to the "joint stock" venture of Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd, which is described in the "Memorials." More curious still that Lamb himself should seem to forget this modest entrance on the stage of his little verses; for in a dedication that came long after, he says, addressing Coleridge, "It would be a kind of disloyalty to offer to any one but yourself a volume containing the early pieces which were first published among your poems. My friend Lloyd and myself came into our first battle under cover of the greater Ajax." Coleridge in his preface introduces those soft and pretty initials "C. L.," which were to have a sort of color and harmony for the eye, and for forty years were to grow very familiar to the public. "The Effusions," he says, "signed C. L. were written by Mr. CHARLES LAMB, of the India House. dependent of his signature, their superior merit would have distinguished them." A style and title which seems to have struck quaintly on Lamb's ear, for when the new poems were getting ready he wrote out a full title-page with the same description.* These three sonnets are the ones commencing, "Was it some sweet device of fairy land?" which becomes "Effusion XI." of Coleridge; and "Methinks how dainty sweet it were," which is "Effusion XII.;" and "I could laugh to hear the midnight wind," which in his collected poems becomes one of a series, and is only distinguished by a number, but here has a lofty title, WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT BY THE SEA-SIDE AFTER A VOYAGE. In When the "Album Verses" came out, a smart but very short and trifling criticism, done in a flippantly slashing style, welcomed them in the Literary Gazette. It is inconceivable at this distance of time how such a comment, scarcely to be compared with a really "severe" notice of our day, could have caused such deep resentment. But there was then savage warfare, semi-political, among those who * Lloyd could have had no share in this collection, as Coleridge acknowledges every one's assistance handsomely, even to the "rough sketch of Effusion XVI.," and to the "first half of Effu sion XV." used the pen professionally, and reviews were often the arms of politics. "If anything," said this notice, "could prevent our laughing at the present collection of absurdities, it would be a lamentable conviction of the blinding and engrossing nature of vanity. We could forgive the folly of the original composition, but can not but marvel at the egotism which has preserved and the conceit which has published. What an exaggerated notion must that man entertain of his talents who believes their slightest efforts worthy of remembrance; one who keeps a copy of the verses he writes in young ladies' albums, the proverbial receptacles for trash!” These were good set terms, and they finished with harder, giving great commendation to the typography, but adding, "we could have dispensed with this specimen." It "And The whole was scarcely a column in length; but it excited the deepest resentment. Southey and Hunt rushed into the Times and into the Examiner with stinging verses and bitter prose. was remembered long after, and yet it should have been recollected, that the Gazette had done ample justice to Lamb's other productions, and that, with the high standard Lamb himself had furnished to his friends and admirers, these are poor and weakly, though graceful, rhymes. Long after, noticing "Elia's Essays," the same journal alluded to the attacks that had been made on itself. nearly the whole of the dirty would-be squibs and epigrams which issued from the scribbling clique alluded to, rang the changes on Peter Pindar's filthy idea expanded into the corresponding rhyme.' Nothing could be more cordial than their welcome of the Essays. They did not visit on his head what they owed to his friends. "But to return to this delightful volume," they said of the "last essays," which shall be "bound in freshclad hopeful green-we were going to have said, and gold-but that is too costly for the daily wear and tear of its future destiny." A genial expression of enjoyment, like what Leigh Hunt would have spoken. So, too, with the "Tales from Shakspeare." "The book is neatly bound in colored cloth-a species of binding which has a very good effect, though, we fear, not very lasting." So with the "Specimens ""a new and very neat edition of a book which ought to be never out of print, for it is full of sweetness and beauty." His verses they could not tolerate. "The gems, it may be, are not all diamonds and precious stones, but the Bristol stones and garnets are extremely pretty, and the best of their kind." After all, what was this to the attack of the old Monthly Review, now in a sort of toothless dotage, but in which the old sour juices of Kenrick, chief of review hacks," and of the Griffiths who wrung Goldsmith's heart, seemed still to circulate. It led off in this fashion: 66 "Some few years ago there was in this metropolis a little coterie of half-bred men who took up poetry and literature as a trade, and who, having access to one or two Sunday newspapers, and now and then to the magazines and reviews, puffed off each other as the first writers of the day. Among them was Mr. Leigh Hunt, Mr. Proctor, better known under the Namby-Pamby title of Barry Cornwall, Mr. Hazlitt, some half a dozen others whose names we forget, and Mr. Charles Lamb, the inditer of the precious verses before us. "Poor fellow! he looks more like a ghost than anything human or divine. His verses partake of the same character. They were gleaned from the albums of rural damsels, who, hearing that Charles Lamb was an author, chose to have a morceau from his classic pen to show to their sires and lovers. "At one time, from the causes which we have stated, and from the assenting and thoughtless smiles of one or two celebrated men, this individual gained a reputation for quaint wit. So quaint, indeed, does it appear to have been, that it has not kept. It has grown so musty that it is no longer fit for use. Charles Lamb, forsooth, thinks that such effusions as the 'Album Verses' will be equally serviceable to Mr. Moxon. Delicious to the ear of Miss Jane Towers was, no doubt, the address of a poet who had never chanced to see her fair fice. Our only regret is, that the book was not only clasped tight, but locked, however injurious the consequences might have been to poor Moxon. "How far such a publisher as Mr. Moxon ought to be considered as an accomplice in your transgressions, is a question that would admit of no doubt. "He ought to be adjudged the greatest offender of all; and the least degree of punishment assignable to such a convict should be to give him an hour or two in the hopper." It will scarcely be believed that this could ever have been penned so lately as thirty years ago. Lamb, however, was not fairly open to the heavy charge of putting by or taking copies of all his light verses for the albums. Not long ago a gentleman found "John Woodvil" in a bookseller's window, with some verses on the fly-leaf, not included in the collected works. 66 WHAT IS AN ALBUM? "September 7, 1830.* ""Tis a book kept by modern young ladies for show, Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know; A medley of scraps, half verse and half prose, And some things not very like either, God knows. The first soft effusions of beaus and of belles, Of_future Lord Byrons, and sweet L. E. L.'s; Where wise folk and simple both equally join, And you write your nonsense that I may write mine. Stick in a fine landscape, to make a display A flower-piece, a foreground! all tinted so gay, As Nature herself, could she see them, would strike With envy, to think that she ne'er did the like; And since some Lavaters, with head-pieces comical, Have agreed to pronounce people's heads physiognomical, Be sure that you stuff it with autographs plenty, All penned in a fashion so stiff and so dainty, They no writing, more resemble folk's ordinary Than lines penned with pains do extempore writing, Or our every-day countenance (pardon the stricture) The faces we make when we sit for our picture; Then have you, Madelina, an album complete, Which may you live to finish, and I live to see it. "C. LAMB." Talfourd has only glanced at the rude treatment" John Woodvil" met with from the young Edinburgh Review; but a specimen of its past complacency, and *Notes and Queries. almost boyish impudence in dealing with It must be said that a book of the class "Mr. Lamb," will be amusing. It is to of "John Woodvil," coming out in our the same note which Sidney Smith struck own day, and from the hand of a wriin the first number, where, dealing with ter so obscure as Lamb then was, would Parr's sermons, and Parr's wig, telling have been a very tempting plot to be set of the "boundless convexity of friz" of before a critic. the latter, and recovering the reviewer out of a trance by removing the former to a distance. The play, say these agreeable wags Mary Ottery. Margaret. I know it. In the sweet shire of Devon. "The exactness of John's information is of peculiar use; as Margaret, having been some time at Nottingham, may be supposed to have forgotten the name of the parish, and perhaps of the sweet shire itself; and the cautious and solemn iteration at the close, in an affair of so much moment, gives an emphasis to the whole that is almost inimitable." They then remark on the extraordinary development of "drunkenness" through the piece; and reading it over now, it must be confessed that this phase seems to recur a little often. ‘(Enter at another door, Three calling for Harry Freeman.) • Harry Freeman! Harry Freeman! He is not here. Let us go look for him. Where is Freeman? Where is Harry? [Exeunt the Three, calling for Freeman.'] We may here remark, as tending to increase the confusion so happily expressive of drunkenness, the ingenuity of the artifice by which four speeches are given to those persons, without stating to whom the fourth shall belong." But a more severe stroke follows: "If the plot and character of 'John Woodvil' be not sufficient to establish its antiquity, its language will powerfully concur. The most ancient versification was probably very rude." Then quoting a sentence from Burton, "which Mr. Lamb introduced, perhaps, as descriptive of his own composition:" "The fruit, issue, children, of these my morning meditations, have been certain crude, impolite, incomposite (what shall I say?) verses." "Elia" is a book of the sort that should be "eterne." Too much honor could not be paid to it typographically. There should be an "edition of luxury," with "toned paper," and new type, and "bevelled boards," and rich in illustrations. Apart from such dainties it would bear a commentary, and glosses, and scholia. with parallel passages, out of his letters Above all, one would like foot notes, and from his life. Thus, we remember his rambles on lending books, and his exception in favor of Coleridge. He says he enriches when he returns, furnishing splendid marginalia and MSS. notes, instancing rare old "Daniel," the English historian, and other names. curious that, not long ago, this very Daniel," thus enriched, was brought to light; and in our proposed (Utopian it may be) annotated "Elia" we should have a reference to these notes. Now it is Lovers of Leigh Hunt, who like to hear him chatter pleasantly in his Tatler, and Indicator, and London Journal, will remember the fond personal tone of criticism with which he dealt with favourite He books, and the beauties of favorite books. He is like an epicurean over a choice dish. No doubt, like his friend Lamb, he was tempted to say grace before banquets of books, as before banquets of meat. This doting and almost succulent relish has something genuine in it, though Hunt seems to have been almost too catholic in his taste. He found some sort of beauty in every page almost. scored profusely with his pencil. His welcome to the fifth edition of "The Tales from Shakespeare" is, in the fullest sense, of that quiet "purring" enjoyment with which he used to hang over a book he loved. In that pleasant daily "Tatler," "price one penny," whose motto was "Veritas et varietas," he speaks heartily and with beaming eyes: "There is a certain neatness and painstaking in the vignettes to this volume, and a meritorious wish to make every figure tell. It is a pity the artist has made his figures so tall, and for the most part so weak in their bearing. The letter-show the China dish through it, neighpress is delightful. The beautiful sim- boring a slip of invisible brown, which plicity of this series of tales made us, abuts upon something they call a tartlet, when a child, hold it, as we still do, one as that is bravely supported by an atom of our favorite books-one of the few of marmalade, flanked in its turn by a we especially love, that we would carry grain of potted beef, with a power of on a journey or save from an accident. such dishling minims of hospitality, It is a book in every way calculated to spread in defiance of human nature, or diffuse the love of the great dramatist, rather with an utter ignorance of what which must have made Mr. Lamb con- it demands." Was there ever such a ceive and accomplish his benignant and description, such exquisite contempt, as pleasant task." No one, in truth, so in the phrase "dishling minims of hospilovably appreciated "Elia" as Hunt. tality," and such cautious accuracy in the Here is the London Journal, where announcement that closes the sentence? Hunt had "full swing," and could pour "To be continued," the first of the speciout his whims and fancies with the freest mens was prefaced, "until his works are familiarity-a book of the most varied gone through;" but, unhappily, the jourand agreeable reading we can find. Into nal, like all Hunt's journals, was already this he copied choice bits of "Elia," with tottering, and presently fell. little introductions specially his own, as"[Here followeth, gentle reader, the immortal record of Mrs. Battle and her whist-a game which the author, as thou wilt see, wished that he could play for ever; and accordingly, in the deathless pages of his wit, for ever will he play it. -ED.]" That was a very pretty trait of Charles Lamb, which is found in one of Hunt's Indicators, and which is worth pages of description; "and thought how natural it was in C. L. to give a kiss to an old folio, as I once saw him do to Chapman's Homer." The same paper* gives us a charming sketch of Lamb among his books:-"I believe I did mention his book-room to C. L., and I think he told me that he often sat there when alone. It would be hard not to believe him. In another place he says affectionately, "We wish that the London Journal should contain whatever has been said in any quarters calculated to do honor to our excellent friend, and to increase His library, though not abounding in the desire of the reading public to become acquainted with him." In this journal of his, Leigh Hunt had a pleasant practice of reading a poem, as it were, aloud with his readers, and pointing out beauties to them by scoring special passages. The first of his selections from Lamb, and only the first, he read in this way, and it is of some little interest to see what strokes specially excited his imagination. He picks out the "Burial Society," underlining "what sting is there in death which the handles with the wrought gripes are not calculated to pluck away?what victory in the grave which the drops and the velvet pall do not render at least extremely disputable?"-which, it will be recollected, refers to an undertaker's advertisement, and is exquisitely ludicrous. He also selects "ugly subjects," and the marvellous description of the old maid's supper set out for their party, which it is impossible to refrain from giving here:-"A sliver of ham, purposely contrived to be transparent to Greek and Latin, is anything but superficial. The depths of philosophy and poetry are there, the imminent passages of the human heart. It has some Latin too. It has also a handsome contempt for appearance. The for appearance. It looks like what it is -a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls; now a Chaucer, at 9s. 2d.; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne, at 28.; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza, an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney, and the books are real as imputed.' The very perusal of the backs is a discipline of humanity.' There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend; here Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden; there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the greater lamb Sewell; there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claim admitted. Even the high fantastical' Duchess of Newcastle, Literary Examiner, No. 1; Indicator, No. 77. with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honors." All who recollect how Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, recurs to Charles Lamb, and recall his burlesque affection for that book, must see that he has been pouring this comic fancy into Leigh Hunt's ear. But it has not been remarked what a curious likeness there is between this paper of Hunt's and Lamb's delightful paper on "Books and Reading," which, it must be said, appears to have been later in date. Leigh Hunt was then abroad in Italy, and his "Indicator," "My Books," appeared on the 5th of July, 1823. Now, Lamb's first "Elia" series was published in that very year; and if "Books and Reading" had been written he would have included it in his collection. It might have been that the odd fancies and even expressions might have been part of his daily and nightly talk-even of his letters, which he had poured out upon his friends, and which were vividly present to Hunt's mind. A few casual passages will show this singular resemblance. I am almost inclined to believe that we have actually thoughts of Lamb's, which, with a nicer sense, he dropped out of his own essay. In his relation to William Hone-the chatty and entertaining compiler of the "Every Day" and "Table Books"Lamb comes out pleasantly. It was a sort of "Athenian oracle,' or, better still, the "current notes" of the day; and there were correspondents who wrote and answered each other. The grateful dedication is worth preserving apart: "To Charles Lamb, esq. “DEAR L.,—Your letter to me, written the first two months from the commencement of the present work, approving my notice of St. Chad's Well, and you afterwards daring to publish me your friend,' with your proper naine annexed, I shall never forget. Nor can I forget your and Miss Lamb's sympathy and kindness when glooms outmastered me; and that your pen spontaneously sparkled in the book when my mind was in clouds and darkness. These 'trifles,' as each of you would call them, are benefits scored upon my heart; and I dedicate this volume to you and Miss Lamb with affectionate respect. 66 W. HONE." This speaks of a world of kindly and delicate acts, and very likely of pecuniary aid. With the good personality, which was a feature of his time, Hone brought them on in the very first month of his book :-"Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times; she full of kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially; he no less kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse with the world, and ever and anon giving us scenes that Motteux and Defoe would admire, and portraits that Denner and Hogarth would rise from their graves to paint." Hone had described, and pleasantly described, the memoirs of Captain Starkey, "a fine uncut copy of which was penes me" (a favourite expression of Lamb's), and which in a few numbers after brought out some of that delightful " drollery" which, besides good as any official essay of Elia, furnishes a bit of biography really valuable. From it we find that both he and his sister went to a school where Starkey had been usher about a year before they came to it-a room that looked into "a discolored, dingy garden in the passage leading from Fetter-lane into Bartlett's Buildings." "Heaven knows what languages were taught there. I am sure that neither my sister nor myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English." Bird and Cook, he says, were the masters. Bird had "that peculiar mild tone especially when he was inflicting punishment-which is so much more terrible to children than the angriest looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent, but when they took place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, whence we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the decorum and solemnity." He then described the ferrule-" that almost obsolete weapon now," and "the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness with which its strokes were applied. To make him look more formidable-if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings-Bird wore one of those flowered Indian gowns formerly in use with schoolmasters, the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics of pain and suffering." This is in Lamb's most delightful vein. So, too, with other incidents of the school. "Our little leaden ink-stands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into |