The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Charles Lamb ; his Friends, his Haunts, and his
Books. By Percy Fitzgerald. One vol., pp. 229.
Richard Bentley.
Anything relating to Charles Lamb is dearly
welcome to us. He is one of those delightful crea-
tures whom we don't simply admire, but take into our
very hearts—yea, as Hamlet has it, into our heart
of hearts ! All his little whims and oddities have a
value for us. A stray anecdote, in any way, how-
ever remotely, having reference to him—we snatch
at as at no mere unconsidered trifle. Quips and
cranks of his—quaint odd sayings dropped by him,
quite casually, and picked up (happily) by some-
body else (it matters not by whom)—are for us
as might have been some of that treasure trove
that we may suppose to have been littered
in the trail of the delectable princess in the
fairy tale, who was in the habit of prattling pre-
cious stones —pearls of fancy and diamonds of wit
pattering and sparkling about her skirts as she
moved. A more pretentious life of our beloved
Elia, than any that has hitherto made its appear-
ance is understood to be just now upon the eve
of publication. In the meanwhile, here, in this
really charming volume compiled by Mr. Percy Fitz-
gerald, we have a work of no especial preten-
tion, it is true, but for all that one that is
very heartily to be greeted, even as though it came
to us heralded by a well-deserved flourish of trum-
pets, by way of reawakening our interest in the
various personal belongings and social surroundings
of one of the most innocent-hearted and bright-
eyed humorists that ever adorned our national and
indigenous English Literature. Young though he
is, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald himself has already done
good service to the reading public in more than one
department of that same chequered world of our
English Literature. As a Novelist he won his
spurs sometime since, it may be remembered, with
the device of " Belladonna" upon his shield, and
with her colours fluttering at his crest. In "Never
Forgotten " he justified our hopes in regard to his
rising reputation by the felicitous conception (so
admirably well realised !) of that fribbling captain
—Captain Fermor—who was the hero of that
narrative of " Never Forgotten" at its commence-
ment, and its victim at its close. Without par-
ticularising one after another the various books
already penned by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, we
must at least indulge ourselves with one passing
reference, here, to the tale he has last been telling
us all with such really admirable effect in Charles
Dickens's All the Year Pound—the tale that is there,
we now regret to remember, fast drawing towards
its conclusion—meaning his story about "The Second
Mrs. Tillotson." While in Tillotson himself, we
can't, for the life of us, help recognising somehow
a good deal of the weak whimpering nature that is
throughout the scorn even of that sullen cub of a fellow
Ross, we cannot but accord the highest praise to Mr.
Fitzgerald's creation of another character, another
Captain, the Captain—that dear old Tom, in the
" shoeperfine double-milled frock," and the shovel
hat, with his " well-rayshured " chin, and his
whiskers curled into barrels by his French irons,
and his delicate consideration always for (c the
creatures," as he tenderly calls the women generi-
cally—a charming character, that is most charm-
ingly and consistently sustained throughout. Turn-
ing, however, from this purely incidental re-
ference, by the way, to the purely imaginative
works already produced by Mr. Percy Fitz-
gerald, turning from these to other works by
him of a biographically anecdotal character, we
would here content ourselves with remarking, at
once, in regard to the latter, en passant, that
precisely as " Dr. Dodd" was ill chosen by him,
Charles Lamb has been admirably well chosen as
the subject of one of those memorial portrai-
tures. Passing by the Unfortunate—or, as we
would far rather call him, theNotorious—Dr.Dodd,
the once fashionable macaroni-parson, who for the
crime of forgery died the death towards the close of
the last century by the hands of the common hang-
man—passing by that wretched Dr. Dodd as a per-
son wholly without, or apart from, our sympathies,
we cannot but turn our regard at once with eager
readiness towards the widely contrasting theme
here cl.osen—that is to say, to the Friends,
the Haunts, and the Books of Charles Lamb—a
very small poet, but a very great humorist. His
Friends were all of them choice ; so, too, were
his books—a goodly proportion of which may be
set down as black-letter. What in effect was it
that once upon a time remarked one of Elia's
friends (Leigh Hunt) about one of Elia's books
(Chapman's " Homer")? Mr. Fitzgerald has
chosen this remark of Leontius for the motto to his
present volume- " And thought," quoth Leigh,
Hunt, " 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." Unique and delightful being, Elia is called
by his new celebrant in the very first line of the
very first page of this his latest celebration. And
precisely that, was Elia—namely—" unique and
delightful." Hardly anything, by the way, that is
perfectly new, in illustration of Charles Lanib's his-
tory and character, will be found in these leaves
dedicated to the pleasant task of delineatinc, both
by the genial hand of Percy Fitzgerald. The great
majority of the facts here grouped together, indeed,
we were already perfectly familiar with. Nay, the best
things in the whole volume, and we say this without
any disparagement at all to the bulk of the narrative
as it has been here penned by Mr. Fitzgerald, the
compiler borrows (with all honourable acknowledg-
ment, it should be observed) from other sources.
Instance this the subjoined koh-i-noor of fun—
fun running into the most deliciously ridiculous
ultra-extravagance—borrowed from another book,
(and a book, too, that Mr. Fitzgerald takes occasion
rather ungratefully to depreciate)—this exquisite
morceau being in point of fact simply an off-hand
letter scrawled by Charles Lamb on the spur of the
moment, and addressed by him to P. G. Patmore.
Read it—every word of it—those who love a laugh ;
and read it without laughing—if
you can ! "Dear
P.," writes Charles Lamb, in this wonderfully absurd
letter, under date (ridiculously) " Londres, July 19,
1827" :

"Dear P.—l am so poorly! I have been to a funeral,
where I made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the
mourners. And we had wino. I can't describe to you the
howl which the widow set up at proper intervals. Dash
could, for it was not unlike what he makes
Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and whines
and stands up on his hind legs. He misses Becky, who
is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the other day,
and he could'nt eat his victuals after it. Pray God his
intellects be not slipping. Mary is gone out far some soles,
I suppose it's no use to ask you to come and partake of
'em ; else there's a steam vessel . . . . Oh, lam so
poorly ! I waked it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who
is now with God; or if he is not, it's no fault of mine. We
hope the Frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore.
By the way, I like her. Did you ever taste frogs ? Got them
if you can. They are like Lilliput rabbits, only a thought
nicer. Lord, how sick I am!—not of the world, but of the
widow's shrub. She was sworn under £6,000, but I think
she perjured herself. She howls in E la, and I comfort her
in B fiat. You understand music ? If you haven't got
Messinger, you have nothing to do but to go to the first bib-
liotheque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it
(Gifford's edition), and if they haven't got it, you can have
Athalie, par Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it. But
that Old Law"s delicious. No shrimps' (That's in
answer to Mary's question about how the soles are to be
done.) I am uncertain whore this wandering letter may
reach you. What do you mean by Poste Restante, God
knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I do, to
Dover. We had a merry passage with the widow at Doctor's
Commons. She was howling—part howling and partgiving
directions to the proctor--when crash ! down went my
sister through a crazy chair, and made the clerks grin, and
I grinned, and the widow tittered—and then I knew that she
was not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened than hurt.
She'd make a good match for anybody (by she, I mean
the widow).
'lf ho bring but a relict away
He is happy, nor heard to compIain.'—SIIENSTONE.
Proctor has got a won growing out at the nape of his neck,
which his wife ivants him to have cut off ; but I think it
rather an agreeable excrescence—like his poetry—redun-
dant. Hone has hanged himself for debt. Godwin was
taken up for picking pockets. Becky takes to bad courses.
Her father was blown up in a steam machine. The coroner
found it insanity. 1 should not like him to sit on my letter.
Do you observe my direction ? Is it
,Gallicfi.ags?,,--o,oolaagshsiicta,Bl
a?
must try and get some frogs. You ust ask for grenouilles'
(green-eels). They don't understand
common phrase with W. If you go through Bulloign (Bou-
logne) inquire if old Godfrey is living, and how he got•
home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man now.
If there is anything new in politico or literature in France,