The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-08 00:00:00

•F/ LITERATURE.
4741‘ MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB.
A L Vols. By Thomas Noon Talfourd.
last the mystery which had enveloped the
s'uvier of poor Charles Lamb is explained. The
'ntid
teem,°. and appalling revelations of a British Quar
tiles Reviewer compelled Sergeant Talfourd to break
thleel and the death of Mary Lamb, the gentle but
nhelrned sister of Elia, justified him in so doing.
lle nal memorials of the oddest, quaintest, delight
st, sweetest, noblest, best of essayists, lie befor.
Q.ren They reveal Charles Lamle in a new character.
DA:, as had been our admiration for his genius—so
ere had
80 true, so earnest, so unalloyed, indeed, that
ta.11171,d fancied it impossible to view through a more
elat°°ling medium the memory of a dead man whom
tl
taiseshad never beheld in the flesh—we
itie_e°veFll`.etbY acknowledge a
nothing t once that what our
to
it
is as
is, now that we have read the two enthralling
?e!. Ines from the pen of Thomas Noon Talfourd
It_herto we had loved Charles Lamb—now we reve-
wine Hitherto we had loved him for his
it:..°oln so sweet, for his wit so genuine and guile-
s' for
or
andh his
mhuanly humour so fantastic, for his nature so
and yet so innocent and childlike
Nfor the deep affection that beamed and sparkled out
ec in the wrinkled beauty of his " old, old face."
We reverence him as we reverence the great
hearts of antiquity—because in the meek and
tielowly life of this man we recognise a patience, and a
tOitl and a self-sacrifice, and a magnani-
,,,tY such as have rarely, if ever before, been
tllettlessed since the world first " spun along
Hord grooves of change." To give in a few
the sad tragedy which fell like a
thunderbolt upon the house of Lamb a tra-
-4:1.3: more dire than ever flitted through the
a "43r brain of poor Nat Lee—to recount in a few
hl°Nee
.ees the calamity which descended with such a
I 6 U tln g horror upon the humble roof• tree of Charles
Zaetab, which for the time being pulverized his
gj:gYi darkened his intellect, and tore up his red
tTling heart-strings by the roots ; to tell all this,
to to recount, moreover, the sublime resolve which
tre" like a divine virtue out of the very midst of this
traniendous agony, imparting a holiness, and a fra-
ei Ce, and an imperishable beauty to the memory
1-4amb, required, indeed, the collected powers
thPeetry, oratory, and elevated nature. And
o 1101:,e powers have been dedicated to this
S°'e effort by the genius of Thomas Noon Talfourd.
ter.ll,l",lieitY, it is true, forms the principal charac-
ser"° of the work, but it is a simplicity as
tjoe'ain as an organ-strain, as touching as a psalm, as
Tail:Went as a canticle. We are grateful to Sergeant
for Inurd for these two books—we are grateful to him
thtke tone of masculine and honest pathos in which
Prey, are written—we are grateful to him for that ap-
uation of the dear dead, which sheds new light
T°ll his own fame and new honour on his manhood.
d„e,ver since the lips of Milton breathed forth the
teen
monody of Lycidas has a more exquisite tribute
ttet laid upon the tomb of brother-man by the sor-
, sergeant
hand of friendship. The story told by
I se;gennt Talfourd, through the medium of old manu-
'- hp`p'llt letters never before printed, is brief but
0;1111. This incident is detailed in a few pages. It
atesiirred on Thursday, the 22d of September, 1796,
a.
tirn o• 7, Little Queen-street, Holborn. At that
e, it must be remembered that Charles Lamb re-
ittqd there in lodgings with his father, his mother,
bin his sister. The father, ,who, according to the
htlrapher was then rapidy " sinking into dotage,"
14 a small annuity as a pensioner of the old Bencher,
f,or• Salt; Charles himself drew a miserable salary
"ding—and
East India House as a clerk of three years
th" family,
that constituted the entire income of
'amily, At the period we have already mentioned
tots Lamb is •described as being " worn down
tio a state of extreme nervous misery, by atten-
rto, to needlework by day, and to her
t 'tier by night "—her mother having been for a
"aid hi • •
t, era e time ill and bedridden. Insanity was
e„Lle family, and here is the result of this "extreme
veils misery " upon the mind of Mary Lamb.
e narrative is copied by Sergeant Talfourd from
rile Times of Monday, September the 26th, 1796, with
th'jel37 this comment, that Charles Lamb, and not
i; I%ndlore, mils the one who took the knife from the
conscious hand
Friday afternoon, the coroner and a jury sat on
died ?d.y of a lady in the neighbourhood of Holborn, who
pro consequence of a wound from her daughter the
thaledieZ day. It appeared, by the evidence adduced,
NI, while the family were preparing for dinner, the
io llg lady s4ized a case-knife lying on the table, andn
tiee Ineeacing manner pursued a little girl,. her appre .
to ? round the room. On the calls of her motherinfirm.
thri(lbetlr, she renounced her first object, and, with loud
quick,!' approached her parent. The child, by her cries,
let` brought up the landlord of the house, but too
life/. Tee dreadful scene presented to him the mother
e,.ess, pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter
wildly standing over her with the fatal knife, and
I,,ee old man, her father weeping by her side, himself
ileding at the forehead from the effects of a severe
'madly
he received from one of the forks she had been
'madly hurling about the room.
For a few days prior to this, the family had observed
i° me symptoms of insanity in her, which
bad so much
t creased on the Wednesday evening, Oat her brother,
t -arlY the next morning, went to Dr. Pitcairn, but that
tEatleraan was not at home.
It seems the young lady had been once before de-
"kiged.
The jury, of course, brought in their verdict—
similar account of this catastrophe appeared in the
annual Register and other periodicals, but all of them
ge"Yrnously like the foregoing. The truth was never
nerally known to the public until now, and was
understood, indeed, by a very few of the
more intimate of the Lambs' acquaintances. Here
When
Was the calamity which befel Charles Lamb
he was scarcely twenty-two years of age—such
?whotheaamity as might well have spread a gloom over
the le futurity of one less bravely constituted
an himself in intellect and disposition. But Lamb
robelt was
heroically above the desolation of his household.
wlts that desolation which became, as it were, a
bladev,„, wave lifting him up to the very heavens. That
-,?0," in no measure, exaggerate the moral dignity
ti Lamb is demonstrated by his' life of very nearly
11.,tY 'winters. What are the outlines of that life ?
"Y are few,but 0 how eloquent I We have
taid
cat that Charles was barely twenty-two when his
tib".e,r, in a paroxysm of lunacy, plunged a knife into
the "esom of their mother. He was barely twenty-
at -,--he was deeply in love with a young lady living
India House,
was a subordinate clerk in the East
1a House, with a poor pittance of a salary for
v,4
Cich he had to drudge severely—away early and
the
late. Charles Lamb recognised on the instant
"e alternative forced upon him by the catastrophe
above mentioned, -and he bowed down his head reve-
rentially to the sacrifice. lie dedicated himself
aulenceforth body and mind to the support and conso-
g'tion of his sister. When nearly all the world
.-N'ileel from her, he clung to her with unchanged
affection. When the old father was laid in his grave,
When Mary Lamb was restored to consciousness by
wedieal treatment, Charles gave her a home, and
ah("ecl hard for her during many long yearn, and
°Wered upon her the blessing of his fraternal love
until he.reeigned his own pure spirit into the hands
God in the December of 1834. Beyond all this-
1-8
the only means of of aiding the sister whose perfect
I!°(leence •he was the first to recognise—Charlee
at'll)
was
up all thoughts of his early love ! If
there, was not greatness of heart in all this, we know
(,)" the meaning of , the- language. To us it
tlttlleari as the ndblest renlibation of what is called the
liro! 4114 e, eitreer of thii India
,7e-ense clerk presents to otit'nrintl "'loftier and sublimer
"Pentacle than those of ti dozen emperors and tetrarchs
whose names we could string together in a catalogue.
And looking back upon the records of that illus-
-41005,hut ,unostentatiuus life we can listen with a
Sort of exultation to the voice of Talfourd when he
recalls to mind the evenings passed by him at No. 4,
Antler Temple-lane, we can rejoice when he compares
those evenings with the evenings spent in the library
of Holland House, we' can sympathise in the love
eoleridge bore during thirty-seven years towards the
brother and sister when he made - that beautiful entry
in his Sibylline Leaves :
" Cu. AND MARY LAMB,
dear to my heart, yea
as it were, my heart."

Bearing in remembrance these solemn but exquisite
relations of the nature and the deeds of Charles
mb, a novel lustre is thrown over the glad dainti-
be.ss of his " Elian Essays," a terrible key is given to
tl3 acuteness as a commentator on our old dramatists,
24 an additional melancholy is suffused through his
"lost celebrated verses—
" I have had playmates I have had companions
irl raT days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays,
'lll, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
•••• • S S

loved a love once, fairest among women ;
Cloied are her doors on me, I must not see her—
A 11,131 all are gone, the old familiar faces."
Knowing the deep under-current of woe which sad-
dCened, the inner heart of Lamb throughout life—that
depth, of suffering which even the plummet of ima-
gination fails to fathom—we are startled by the exu-
berant drollery which was not only lavished upon his
more
pretentious literary efforts, but was continu
• Squandered upon his accidental correspon-
dence. As, for example, in the letter addressed
by aim to Wordsworth, in acknowlodgment of
" volumes of his poetry, where he says, 'of
oneof the couplets—" It is a perfect summer amulet
that I: tie round my legs to quicken the motion when
IA- go out a-maying. (N. 8.) I don't often go out
rnaYing ;-7.lllust- is the tense with me now." Or
where he' is anticipating the appearance of a pro-
raised_poem called the " White Doe," and writes—
" I am
sure it is superlative;, or will be when drest,
1. e. printed. All things read raw to me in manu-
script!" Or when he speaks of "old, obscene,
beastly Peter Pindar ;" or where he observes—" One