his 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 87 
 
 religious destination, his nurture at a Seminary 
 appropriated to young Ministers : but whatever 
 the cause of this reappearance may prove to be, 
 we may now with truth assert that our deceased 
 friend has attained to one object of his pursuits, 
 one hour's separate existence gives a dead man 
 clearer notions of metaphysics than all the trea- 
 tises which in this state of carnal entanglement 
 the least-immersed spirit can out-spin. It is good 
 to leave such subjects to that period when we 
 shall have no Heads to ache, no brains to distort, 
 no faces to lengthen, no clothes to neglect. Had 
 our dear friend attended to this, he might have 
 shewn his airy form in courts & ball rooms, whis- 
 pered the fair, ogled, sung, danced, and known 
 just as much of those subjects as it is probable 
 he ever knew previous to his death : for I always 
 take it, that a disposition to such sort of enquiries 
 
 and ends in lunacy and dirty linen. You have my 
 opinions. [No signature.] 
 
 [Endorsed] 
 J. Hume, Esq. 
 
 Victualling Office, Somerset House. 
 
88 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 I have to give, as next in order, a very long epis- 
 tle from Hume to Lamb on the same subject, 
 
 sent by hand. 
 
 13. 
 
 JOSEPH HUME TO CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 VAIN, my dear friend, were my promises to 
 you of discovering the person who has tried 
 to impose upon me a spurious epistle of our un- 
 fortunate friend, alas no more ! On reading it a 
 second time some circumstances arose in my mind 
 that you, with your well-known ingenuity, will 
 turn [it] to such an account as may eventually be 
 successful in detecting this base business. 
 The inclosure is evidently built by some one who 
 has seen the epistle which, in the swelling sorrow 
 of my heart, I lately sent you. You, dearest Sir, 
 must know what is due to your honour and friend- 
 ship better than to have shewn that confidential 
 effusion to a living soul. How could the writer of 
 the inclosed ha*^e seen it then ? Probably you have 
 had your pocket picked ? Where have you visited .'' 
 In what situations have you been with my letter 
 in your pocket ? Trace your diaries, my dear Sir, 
 and we may have a clue. How could the writer 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 89 
 
 have obtained our poor friend's hand writing, for 
 it is evidently copied, and copied well ? Had he 
 an Amanuensis ? Perhaps some Printer's Devil 
 who, having in our friend's life time been perpet- 
 ually wearied with his manuscripts, has deter- 
 mined (an odd sort of a revenge you will say) to 
 weary other people by coipying him — baud equis 
 passibus, that is — not quite so obscurely or (if you 
 please) metaphysically. 
 
 The task were easy to prove the imposture. In- 
 deed the work detects itself. I will give you a 
 few hasty instances taken promiscuously, for you 
 cannot dip amiss where it is clear that you or I or 
 Johnny Nokes or Tom Stiles might have written 
 it as easily as He who did write it. 
 !"• He says "that the best way of proving dearly 
 that a man is not dead is by setting forth his 
 manner of Ufe." Now, Sir, we have a full and 
 detailed account of what was said and done by 
 Thommy Hickathrift and Seneca, by Jack the 
 Giant Killer and Dr. Samuel Johnson long after 
 they were dead : and nobody either on a principle 
 of revenge, craft, or any other unknown motive 
 has had the effrontery to pretend, as in the case 
 
90 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 before us, that those worthy personages did not 
 die at the time stated by their friends. It hurts 
 me to think that you and I, such highly respec- 
 table characters, the delight of our friends, the 
 envy of the learned, the soul of &c., &c., &c., 
 should have our veracity doubted by an imknown 
 scribbler, who to give the devil his due, writes 
 with ingenuity and archness, when I am confident 
 that, had the news of his own death reached our 
 poor friend's ears dispensed from our mouths he, 
 depending on our scrupulous love of truth, would 
 insensibly have believed the tale. But to proceed. 
 S'")'- He says that on a morning he eats "two 
 plate-fulls of buttered toast." That 's a good one ! 
 I have him there ! I know that he scarcely, when 
 he was not in love, ever ate any breakfast. 
 gii'y' He talks of getting himself shaved. Now the 
 ladies who were the most immediately acquainted 
 with him, much to their uneasiness and probably 
 (between you and I) at the expence of their chins, 
 declare he never shaved at all. 
 S'")'- That he had fallen asleep reading his own 
 works. This beats everything. Why, Mr. Malthns 
 would not do that. Poke into any Church in any 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 91 
 
 comer of the Kingdom, where every individual 
 within the walls are sound asleep in the very pre- 
 face of the sermonj the preacher who made it is 
 wide awake. To think my poor friend would have 
 written such a sarcasm on himself and which dis- 
 covers such ignorance in the art of authorship, and 
 authorly feelings ! 
 
 4*iy. fjg talks about refusing Xmas dinners, and 
 having the apparitions of geese, &c., haunting him. 
 The vein of this sentence denotes it to be written 
 by a man appalled by the recollection of one 
 standing, as it were, in the shoes of the defunct. 
 It breathes the air of one with a tomb in his view ; 
 and not of one who, like our friend, has been long 
 entombed. 
 
 Stilly- jje speaks of writing love Letters con amore ; 
 and throws something of a slight on Mrs. Rowe's 
 works. Our friend, a dissenter or what is almost 
 as bad, educated for one, would not have done 
 this. Nay. 
 
 gthiy. fje is made to say (preposterous, he cold in 
 his grave ! ) that he had imployed his great mind 
 in writing double entendres ! (By the Lord if we do 
 but catch the wretch we'll have him hanged). 
 
92 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 Double Entendres ! Merciful Father ! ! ! Why, my 
 dear friend, when I, in my conversations with him 
 would happen to let out, not wantonly, but in the 
 regular run of one's ideas, a sentence, which I 
 should quote from my Father, then an aged and 
 respectable Gentleman and a Dissenter too, that 
 might not altogether square with the most squea- 
 mish and maidenly deUcacy, his brow would be 
 contracted and his mouth would make those 
 kinds of convulsive motions that are prognostic of 
 a man ready to sp — w. No, no, the man of the 
 lowest order in tracing human character cannot 
 be duped here. By the way. Double Entendres from 
 a Man in love ! Too absurd, too absurd ! that he 
 should frequent the Stews ! It makes me stew to 
 think on it. 
 
 7thiy. Borrows money of his friends. That won't do, 
 neither. You and I, my charitable friend, would 
 do as much as most men in the way of friendship. 
 But when we reflect on the forlorn state of poor 
 
 H 's (this is no Farce, by all that's sacred) 
 
 mind, his recent moping melancholy and his 
 patter about his "Mistress's eye brows," we 
 should not have been silly enough to have lent 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 93 
 
 him money to have played at chuck-farthing with, 
 or to have wasted it in some such wayward way. 
 Besides he would never have thought of borrow- 
 ing money, when he knew he had occasion for 
 none. With respect to dress, in his gayest days he 
 never was much famed as a beau : and a man in 
 love, deep, too, as he was, has an immemorial 
 sanction from Ovid down to himself to be slattern. 
 Rags and Slovenry are the ornaments, the high- 
 day livery of the tender passion. With respect to 
 food, he wanted none that bakers know, or cooks 
 can conjure up. He could receive no enjoyment 
 (as some folks can) on Turkey dinners. Eat in 
 prospective Feasts he could not partake, and feel 
 exultation in writing about them in a manner 
 that made every line look as if it were written 
 with grease and gravy. No, no. He had better 
 fare. A smile from his mistress was a dozen din- 
 ners to him. And the last words of her last Billet 
 such as 
 
 " Adieu, 
 
 Your ever faithful 
 
 Laura," 
 supported him, to my knowledge, till the next 
 
94 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 time he saw her. What are money, food, and 
 raiment to such a man ! I wish he had lived ! He 
 would have cost us less than his death will. For 
 we shall yet have to pay his bills, which he, poor 
 man, doubtless in his lifetime did pay ; but, his 
 tricking trades-people knowing the state he was 
 in, tho' without knowing, as we did, the fair and 
 unfortunate cause of it, never, I venture to assert, 
 gave receipts for the money they had. However I 
 shall not grudge to pay my share. You know tis 
 the last thing we can do for him. I fear I shall be 
 prolix. But how captivating the subject ! 
 gthiy. « Ideas thin, attenuated, disembodied spirit." 
 Apply to this what has been suggested in my 
 4* Remark. 
 
 gthiy. No body could make head or tail of his con- 
 versation? It might be so to such a body as 
 wrote this pitiful sarcasm. We, who are judges of 
 good argument, know that he was all illumina- 
 tion : Incidus ordo was his maximus Apollo ; more 
 especially — latterly. 
 
 lO'hiy. He was a man of spirit in his better days. 
 He therefore would have been ashamed on his 
 own account and much more so as an example for 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 95 
 
 the well being of society, to cast out of human 
 conduct the habit of wenching. Whereas our poor 
 sneaking moralist (A Quaker, by G — d !) would 
 debauch the lips of our friend by presuming he 
 uttered his worse than sneer on the noble habit, 
 by pretending that it was a deviation of moral 
 rectitude. 
 
 I shall pass by the wit and jokes, for the fellow is 
 clever there, and come to my more serious charges 
 against this felonious Scribbler, 
 llthiy. Fearful that some one may, some time or 
 other, detect this fraud, he paves the way for his 
 defence, by beginning in a half-doubting manner, 
 and talking about appearances being against my 
 Friend being alive. In G — d's name, a man must 
 be either dead or alive. This very circumstance 
 opens to my mind a field of conjecture. For when 
 I consider that the writer wants to insinuate that 
 
 poor H (Have a care, Mr. Lamb. Strive to 
 
 tread lightly on the ashes of the dead, especially 
 of the murdered dead). I mean most seriously by 
 
 Mr. H no other than my deceased Friend Mr. 
 
 WiUiam Hazlitt. I say the writer wants to insinu- 
 ate that he has left no property except a few con- 
 
96 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 temptible moveables that for, their size, or want of 
 value, were not worthy to be purloined by him. 
 But yet he values those things with consummate 
 artifice. 
 
 !='• The picture of the old Woman not above 
 2 or 3 feet square of canvas to be valued at 
 £5 whereas the large Count upon Canvas at 
 only 15 shillings. I being an Housekeeper and 
 having lately paid £2. 17. 3 J, bating discount, for 
 a new Hall Cloth, know full well that the canvas 
 in question would more easily and with less ex- 
 pence be painted for a Floor Cloth — in conse- 
 quence of the dear man having paid one side of it 
 so unmercifully with paint — than a piece of un- 
 painted canvas. I think it would do nicely for your 
 Pantry. You know how partial he was to your 
 Pantiy. To be sure the picture, like a cork in a 
 bottle, would be troublesome to get out; and 
 more troublesome to guess how it got in. 
 The Nymph & Satyr our keen Imposter says is 
 something indecent forsooth. He that talk'd just 
 now about our Friend loving Double Entendres ! ! 
 The 4'''' 5'''' & 6* articles of the pitiful Inventory 
 that has been artfully saved from the cupidity of 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 97 
 this ( ) (fill up the blank as you like, I 
 
 have exhausted abuse) — these articles I say are 
 severe sarcasms on our Friend as a Painter and as 
 an Author. 
 
 My heart has been so overcharged with grief for 
 our loss that I have passed over what has been 
 said against me, but surely I may be allowed to 
 say that where in a note he accuses me of not 
 having much feeling of Heart — he is very cruel. 
 Gracious Heaven — not possess feeling of Heart! 
 I that wrote to you, (and the wretch some how or 
 other, God knows how, must have seen the Let- 
 ter) a Letter written in an agony of sorrow (but I 
 am a man of sorrows) as if my heart's blood was 
 staining the paper :— I no feeling of heart when 
 you must remember how we both "bedewed his 
 lackered plate." Indeed, indeed — this — this thi 
 — thi — (But I cannot go on, my tears intercept 
 my sight — my white and damp cambric pocket 
 hand''- unfortunately has fallen on the ground. — I 
 must change the subject. — I no feeUng of Heart! 
 What would he have? Must I "drink up Eisel? 
 Eat a CrocodUe ? " 
 My dear Sir — what is still worse, he next accuses 
 
98 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 you of (I am almost ashamed to mention it)— 
 accuses you of thieving a small Qaude Lorraine 
 mirror. He accuse another of a theft ! 
 
 "But the Thief calls the Latvyer a cheat." 
 Considering now the whole circumstances of the 
 case, particularly his mal-appretiation of the re- 
 fuse of our friend's valuable moveables, I am fully 
 persuaded that some person very much hke him 
 has taken possession of his Lodgings immediately 
 after his death, and gives himself out to be our 
 quondam W. H. A fact that corroborates this in- 
 ference is this. " I met William Hazlitt yester- 
 day," says my friend D'- Y s. That is im- 
 possible, said I, for he is dead and buried. If ever 
 I saw him in my life, he replied, I did see him 
 yesterday. You are certainly wrong, rejoined I 
 with some vehemence. Then, said the D% I never 
 saw two people so much alike. TheD'- was con- 
 vinced, and so the conversation ended. By the 
 way — has Emily a sweetheart? What a conven- 
 ient thing it would be for him to pop into those 
 Lodgings and smuggle for themselves all his nice 
 goods and chattels. But, my dear sir — far be it 
 from me — I only just hint — the girl is good, I 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 99 
 
 dare say — love is blind to the faults of the be- 
 loved. I shall close by saying that in no part of 
 the long Petition or Letter or what d 'ye call it — 
 is it directly asserted, that WiUiam Hazlitt is not 
 dead. It is all appeal and inference. Don't you 
 smoke these — the broad brimm'd hat.'' Eye.'' 
 
 2^* Jany., 1808. 
 
 I HAVE a mighty fancy (cannot you manage 
 it .'') to see this Usurper ! But you must mind 
 how you go about it. Go to Southampton Build- 
 ings, give a single knock as if it were the Baker 
 or TaUow Chandler, run upstairs before he has 
 time to run off or hide himself, or before anybody 
 can say he is not at home. When you nab him : 
 ask him to come to see me next Sunday. Say I am 
 a very stupid fellow : can hardly see one man from 
 another, &c. My motive is this — to convince some 
 incredulous friends that will have it he is alive or 
 that (as you seem to say, of which more anon) he 
 still walks. If he come, I will note down all the 
 points of his exterior and interior that differ from 
 poor Hazlitt, which will be confirmations strong. 
 If he do not come all the world wiU believe his 
 
100 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 death, for all the world know that he could always 
 smell an Aitch-bone 4 miles off. He has done it a 
 hundred times. Remember I don't ask you or 
 your sister to come tocf Not I 
 
 Joseph Hume. 
 
 I IS Jany., 1808, at 10\ o' Clock 
 
 I SHOULDN'T wonder if the Lambs were to 
 pop upon us (Mrs. Hume) next Sunday at 4 
 o'Qock, just as the Beef is smoaking on the Ta- 
 ble ? ''I dare say they will (my dear) if it is at all 
 a tolerable day : they have not been here some 
 time." 
 
 11 o'Cbck, IS Jan., 1808. 
 
 I THANK you for your opinions. I entirely 
 agree with them. But alas ! you have hung 
 yourself on a peg from which weightier persons 
 have fallen. 
 
 Yio-vfjinely (says Sterne), how finely can we reason 
 upon mistaken facts. I wish he did walk, if only 
 to tweak the nose of him who has supplanted 
 him. Alas, his earthly "table is full" : — he is — 
 
 "where he is eaten." 
 
 J. H. 
 
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 101 
 
 Excuse me : in my last note I forgot the black 
 sealing wax, &c. : but sorrow, heart-felt sorrow, 
 attends not to punctilios. 
 [Endorsed] 
 Mr. Lamb. 
 
 The group closes with a comparatively brief note 
 from Hume to Hazlitt, deprecating the indirect 
 manner in which certain persons have been mak- 
 ing efforts to defame him, and particularly warn- 
 ing him against Lamb. Lamb's letter, to which 
 Hume refers, is, I conclude, that of the 12th 
 January already introduced : — 
 
 14. 
 
 DEAR Sir, — I don't know what a parcel of 
 your Friends, or rather foes, are about, but 
 I the other day received in the form of a Petition 
 some stuff and farrago about your death : and I 
 have had sent me this morning by a very mysteri- 
 ous conveyance a Letter not signed (I enclose it), 
 but which I would swear is Mr. Lamb's writing. 
 I don't like that Lamb ; Look to him ; I hate 
 snakes in the grass. I say let a man, if he has a 
 grudge against a friend, out with it ; and not be 
 
102 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 scribbling and scrawling backwards & forwards 
 every day or two, and secretly abusing one. For 
 God's sake come down here, and convince those 
 silly fellows, to say the least of it, that talk about 
 your death, that you are alive. 
 
 Yours until death, 
 
 Joseph Hume. 
 P. S. — "A living dog is better than a dead 
 Lion." — Solomon. 
 To W. Hazlitt, Esq. 
 
HAZLITT'S 
 EARLIER MARRIED LIFE 
 
HAZLITT'S 
 
 EARLIER MARRIED LIFE 
 
 AND RELATIONS WITH PATMORE 
 
 SO we part with one of the oddest episodes 
 in the entire range of the Lamb corres- 
 pondence, and pass on to a letter of three 
 folio pages, written by Hazlitt, from Salisbury, to 
 his wife staying with the Lambs. It may not be 
 an exaggeration to speak of it as one of the most 
 remarkable, pleasantest, and wholesomest that 
 remain to us. I attribute it to April, 18 09. The 
 Lambs did not go into Wiltshire till the autumn. 
 
 15. 
 
 W, HAZLITT TO HIS WIPE. 
 
 [Salisbuiy, April, 1809.^ 
 Sunday evening. 
 
 MY DEAR Sarah, — I begin on a large sheet 
 of paper though I have nothing new to 
 fill a half one. Both parcels of prints came safe, & 
 I need hardly say that I was glad to see them, 
 & that I thank you exceedingly for getting them 
 for me. I am much obliged to you for your trouble 
 in this as well as about the pictures. Your last 
 
106 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 letter but one I did not receive in time to have 
 come up to see them before Friday (the day then 
 fixed for the sale), & though I got your letter on 
 Friday time enough to have been with you yester- 
 day morning, I did not feel disposed to set out. 
 The day was wet & uncomfortable, & the cata- 
 logue did not tempt me so much as I expected. 
 There were a parcel of Metaus & Terburghs & 
 boors smoking, & ladies at harpsichords, which 
 seemed to take up as much room as the St. 
 Cecelia, the Pan & St. George, the Danae & the 
 Ariadne in Naxos. Did Lamb go to the sale, & 
 what is the report of the pictures.? But I have got 
 my complete set of Cartoons, " here I sit with my 
 doxies surrounded," & so never mind. I just took 
 out my little copy of Rembrandt to look at, & 
 was so pleased with it, I had almost a mind to 
 send it up, & try whether it might not fetch two 
 or three guineas. But I am not at present much 
 in the humour to incur any certain expence for an 
 uncertain profit. With respect to my painting, I 
 go on something like Satan, through moist & dry, 
 something glazing & sometimes scumbling, as it 
 happens, now on the wrong side of the canvas & 
 
HAZLITT'S MARRIED LIFE 107 
 
 now on the rightj but still persuading myself that 
 I have at last found out the true secret of Titian's 
 golden hue & the oleaginous touches of Claude 
 Lorraine. I have got in a pretty good background, 
 & a conception of the ladder which I learned from 
 the upping stone on the down, only making the 
 stone into gold, & a few other improvements. I 
 have no doubt there was such another on the 
 field of Luz, & that an upping stone is the genu- 
 ine Jacob's ladder. But where are the angels to 
 come from ? That 's another question, which I am 
 not yet able to solve. My dear Sarah, I am too 
 tired & too dull to be witty, & therefore I will 
 not attempt it. I did not see the superscription of 
 the wrapping paper till this morning, for which I 
 thank you as much as for the prints. You are a 
 good girl, & I must be a good boy. I have not 
 been very good lately. I do not wish you to over- 
 stay your month, but rather to set off on the Fri- 
 day. You will, I hope, tell me in your next about 
 M"- Holcroft & the books. If the sale had been 
 the 2S'^, I intended to have come up, & brought 
 them with me. Our new neighbour arrived the 
 day after you went. I have heard nothing of her 
 
108 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 but that her name is Armstead, nor seen any- 
 thing of her till yesterday & the day before, on 
 one of which days she passed by our house in a 
 blue pelisse, & on the other in a scarlet one. She 
 is a strapper, I assure you. Little Robert & his 
 wife still continue in the house. They returned 
 the coals, but I sent them back, thinking they 
 would be badly off perhaps. But yesterday they 
 walked out together, he as smart as a buck, & 
 she skipping & hght as a doe. It is supper time, 
 my dear, & I have been painting all day, & all 
 day yesterday, & all the day before, & am very, 
 very tired, & so I hope you will let me leave off 
 here, & bid you good night. I inclose a l£ note 
 to Lamb. If you want another, say so. But I hope 
 your partnership concern with M'' Phillips will 
 have answered the same purpose. 
 
 I am ever yours aflfectionately, 
 
 W. Hazlitt. 
 Before you come away, get Lamb to fix the pre- 
 cise time of their coming down here. 
 [Endorsed] 
 Mr. Lamb, 
 
 India House, London. 
 
HAZLITT'S MARRIED LIFE 109 
 
 The Hazlitts had had several disappointments 
 before their only living representative appeared 
 in 1811 J and produced that singularly fine letter 
 from Lamb printed in all the editions. The sub- 
 joined copy of doggerel verses seems to have 
 been composed by some one intimate with the 
 circle on the same auspicious occasion : — 
 There lives at Winterslom a man of such 
 Rare talents and deep learning, that hy much 
 Too wise he 's counted by his country neighbours ; 
 And all his learned literary labours 
 Occasion give for many a nnld surmise. 
 Even his person in their rustic eyes 
 Has somewhat strange in it, his sallow looks. 
 His deep o'erhanging brows when der his books 
 (Which written are in characters unknown) 
 He pores whole hours with a most solemn frown. 
 And then this wise man's wife they all well know 
 Is sister to a learned Doctor too. 
 But we will leave the rustics to their wonder. 
 And simply tell what truly happened under 
 This wise man's roof. He and his wife believ'd, 
 If by no inauspicious star deceiv'd. 
 The time was very fast approaching when 
 
no LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 (To cronm the labours of his brain and pen) 
 A nameless Spirit, for whose sake his brains 
 And pen he more out, would reward Ms pains 
 By visible appearance in their view. 
 It was not from the magic art they drew 
 This inference. Lo ! when the Spirit came. 
 The long expected One without a name. 
 For whose sweet sake all this was undergone. 
 They caWd it William and their own dear Son. 
 These lines might be anybody's — but a poet's; 
 the writing is that of Mrs. HazUtt, and it is prob- 
 ably a copy. 
 
 Hazlitt, when the subjoined note was written, 
 was probably preparing those Lectures which he 
 subsequently delivered at the London Institution 
 in 1812, and which are described in the Memoirs 
 of 1867. Whatever difficulties and drawbacks he 
 may have suffered, the position taken up by him 
 at this time was in some respects superior to 
 what the same class or classes of employment 
 conferred at a later period, except in a few cases. 
 Competition was far less severe, and the pay was 
 better. When my father had been some years on 
 the press, the system of farming the parliamen- 
 
HAZLITT'S MARRIED LIFE 111 
 
 taiy reports was commenced by Doogood, a na- 
 tive of Bodmin, in Cornwall. My father thought 
 his name a curiosa infelicitas, for he did others a 
 good deal of harm and himself very little good. 
 Hardy, to whom Hazlitt here addressed himself, 
 is presumed to be the same fellow with whom 
 Lamb is found in correspondence in 1824 on be- 
 half of Miss Mary Hazlitt, one of the group of 
 lady-novelists, who, about this date, worried him 
 nearly to death. He appears to have been, unless 
 I a*n mistaken in his identity, a person possessed 
 of a certain share of influence, as well as one of 
 those obliging characters in various walks of life, 
 with whom necessitous men of genius open rela- 
 tions. Usually, if they are not professional money- 
 lenders, they are tailors ; occasionally we meet 
 with them in the ranks of butchers and crockery- 
 dealers ; but Hardy was a boot-maker in Fleet 
 Street. In 1824 he was to be found at Queen's 
 Square, Pimlico ; possibly he had then retired, 
 and was turning his attention to what Elia terms 
 somewhere the Bell-Letters. 
 
112 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 16. 
 
 Winterslotv, 
 Salisbury/. 
 
 DEAR SiRj — I was obliged to leave London 
 without discharging my promise. The rea- 
 son of which was that I was myself disappointed 
 in not receiving 20£ which was due to mcj 10£ 
 for a picture, & 10£ for revising a manuscript. I 
 am at present actually without money in the 
 house. If you can defer it till October, when I 
 shall be in London to deliver some Lectures, by 
 which I shall pick up some money, I shall esteem 
 it a favour, and shall be glad to pay you the in- 
 terest from the time I was in London last. Hop- 
 ing this delay will be no particular inconvenience, 
 & that you will think it unavoidable on my part, 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 Sunday evening. W. Hazlitt. 
 
 ^Endorsed\ 
 Mr. Hardy, 
 Boot-Maker, 
 
 Fleet Street, London. 
 
HAZLITT'S MARRIED LIFE 113 
 
 In the correspondence with Patmore, printed in 
 the Memoirs of 1867^ under June, 1822, Hazlitt 
 is found pressing him to go to Southampton 
 Buildings, where the Walkers kept a lodging- 
 house, as we have so often heard, and endeavour 
 to discover how matters stood in regard to Sarah 
 Walker. It accordingly appears that Patmore was 
 in March, 1822, an inmate — whether on his own 
 account or Hazlitt's it is difficult to say, but he 
 went there at his friend's request, and was a 
 stranger to the family. The divorce was pending, 
 and his correspondent was anxious to learn whe- 
 ther Miss Walker was likely to receive favour- 
 ably a proposal of marriage. Oddly enough, Pat- 
 more seems to have played a part analogous to 
 that of one of the characters in Maupassant's Ce 
 Cochon de Marin, and, still more oddly, Hazlitt 
 was not apparently displeased by the action of 
 his ambassador or scout, who, in his report, was 
 at least not wanting in candour : at any rate what 
 came to his ears helped to disillusionize his prin- 
 cipal, and to bring the farce to a climax. So far, 
 so good. 
 We gain our knowledge of some of these partic- 
 
114 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 ulars from a MS. entirely in Hazlitt's hand^ ex- 
 tending to eleven pages, and forming a Diary 
 from March 4th to l6th (1822), in which he has 
 registered, so far as we can judge, the proceed- 
 ings of Patmore during that period ; and the nar- 
 rative essentially differs from the one already in 
 tjrpe, the only MS. of which is believed to be in 
 Patmore's hand. The present one is very care- 
 lessly written, and in some places is almost illeg- 
 ible. It has the advantage of being much briefer 
 than the text generally loiown, to which it may 
 be treated as a sort of sequel, and it contains sev- 
 eral interesting literary and theatrical allusions 
 peculiar to itself. To what extent these are gen- 
 uine records of the heroine's opinions, however, 
 who shall say ? From the manner in which Miss 
 Walker refers to Procter, it is apparent that she 
 speaks from personal knowledge ; he probably vis- 
 ited Hazlitt at Southampton Buildings. 
 Whatever may be thought of Patmore's share in 
 the affair, his sjrmpathy with Hazlitt, real or as- 
 sumed, as well as that of Sheridan Knowles, was, 
 no doubt, eminently welcome and serviceable at 
 the time. 
 
HAZLITT'S MARRIED LIFE 116 
 
 As regards the orthography of Patmore's name, I 
 observe that in the list of contributors to Black- 
 wood's Magazine, drawn up about 1825, and printed 
 in Willis's Current Notes for October, 1851, occurs : 
 " Pattmore, Charles, Pawnbroker, Ludgate Hill." 
 This was, of course, the father of Peter George, 
 and his enrolment must have been a,jeu d' esprit — 
 probably by his son. 
 
 The T. so frequently referred to below as Miss 
 Walker's favoured suitor may have been the same 
 person who was connected with Covent Garden 
 Theatre, and who is mentioned in a letter to Pat- 
 more as having power to give or get tickets of 
 admission. In one place the name, sometimes in- 
 dicated by the initial, and in others obliterated, 
 has been left intact, and appears to be Tomkins. 
 Besides the Mr. T., a plain F. occurs in one place 
 — whether another lodger, is not at all clear ; but 
 he was evidently a curious character. The alpha- 
 bet was capable of jdelding a different initial, more 
 especially as Mr. F. is occasionally introduced with- 
 out a prefix. 
 
 I have stated that Sarah Walker married well, like 
 her sister Mrs. Roscoe, although neither soared 
 
116 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 so high as that other tailor's daughter, Nancy- 
 Parsons, who, after being the Duke of Graf- 
 ton's mistress, became Viscountess Maynard. 
 The MS. commences without any title at the top 
 of the first leaf The asterisks denote unreadable 
 words or passages, the character of the writing 
 resembling shorthand and only my familiarity 
 with it has enabled me to decipher as much as I 
 have done. 
 
LIBER AMORIS. PART II. 
 
LIBER AMORIS 
 
 PART II 
 
 MARCH 4. [1821.] M'- F. goes to M'- G. 
 S[outliampton] B[uildmgs] at my re- 
 quest to see the lodgings. Sees M"- 
 W[alker,] who is very communicative — says 
 there is no one but herself & her daughter — her 
 eldest daughter married one of the M"'- Roscoes 
 of Liverpool — Gentlemen generally staid there 2 
 or 3 years — the gentleman that last occupied the 
 front room staid there three years — a M''- Crom- 
 bie (nOj the person that occupied it wais a M'- 
 TomkinSj who did not stay there quite so long). 
 She concluded M'-. F. from the country & let the 
 front-room, second floor, to him at 15s. a week. 
 The back-room (my poor room) was empty at 14s. 
 a week. 
 
 March 5. — Goes. Is introduced into the back-par- 
 lour — meets Miss shawl'd and bonneted going 
 out to meet Tomkins. M"- W. has my name up as 
 having lodged there & says that except when I 
 am at Salisbury, I lodge there stiU — speaks of 
 
120 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 the quantity of money I got by my writings, & of 
 several presents I had given her daughter. 
 She returns, & takes oiF her bonnet & shawl, 
 throws them down on M'- F.'s great-coat which 
 he had put in a chair. This is her first move, this 
 putting these little matters together & mingling 
 persons by proxy. She then went out & gave one 
 of her set looks at the door. 
 
 March 6. — The next morning she comes up to 
 light his fire, & he wanting his pantaloons 
 brushed, she comes to take them out of his 
 hands, as he gives them to her at the door. She 
 is not dressed to wait at breakfast, but is very 
 gracious & smiling, & repulses a kiss very gently. 
 She afterwards expressly forgives this freedom, & 
 is backwards & forwards all day. On his asking 
 for a newspaper or a book, she brings him up the 
 Round Table, with my name & sincere regards 
 written on the title-page. 
 
 March 7. — This morning she is dressed to wait 
 on the gentlemen. The day before it was too 
 early. Nothing occurs, but she regularly answers 
 the bell, yet does not bring up the things that 
 are wanted, smirks & backs out of the room in 
 
LIBER AMORIS 121 
 
 her wonted manner. A circumstance happens de- 
 cisive of her lying character. M''- ¥., going into 
 the parlour for his umbrella, met her going out 
 to meet Tomkins, her mother repeating the old 
 cantj that it was too late to go to M'- Roscoe's. 
 She, however, went, & her father after her, prob- 
 ably to watch & entrap Tomkins. But F., going 
 upstairs again, found Betsey in the room, and on 
 telling her the bed was not made, she said her 
 sister told her it was, but not turned down. This 
 was no doubt a he, to leave the job to her, & be 
 there on his return. 
 
 At night Miss was gone to bed, & on being asked 
 next morning, whether she did not retire sooner 
 than usual, said " she sometimes went to bed ear- 
 lier & sometimes later." This was just like one 
 of her commonplace answers on all occasions. 
 M''- F. went down for a glass of water, & the 
 brother (Cajah, as they call him) was there. He 
 observed M'- H. always drank water, & they 
 didn't like it at the Southampton Arms. He 
 continued, " I was rather an odd man, a little 
 flighty," he believed, & added smiling, " I was in 
 love." F. did not ask with whom, but said the 
 
122 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 manner and tone convinced him more than any 
 thing that the whole was a regularly understood 
 thing, & that there was nothing singular in gen- 
 tlemen's being in love in that house. 
 March 8, Saturday. — M''- F. got a paper, & lent 
 it to the Father to read. Saw Miss several times. 
 In the evening pressed her to take tea, which 
 she declined, but he followed her to the door, & 
 kissed her several times on the staircase, at which 
 she laughed. While this passed, he had hold of 
 one hand, & the other was at liberty ; but she did 
 not once attempt to raise it so as to make even a 
 show of resistance. This is what she calls " being 
 determined to keep every lodger at a proper dis- 
 tance." Her aunt must know that she has not 
 stuck to her advice. 
 
 March 9 Miss was in close conference with 
 
 Tomkins at a landing just opposite her own door. 
 I wondered what divine music he poured into 
 her ear, to which my words were harsh discord. 
 What, I thought, would I not give to hear those 
 words of that honeyed breath that sinks into her 
 heart, that I might despair, & feel how just has 
 been her preference ! The next morning sure 
 
LIBER AMORIS 123 
 
 enough I had a specimen of this sort of conversa- 
 tion, "to which her ear she seriously inclines." 
 Not T.'s, but any man's. F. insisted on her drink- 
 ing tea with him, declaring he would not sit 
 alone, that he was not used to that sort of thing ; 
 and that if she did not stay, he would not have 
 any tea at all, & would take his hat, & walk out. 
 By that terrible threat she was awed ; she did 
 not " shew an independent spirit,'' & let the gen- 
 tleman go, but said if she rmist stop, she would 
 sit on the chair next the door instead of the one 
 next to him. Wonderful delicacy ! F. then got up, 
 & shut the door, that she might not be exposed 
 to the draught, & Emma, who was waiting on 
 the stairs, went down to announce this new ar- 
 rangement. "Sarah, they all knew, never staid 
 five minutes with any lodger but me." She then 
 poured out the tea, & the talk commenced. 
 F. asked her which of the Essays in the Round 
 Table was a favourite with her, to which she 
 seemed at a loss for an answer. He said he thought 
 that on Methodism was a good one, & asked what 
 she thought of the remark that " David was the 
 first Methodist " } 
 
124 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 She laughed, & said, " M'- H. was full of his re- 
 marks." 
 
 F. answered, " Did she mean on the ladies ? " 
 " No — M'- H. thought very little about the ladies 
 — indeed she believed he cared very little about 
 them." 
 
 F. " In a prose writer this was not so necessary ; 
 but a poet could hardly do without them. What 
 did she think of M'- Moore's Loves of the Angels 9 " 
 She thought it impious to make angels fall in love 
 with women. 
 
 " Had she any of Lord Byron's works } " 
 She had read Cain, which she thought very fine 
 (I think I know which part). 
 " Had she read Don Juan ? " " No ; for her sister 
 said it was impious." 
 
 F. repeated the word Impious, and laughed, at 
 which she laughed. 
 
 " Had M'- F. read any of M'- Procter's poetry } " 
 He could not say; on which she explained M''- 
 Barry Cornwall. 
 " Oh yes ; had she ? " 
 
 "Yes; she had Marcian Colonna & Mirandola, & 
 had seen Mirandola. M'- Procter was a particular 
 
LIBER AMORIS 125 
 
 friend of M'- Hazlitt's, & had very gentle & pleas- 
 ing manners. Miss Foote played Isidore, when she 
 saw it ; she was a pretty girl, but no actress. She 
 liked Miss Stephens as a singer ; her voice was 
 very clear & good ; but her acting was deficient." 
 " Did she like going to the play .'' " " She was fond 
 of tragedy, but did not think comedy worth going 
 to see. She had not been to Drury Lane." — 
 This was a hint that she should Uke to go. We 
 shall see. 
 
 And so she cackled on with her new gallant, T. 
 being in the street with her every night & I in 
 hell for this grinning, chattering idiot. F. said he 
 is sure she is quite incapable of understanding 
 any real . . . , & shut up her lips with me for 
 fear of being found out for what she is, a little 
 mawkish simpleton . . . but it was more stupidity 
 than unkindness. 
 
 She rose to go in about ten minutes, & then, be- 
 ing pressed, sat down again for another quarter of 
 an hour ; & then said she must go to her sister's 
 to take home the child. F. kissed her & let her 
 go. I thought no lodger but me was ever to kiss 
 her again but T. 
 
126 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 The next morning she came up to answer the 
 call, but being in her bed-gown would not come 
 in, but ran up with the breakfast things in ten 
 minutes, drest all in her best. . . . decoy ! Damn'd, 
 treble damn'd idiot ! when shall I burn her out of 
 my thoughts ? — yet I like to hear about her — 
 that she had her bed-gown or her rufiF on, that 
 she stood, or sat, or made some insipid remark, is 
 to me a [blessing ?] from Heaven — to know that 
 she is a [? nane] or an idiot is better than nothing. 
 Were I in Hell, my only consolation would be to 
 hear of her. In Heaven to see her would be my 
 only comfort. 
 
 March 10. — In the evening Betsey waited at tea, 
 her sister, she said, being busy. M''' F. went down 
 afterwards, & sat with the family in the back par- 
 lour, first opposite to her & then next to her. She 
 said little, but laughed and smiled, & seemed quite 
 at her ease. 
 
 Oh low life ! God deliver me from thee ! This was 
 with a person, a perfect stranger to her, & whose 
 only introduction was that he obtruded himself 
 upon her & her friends without ceremony & with- 
 out respect under the pretext that he was too dull 
 
LIBER AMORIS 127 
 
 to sit alone. TomkinSj a lover of a different stamp, 
 will ... be seen with her, or come near the 
 house, so that she reconciles the familiar and the 
 distant — all but true regard, which requires a re- 
 turn, which she cannot feel. Me, poor tortured 
 worm, she rejected on this account. I asked F. 
 how she looked. He said " she had more flesh on 
 her bones than her mother." 
 
 On rising to go upstairs he saw three books 
 piled on the drawing [room-table .''] & on going 
 towards them, M"^^- W. said they were the books 
 he had asked Sarah to lend him, one of mine & 
 two of Procter's. He was going to take them, 
 but said he thought he had better not, as he 
 wanted a good night's rest, & they might pre- 
 vent him. M"^*- W. acceded [to] this, intending her 
 daughter to bring them up in the morning. 
 March 11. — She came up with the books drest. 
 F. asked her to point out a passage in Marcian 
 Colmma, which she liked. She declined this, & 
 said she admired the whole. She in fact, I dare- 
 say, had not read a word of it. He then read some 
 of it, & on her coming up again pretended it was 
 so ... it had made him sentimental & melan- 
 
128 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 choly, so that he should be obliged to turn to 
 M'- Sterne. He then said he would look at Miran- 
 dola, but he was afraid of venturing on a tragedy, 
 so hoped Miss could point out a passage. So she 
 took the book, and turning to the place, where 
 there was the description of herself, said, "This 
 was M'- H.'s favourite passage." . . . F. said he 
 could hardly believe his eyes, when he saw it. 
 [He] said, " he thought it very pretty," but could 
 not reconcile what she said of its [being] my fa- 
 vourite passage with her declaring the day before 
 that I cared very little about the ladies, as it was 
 all about love. 
 
 She hesitated a little, and then repeated, "but 
 [? I] don't think I did," adding, « I don't think 
 M'- H.'s love lasts long." Incomparable piece of 
 clockwork ! To suppose that any one could . . . 
 in her beforehand is ridiculous. She is not good 
 or bad : she is defective in certain faculties that 
 belong to human nature, & acts upon others, be- 
 cause you can make no impression on her. F. says 
 he thinks it would be impossible to offer her 
 rudeness, if she did not seem beforehand what 
 she was. " Being a thing majestical, it were a vio- 
 
LIBER AMORIS 129 
 
 lence, &c." He kissed her heartilyj & put his arms 
 round her neck. 
 
 In the evening she brought up the tea things, but 
 said significantly she couldn't stay then, as there 
 ■was nobody in the house but her father. He came 
 to me, and found she was gone out to get M. 
 some coiFee, that is, to meet Tomkins. If she has 
 two, why not three .'' Her sister was sitting down- 
 stairs with the cliild, when M'- F. bolted into the 
 room for his umbrella, & as she had her back to 
 him, he mistook her for M'^- W., & said, " How 
 do you do. Ma'am.'" She seemed a little dissatis- 
 fied at such familiarity, but the other said, " It's 
 only my sister." 
 
 M"- Roscoe was doubtless ashamed & hurt after 
 the blow-up with me on account of her attach- 
 ment to Tomkins. 
 
 March 12. — The Uttle idiot came up with the 
 breakfast, drest as usual, or (rather) varied, that 
 is, she had a cap on & a shawl which I gave her. 
 F. had got his Marcian Colonna Ijdng on the chair 
 beside him, & when she came in, read her some 
 lines, & asked if she remembered them. "No; 
 but she had the whole." He then asked her to 
 
130 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 look at them, and for that purpose she came 
 round the table to his side, & on his asking her, 
 she sat down. After looking them over, the book 
 was laid aside. 
 
 ******* 
 He told he she would make a pretty nun. That, 
 she said, she never should be. She was not made 
 to be shut up. F. asked her, if she ever went out, 
 & she said, " very seldom, & only in the neigh- 
 bourhood to see her sister." In the afternoon this 
 conversation was renewed in the parlour down- 
 stairs, whUe he [? lay] in bed in the inner room, 
 & she was mending a stocking ; & she then de- 
 clared she did not like to be confined to the con- 
 versation of . . . though she believed the nuns 
 had leave to talk to their confessors. F. observed 
 that one confessor was hardly enough for fifty or 
 sixty nuns. "No?" "It," he said, "there was a 
 confessor for every nun.-"" "That indeed!" said 
 the lady of individual attachments. (Half a dozen 
 would be nothing.) F. then asked her to go to 
 the play. She said she was afraid her mother 
 would object to her going with a stranger. 
 " Phoo ! nonsense ! that was nothing : she really 
 
LIBER AMORIS 131 
 
 must go. She should have her choice of any part 
 of the house except the one shilling gallery. She 
 said her ambition was not so high as that ; no, her 
 ambition was not so high, & [she] laughed at this 
 as an excellent jest. But any part of the boxes : I 
 am exculpated by all this. 
 
 He thought at first she would not talk, but now 
 he was convinced she could not. 
 
 ******* 
 F., speaking of Mr. F., said he seemed out of 
 sorts the other evening. She said Mr. F. knew 
 his ill-humour had no effect on her, and added, 
 " We have not had the pleasure of seeing you in 
 an ill-humour yet." F. answered, " Suppose I was 
 to give you a specimen." She said, " I hope not, 
 till I give you cause." Mr. F., hearing F. above- 
 stairs, called out, « Who 's that ? " F. said, " [me,J 
 Sir," on which the other replied gruffly, " Oh, 
 't was not you I wanted to see, but somebody else." 
 
 ******* 
 March 14. — The mild F. is already, I think, in 
 force with her, & thinks she likes him, & I shan't 
 be able to get her to move. She didn't go to the 
 play the other night. Yesterday he says he could 
 
132 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 make nothing of her. They had a parley in the 
 evening. She did not come up with the tea things, 
 but, on ringing afterwards, she answered the bell. 
 She wouldn't come in. She could hear where she 
 was. F. got up, & sat near her. He began to say 
 he was sorry he staid out at night, & was afraid 
 she thought him .... She said she was not his 
 keeper. [Mr. F. suggested that he wanted some 
 one to love him, and that they might keep com- 
 pany.] She asked if he thought it would be proper. 
 "Oh!" he said, "hang propriety." "What," she 
 said, "you wouldn't hang propriety?" She half 
 hangs it and cuts it down again. "Would it be 
 seemly.'" "Oh," he said, "as to seemly, there 
 was nobody to see them but themselves." While 
 this negociation was going on, she kept on his lap 
 all the time, & at last said she must go now. But 
 she would come & sit with him, when they were 
 gone to bed ? She made no promises ; & so it stands. 
 Saturday, March 15. — She did not come up in the 
 morning ; and nothing was done ; but that, as she 
 put down the curtains at night, he kissed her; 
 .... She only said, " Let me go. Sir," and retir- 
 ing to the door, asked if he would have the fire 
 
LIBER AMORIS 133 
 
 lighted. She didn't come up again. She was al- 
 tered in her manner, & probably trying to make 
 something. 
 
 ******* 
 March l6. — [F.] saw nothing of her in the morn- 
 ing, but asked her to tea — [she] answered "she 
 never drank tea with gentlemen," and was high. 
 F. was in despair, when, returning home at dusk, 
 he met my lady with her muff [ ? walking] along 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields by herself. He saw [her] turn 
 at the corner of Queen Street to go down toward 
 the New Inn. Followed her — asked to accompany 
 — she refused — and on his offering to take her 
 arm, stood stock still, immoveable, inflexible — like 
 herself — & on his saying he wouldn't press her, 
 & offering his hand, she gave it him, & then 
 went on to her lover. I also am her lover, & will 
 live and die for her only, since she can'be true to 
 any one. 
 
 We seem to be unacquainted with the closing 
 scene or stage of this small drama. When the 
 volume known as the Liber Amoris was pub- 
 lished, the hallucination was apparently dissi- 
 pated ; the passion had spent itself ; and the poor. 
 
134 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 weak little book merely fulfilled the humble 
 function of turning the incident to a practical 
 account. 
 
 The committal of the story to print is, no doubt, 
 regrettable ; but it helped, I think, to liberate 
 Hazlitt from the incubus and the unworthy 
 thraldom. He soon regained his mental equili- 
 brium, and I need hardly say that he lived to pro- 
 duce some of his finest and healthiest work. 
 The date at which the LiSer Amoris saw the light 
 was one when the air was unusually redolent of 
 powder. The warfare between the two literary 
 camps was particularly keen and bitter. The fatal 
 duel between Scott and Lockhart in 1821 had not 
 tended to moderate the language of Blackwood. 
 The incisive note of Hazlitt to Cadell in 1823, 
 first recovered and printed by me, shews that the 
 virulence of party spirit was unabated. It must 
 have been in the ensuing year that Hazlitt ap- 
 peared for the first and last time as a writer of 
 verse, and sent from Vevey, in Switzerland, for 
 insertion in the Morning Chronicle or Examiner, 
 the metrical squib, which is worth insertion as a 
 curiosity. 
 
LIBER AMORIS 135 
 
 The following short note accompanies the lines in 
 the original : — 
 
 DEAR Black, — Will you insert this, or hand 
 it over to J. Hunt ? 
 
 Yours ever, W. H. 
 I shall be at home in about a month. I have been 
 to Chamouny. 
 Vevey, August 31st. 
 
 But the communication is addressed outside the 
 sheet to Thomas Hodgkin, Esq., l6, Gough 
 Square, Fleet Street, London, which is partly 
 struck through, and No. 5, Brunswick Terrace, 
 White Conduit Street, Pentonvill, substituted. In 
 the left hand comer is : AffrancM jusqu' <J Calais. 
 
 The Damned Author's Address to his 
 Reviewers. 
 The rock I'm told on which I split 
 Is bad economy of wit — 
 An affectation to he thought 
 Thai Tvhich I am 8f yet am not, 
 Deep, brilliant, new, Sf all the rest ; 
 Help, help, thou great economist 
 
136 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 Of what thou ne'er thyself possest, 
 
 Ofjinanciers the ruthless Moloch, 
 
 Thy, plodding, husky, stiff Maculloch ! 
 
 Or to avoid the consequences 
 
 I may incur from corporate dunces, 
 
 I'll write as Allen writes the livelong day ; 
 
 Whate'er his Lordship says, I'll say — 
 
 (To hint what ne'er mas said before 
 
 Is but to be set down a bore 
 
 By all the learned Whigs and Dames 
 
 Who fear you should out-write Sir James )- 
 
 I'll swear that every strutting elf 
 
 Is just what he conceives himself, 
 
 Or draws his picture to his life 
 
 As all the world would — and his wife ! 
 
 From Mackintosh I'll nature learn, 
 
 With Sydney Smith false glitter spurn ; 
 
 Tend me, oh ! Brougham, thy modesty, 
 
 Thou, Thomas Moore, simplicity ; 
 
 Mill, scorn of juggling politics ; 
 
 Thy soul of candour, Chevenix ; 
 
 And last, to make my measure full. 
 
 Teach me, great J y, to be dull ! 
 
LIBER AMORIS 137 
 
 At the time the writer was intent on other liter- 
 ary work of a more congenial and permanent cast. 
 His Sketches of the Picture Galleries, partly repub- 
 lished from the London Magazine, appeared in 1824j 
 and may help to account for his inquiry from an 
 anonymous correspondent as to the whereabouts 
 of a certain painting: — 
 
 [1823?] 
 
 DEAR Sir, — I will be much obliged to you 
 if you will let me know the name & sub- 
 ject of Guerin's picture at Lucien Buonaparte's. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 W. Hazutt. 
 
A PACKET OF NEW LAMB 
 NOTES AND VERSES 
 
A PACKET OF NEW LAMB 
 NOTES AND VERSES 
 
 LET us once more return to Lamb. Here is a 
 note from him, in the Dalston days, to a 
 •^ correspondent who had just published a 
 volume of stories, about which the recipient, as 
 usual, tries to say something acceptable. 
 
 [Dalston, 1820 (?)] 
 
 DEAR Sir, — I have received a volume of 
 bright little stories, which I do not know or 
 have heard, but guess to be yours. Whosever they 
 are, both myself & Mary have been much pleased 
 with them. The style is many times original & 
 uncommon, rich stuff that would have beat out 
 & spread over a much greater space if the author 
 had not disdained economy. We are at Dalston 
 at present, but I shall hope to see you ere long, 
 to renew acquaint"- The fact is, I am not strong 
 enough for visiting. — Edward and Edmond, and 
 the last tale of all are the favourites. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
142 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 The subjoined note, without any indication of the 
 person to whom it was addressed, may refer to a 
 proposed meeting between Lamb and John How- 
 ard Payne, the American dramatist, of whom 
 Lamb heard or saw a good deal in 1 822-23. 
 
 TO 
 
 [6 May, 1828.]* 
 
 DEAR Sir, — I am coming to town on Thurs- 
 day to meet a friend from Paris, or I should 
 gladly have accepted your invitation. I will take 
 my chance of seeing you as I go to office to-mor- 
 row morning. I shall previously have breakfasted. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Tuesday. ^- ^**'«- 
 
 A letter to an hitherto unknown India House col- 
 league and correspondent is of some interest, as 
 it furnishes the recipient with literary advice and 
 ourselves with a better notion of Lamb's views of 
 the periodical literature of his day, about which 
 Mr. Marter's communication had apparently so- 
 licited light. The accompanjring " Sonnet " must be 
 taken for what it is worth. 
 
 * The date is in the hand of the recipient. 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 143 
 
 TO W. MARTER. 
 
 DEAR MarteRj — I have just rec* your let- 
 ter, having returned from a month's holy- 
 days. My exertions for the London are, tho' not 
 dead, in a dead sleep for the present. If your 
 club like scandal, Blackwood's is your magazine ; 
 if you prefer light articles, and humorous without 
 offence, the Neiv Monthly is very amusing. The 
 best of it is by Horace Smith, the author of the 
 Rejected Addresses. The Old Monthly has more of 
 matter, information, but not so merry. I cannot 
 safely recommend any others, as not knowing 
 them, or knowing them to their disadvantage. Of 
 Reviews, beside what you mention, I know of none 
 except the Review on Hounslow Heath, which I 
 take it is too expensive for your ordering. Pity 
 me, that have been a Gentleman these four weeks, 
 and am reduced in one day to the state of a ready 
 writer. I feel, I feel my gentlemanly qualities fast 
 oozing away — such as a sense of honour, neck- 
 cloths twice a day, abstinence from swearing, &c. 
 The desk enters into my soul. 
 See my thoughts on business next Page. 
 
144 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 SONNET.* 
 
 Whojirst invented work ? — and bound the free 
 
 And hohjday-rejoicing Spirit donm 
 
 To the ever-haunting importunity 
 
 Of Business in the green fields, and the Town — 
 
 To plough, loom, spade, and (oh most sad !) 
 
 To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood ? 
 
 Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, 
 
 Sabbathless Satan ! He, who his unglad 
 
 Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings. 
 
 That round and round incalculably reel — 
 
 For Tvrath divine hath made him like a wheel — 
 
 In that red realm from whence are no returnings ; 
 
 Where toiling Sf turmoiling ever S^ aye 
 
 He and his Thoughts keep pensive worky-day. 
 
 With many recollections of pleasanter times^ my 
 
 old compeer, happily released before me, Adieu. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 E. I. H. 
 
 19 July, [1824.] t 
 
 * Comp. The Lambs, 1897, p. 152. 
 
 t The year is supplied by the post-mark. Endorsed : W. 
 
 Marter, Esq"> Nockholt, near Seven Oaks, Kent. 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 145 
 
 The whole interest of the subjoined scrap lies in 
 the two-fold fact that it is the only relic of the 
 kind to an intimate official acquaintance, and 
 appears to indicate to what department of the 
 India House Evans belonged. His entrance on 
 the India House staif is noted in a letter to 
 Coleridge of 1 796. There the writer tells his cor- 
 respondent that his then new colleague belonged 
 to a branch of the family, which he used to 
 know ; but a gentleman of the same name, and a 
 Cambro-Briton, was, in Lamb's short stay at the 
 South Sea House, cashier there, and was, from 
 Lamb's account in his paper on the subject, 
 a person of literary and antiquarian tastes. As in 
 the letter to Coleridge Lamb's colleague at the 
 India House is described as "young Evans," he 
 may have been a son of the other; and the 
 cashier may have been the collector of the valu- 
 able illustrated Byron now in the British Mu- 
 seum. Was this family related to the Rev. Mr. 
 Evans of Tavistock, where Hazlitt's son (my fa- 
 ther) was at school in 1824 } Compare Tlie Lambs, 
 1897, p. 35, where a John Evans of Montgomery- 
 shire is mentioned as a Blue-Coat boy about 
 
146 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 Lamb's time — perhaps another son of him of the 
 South Sea House. 
 
 TO W. EVANS. 
 
 [Before 1825.} 
 D' E. — The enclosed (from Barry Cornwall) is 
 yours. 
 
 W. Evans, Esq., C. Lamb. 
 
 Baggage Warehouse. 
 
 The three next communications are to Hone 
 (about the Extracts from the Garrick Plays'), Basil 
 Montagu, and a third party unnamed. The latter 
 two belong to a class of letter, to which Lamb 
 had a rather special dislike, as he even went out 
 of his way, and would incur personal expense, to 
 avoid asking favours from friends. 
 I am not sure whether it is generally known that 
 Hone's daughter Matilda, whose name occurs 
 more than once in the later correspondence, mar- 
 ried Mr. J. S. Bum, the theatrical bookseller in 
 Bow Street, Covent Garden, and the author of 
 several interesting and valuable works. The Fable 
 enclosed refers to one of Lamb's schoolfellows at 
 Christ's Hospital. 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 147 
 
 TO WILLIAM HONE. 
 
 [18^6.] 
 
 DEAR Hone, — having occasion to -write to 
 Clarke I put in a bit to you. I see no Ex- 
 tracts in this N"- You should have three sets in 
 hand, one long one in particular from Atreus and 
 Thyestes, terribly fine. Don't spare 'em; with 
 fragments, divided as you please, they'll hold out 
 to Xmas. What I have to say is enjoined me most 
 seriously to say to you by Moxon. Their country 
 customers grieve at getting the Table Book so late. 
 It is indispensable it should appear on Friday. Do 
 it but once, & you '11 never know the difference. 
 
 Fable 
 A boy at my school, a cunning fox, for one penny 
 ensured himself a hot roll & butter every morn- 
 ing for ever. Some favor'd ones were allowed a 
 roll & butter to their breakfasts. He had none. 
 But he bought one one morning. What did he 
 do .'' he did not eat it. But cutting it in two, sold 
 each one of the halves to a half-breakfasted Blue 
 Boy for his whole roll to-morrow. The next day 
 he had a whole roll to eat, and two halves to 
 
148 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 swap with other two boys, who had eat their 
 cake & were still not satiated, for whole ones to- 
 morrow. So on ad infinitum. By one morning's ab- 
 stinence he feasted seven years after. 
 
 Application 
 Bring out the next N°- on Friday, for country 
 correspondents' sake. I[t] will be one piece of ex- 
 ertion, and you will go right ever after, for you 
 will have just the time you had before, to bring it 
 out ever after by the Friday. 
 You don't know the diflPerence in getting a thing 
 early. Your correspondents are your authors. 
 You don't know how an author frets to know the 
 world has got his contribution, when he finds it 
 not on his breakfast table. 
 
 Once in this case is Ever without a grain of 
 trouble afterw'''- 
 I wont like you or speak to you if you dont try it 
 
 once. 
 
 Yours, on that condition, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 D 
 
 EAR Sir, — I feel ashamed at this applica- 
 tion to you. I have no right to make it. 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 149 
 But I feel I cannot resist it. I have a God Son, a 
 Nephew, a very fine youth, who is out of employ. 
 The establishment with which he was connected 
 is suddenly broke up. He wants employment. If 
 by your city interest you could introduce him into 
 any Clerkly employment, how much I should feel 
 obliged! I hate myself for asking a favour. I would 
 not for myself. Pray, believe me that if this is not 
 in your power, never shall I cease to love and re- 
 spect you. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 TO BASIL MONTAGU. 
 
 DEAB B. M., — You are a kind soul of your- 
 self, and need no spurring, but if you can 
 help a worthy man you will have two worthy men 
 obliged to you. I am writing from Hone's possible 
 Coffee House, which must answer, if he can find 
 means to open it, which unfortunately flag ^ We 
 propose a little subscription — but I know how 
 tender a subject the pocket is — Your Advice may 
 be important to him. 
 
 Yours most truly, 
 C. Lamb. 
 This is a letter of business, so I wont send un- 
 
160 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 seasonable Love to M'^- Montague & the both 
 good Proctors. 
 
 Some one connected with a periodical had applied 
 to Lamb for his co-operation^ and, the question of 
 pa3mnent having arisen for articles supplied and 
 printed, the author expressed himself dissatisfied 
 with the amount sent. The present is a reply to a 
 letter, in which the Editor or Publisher had ap- 
 parently explained the circumstances. 
 
 TO AN EDITOR OR PUBLISHER. 
 
 DEAR Sir, — I am quite ashamed, after your 
 kind letter, of having expressed any disap- 
 pointment about my remuneration. It is quite equi- 
 valent to the value of anything I have yet sent you. 
 I had Twenty Guineas a sheet from the London, 
 and what I did for them was more worth that 
 sum than anything, I am afraid, I can now pro- 
 duce, would be worth the lesser sum. I used up 
 all my best thoughts in that publication, and I do 
 not like to go on writing worse & worse, & feeling 
 that I do so. I want to try something else. How- 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 151 
 ever, if any subject turns up, which I think will 
 do your Magazine no discredit, you shall have it 
 at your price, or something between that and my 
 old price. I prefer writing to seeing you just now, 
 for after such a letter as I have received from you, 
 in truth I am ashamed to see you. We will never 
 mention the thing again. 
 
 Your obliged friend & Serv'- 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 June H. 
 
 There is a letter from Lamb to Gary, of April 3rd, 
 1826, inviting him to meet George Darley and 
 Allan Cunningham at Enfield on the following 
 Wednesday. But the present unprinted note (the 
 only one known of its kind) refers to some gather- 
 ing in town — possibly for the purpose of discus- 
 sing the position of the Magazine, then very near 
 its dissolution. 
 
 D 
 
 [About April, 1826.'\ 
 
 TO ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 EAR Sir, — Our friends of the Lond. M. 
 meet at 20 Russell St., Cov. Gar., this 
 
162 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 evens at ^ before 7. I shall be disappointed if you 
 are not among them. Yours, 
 
 With perfect sympathy, 
 Thursd. C. Lamb. 
 
 In the Four Generations of a Literary Family, 1897, 
 I have inserted two or three letters from Hazlitt 
 to Clarke respecting the Life of Napoleon. Here 
 we have a note, which does not touch business 
 matters, evidently written from Winterslow. Buck- 
 ingham was the founder of the Athenceum. 
 
 TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. 
 
 [Winterslow, early part of 1828. ~\ 
 
 DEAR Clarke, — Convey (the wise it call) the 
 enclosed hare and Wiltshire bacon to the 
 most agreeable of biographers at Highgate; & 
 the other thumper & the article to the Editor of 
 
 editors, J. S Buckingham, Esq. 
 
 [W. H.]* 
 
 Tell Henry t if he has a sweet tooth that way to 
 detain the hogs-flesh. 
 
 * The Initials cut out. 
 
 t Henry Leigh Hunt, Clarke's partner. 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 163 
 A rather interesting letter to Hazlitt's son refers 
 inter alia to a Life of the Essayist as aheady on 
 the stocks — doubtless that which accompanied 
 the Literary Remains in 1836 after Lamb's death. 
 But no verses by him on his old friend seem to 
 have been actually composed. They would have 
 possessed a charm of their own. 
 
 TO WILLIAM HAZLITT, JR. 
 
 [Postmarked Sept. IS, 1831.] 
 
 DEAR W™', — We have a sick house, Mrs. 
 Westw*' daughter in a fever, & Grandaugh- 
 ter in the meazles, & it is better to see no com- 
 pany just now, but in a week or two we shall be 
 very glad to see you ; come at a hazard then, on a 
 week day if you can, because Sundays are stuflPd 
 up with friends on both parts of this ill-mix' d 
 family. Your second letter, dated S^ Sept', came 
 not till SundV & we staid at Home in evens in ex- 
 pectation of seeing you. I have turned & twisted 
 what you ask'd me to do in my head, & am 
 obliged to say I can not undertake it — but as a 
 composition for declining it, will you accept some 
 verses which I meditate to be addrest to you on 
 
164 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 your father, & preiixable to your Life ? Write me 
 
 word that I may have 'em ready against I see 
 
 you some 10 days hence, when I calculate the 
 
 House will be uninfected. Send your mother's 
 
 address. 
 
 If you are likely to be again at Cheshunt before 
 
 that time, on second thoughts, drop in here, & 
 
 consult — 
 
 Yours, 
 
 C. L. 
 Not a line is yet written — so say, if I shall do 
 em. 
 
 [Endorsed] 
 
 W. Hazlitt, Esq., ^ 
 
 15, Wardour Street, 
 Soho. 
 
 A copy of verses by Lamb, referring to the daugh- 
 ters of Vincent Novello, is addressed : — 
 
 For 
 
 Saint Cecilia, 
 
 at Sign"- Vincenzo Novella's 
 
 Music Repository, 
 
 No. 67, Frith Street, 
 Soho. 
 
NEW LAMB NOTES & VERSES 166 
 
 The Sisters. 
 On Emma's honest brow we read display'd 
 The constant virtues of the Nut Brown Maid ; 
 Mellifivous sounds on Clara's tongue we hear, 
 Notes that once lured a Seraph from his sphere ; 
 Cecilia's eyes such winning beauties crown 
 As without song might draw her Angel down. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 This eiFusion belongs to what may be termed 
 the Novello epoch, but is posterior to that of 
 November 8th, 1830, which I elsewhere erro- 
 neously describe as the last of the series, as this 
 bears the Edmonton post-mark, and was probably 
 written in 1833. To the very last Lamb con- 
 tinued to swell the stock of literary trifles, for 
 which he was perpetually importuned by friends. 
 The slender volume of Album Verses, 1830, had 
 been already reinforced by as much matter again, 
 dispersed up and down among friends and corres- 
 pondents. The quality scarcely improved. 
 These later pieces of correspondence and versifi- 
 cation, trivial as many of them are, were com- 
 posed during years of comparative ease and tran- 
 
166 LAMB AND HAZLITT 
 
 quility, forming a potent contrast to those of 
 hardship and trial, through which the writer 
 passed at Christ's Hospital (as it was managed a 
 century ago), and to the sordid misery of the pa- 
 ternal home. We can barely read with patience 
 even now the descriptions embodied in the pub- 
 lished Essays of the barbarous and cruel scho- 
 lastic discipline to which a sensitive and weakly 
 boy, such as Lamb was, was subjected by the 
 schoolmaster of the old type ; and then, owing to 
 domestic exigencies and his sister's dependence 
 on him, he transferred himself from one scene of 
 checkered existence to another. In estimating 
 these minor effusions, of which so many have 
 gradually come to light, while a large number 
 has possibly perished, we need not envy the com- 
 fortable resources, the leisure hour, the gaiety or 
 even levity here and there betrayed ; they were, 
 set against that school-day, office-desk. Little 
 Queen Street retrospect, and that life-long sor- 
 row and burden, as nothing. We can only wonder 
 that even such a cheerful and recuperative tem- 
 perament as Lamb's did not sooner yield to the 
 ever-pressing load ! 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Alphington, 49 
 America, xlv., 1, 9, 23 
 Anti-Jacobin Magazine, 
 xxxvii., xliv. 
 
 Barton, Bernard, xxxviii.- 
 
 xli. 
 
 Lucy, XXV. 
 
 Beauty and the Beast, 
 
 XXX., xxxi., xxxii. 
 Black, Algernon, xxxiii. 
 
 John, 13S 
 
 Blackwoods, 134 
 Blanchard, Laman, xxxviii. 
 Boston, N. E., 12, 14, 23 
 Brodie, Sir B., li. 
 Bruton Family, ix.-x., xi. 
 Buckingham, J. S., 152 
 Buonaparte, Lucien, 137 
 Burn, J. S., 146 
 Burneys, The, xxvu.-viii. 
 Byron, Lord, li., 124 
 
 Chambers Family, xxxiii. 
 " Champion," xxxvi., xlix. 
 Christ's Hospital, xxxvii., 
 
 146 
 Clarke, C. C, 152 
 Cobbetl, W., xlvi.-vii. 
 Coleridge, Rev. E., xlix. 
 S. T., xv.-xviii. 
 
 Cruikshank, G., xlvi. 
 Cunningham, Allan, 151 
 
 Damers, The, 1 et seqq. 
 Darley, George, 151 
 Dickens, Charles, 49 
 Dodd, Mead, & Co., xxvi. 
 Duncan, (Dr.), Ciceronian 
 Academy, lii. 
 
 Edwards, Dr., 57 
 Ellenborough, Lord, xlvii, 
 Evans, W. 145-6. 
 
 Fields, The, ix.-x. 
 Fitzgerald, Mrs. Edward, 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Foote, Miss, 125 
 
 Foss Family, xxvii.-viii. 
 
 Gillray, xxxvii. 
 Gladmans, The, ix.-x. 
 Godwin, W., xxxv. 
 
 "Mr. H.,''xviii., xxx., 91 
 Hackney College, 33 et 
 
 seqq. 
 HalloweU, 12-14 
 Hazlitts, The, xix., xx., 
 
 xxvi., xlii., et seqq. 
 Hodgkin, Thomas, 135 
 
160 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Holcroft, Thomas, xlix. 
 Hone, W.,xlvi.-vii., 146-49 
 Hume, Joseph, xxvi., 63 
 
 et seqq. 
 Hunt, Leigh, xxxvi., li.-liii. 
 
 Ireland, 3 et seqq., 11 
 
 "John Woodvil," xxx, 
 Johnson, Joseph, S8 
 
 Kelly, Fanny and Lydia, 
 
 xxvl.-vil. 
 Kemble, Charles, liv. 
 Kenneys, The, xxxiv.-v. 
 Keymer, James, xxxviii.- 
 
 xU. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, ix, et seqq. 
 
 and passim 
 Lamb's Correspondence, 
 
 xxiv.-xxix. 
 Lamb's Library, xxi.-xxiv. 
 Lambj John, the elder, xi.- 
 
 xiii. 
 the younger, xiii.- 
 
 XV., xxii. 
 Lewis Family, 8 
 Liberal, The, xxxvi. 
 Lion's Head, liv. 
 Lloyds, The, xv.-xviii., 
 
 xliv. 
 Loftus Family, 6, S8-9 
 London Magazine, 151 
 
 Lunar Society or Lunatics, 
 li. 
 
 Maidstone, 6-8 
 Manning, T., xix. 
 Marter, W., 143-44 
 Milton, J., xvii. 
 Montagu, Basil, 149 
 
 Mrs., ISO 
 
 Moore, T., 124 
 Moxon, Edward, xxxv. 
 
 Napoleon, xlv., xlviii. 
 "New Times," 1. 
 NoaiUes, Duchesse de, 57 
 Norris Family, xxiv. 
 Novellos, The, 154^55 
 
 Orinoco Tobacco smoked 
 by C. Lamb, xix. 
 
 Paris, 55-57 
 Parsons, Nancy, 116 
 Patmore, [P. G., 113-115 et 
 
 seqq. 
 Payne, J. H., 142 
 Philadelphia Theatre, xxx. 
 Priestley, Joseph, li., 27 
 "Prince Dorus," xxx.-ii. 
 Procters, The, 114, 124, 
 
 127, 150 
 
 R. and R., xxxvi. 
 Railtons, The, 20 
 
INDEX 
 
 161 
 
 Robinson, H. C, xiv., 
 
 xxxiii. 
 Roscoes, The, 119, 121, &c. 
 "Round Table," 120, 123 
 Russell, Rev. J. F., xxix., 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Salt, Samuel, xii.-xiii. 
 Shronell, 1-4 
 Slddons, Henry, xxxv. 
 Smith, J. T., xii.-iii. 
 Southey, xliv.-xlvi. 
 Stephens, Miss, 125 
 Sterne, L., xiii., 128 
 Stoddarts, The, xlviii.-li., 
 
 64, 76, 105-108 
 Sivift, J., 5 
 
 Talfourd, Sir T. N., hii. 
 Thackeray, W. M., H. 
 Thelwall, John, xlix. 
 Thomas, Rev. Samuel, 8 
 Tingry, P. F., 58-60 
 Titian, Hazlitt's Copies 
 
 from, 56 
 Tracys, The, 19 et seqq. 
 
 Watt, James, li. 
 Way, Mr. , of Chicago, xxvi. 
 Websters, The, 65 
 Wordsworth, W., xvii. 
 
 Yates Family, of Liver- 
 pool, 20, 25 
 Yates, Raymond, vii. 
 "Yellow Dwarf," xlvii. 
 

 ?h*!53 
 
 '^i!l?^.=?>