In the same year (as Miss Lamb writes in December, 1808), Charles was
invited by Tom Sheridan to write some scenes in a speaking Pantomime; the
other parts of which (the eloquence not of words) had been already
manufactured by Tom and his more celebrated father, Richard Brinsley. Lamb
and Tom Sheridan had been, it seems, communicative over a bottle of
claret, when an agreement for the above purpose was entered into between
them. This was subsequently carried into effect, and a drama was composed.
This drama, still extant in the British Museum, in Lamb's own writing,
appears to be a species of comic opera, the scene of which is laid in
Gibraltar, but is without a name. I have not seen it, but speak upon the
report of others.
In 1809 Lamb moved once more into the Temple, now to the top story of No.
4 Inner Temple Lane, "where the household gods are slow to come, but where
I mean to live and die" (he says). From this place (since pulled down and
rebuilt) he writes to Manning, who is in China, "Come, and bring any of
your friends the Mandarins with you. My best room commands a court, in
which there are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent cold--
with brandy; and not very insipid without." He sends Manning some of his
little books, to give him "some idea of European literature." It is in
this letter (January, 1810) that he speaks of Braham and his singing,
which I have elsewhere alluded to; of Kate with nine stars *********
("though she is but one"); of his book (for children) "on titles of
honor," exemplifying the eleven gradations, by which Mr. C. Lamb rises in
succession to be Baron, Marquis, Duke, and Emperor Lamb, and finally Pope
Innocent, and other lively matters fit to solace an English mathematician
self-banished to China.
In July, 1810, an abstinence from all spirituous liquors took place. Lamb
says that his sister has "taken to water like a hungry otter," whilst he
"limps after her" for virtue's sake; but he is "full of cramps and
rheumatism, and cold internally, so that fire don't warm him." It is
scarcely necessary to state that the period of entire abstinence was very
transient.
A quarterly magazine, called "The Reflector," was published in the autumn
of 1810, and contained Essays by Charles Lamb and several other writers.
Amongst these are some of the best of Lamb's earlier writings--namely, the
paper on Hogarth and that on the Tragedies of Shakespeare. It is singular
that these two Essays, which are as fine as anything of a similar nature
in English criticism, should have been almost unnoticed (undiscovered,
except by literary friends) until the year 1818, when Lamb's works were
collected and published. The grand passage on "Lear" has caused the Essay
on the Shakespeare Tragedies to be well known. Less known is the Essay on
Hogarth, although it is more elaborate and critical; the labor being quite
necessary in this case, as the pretensions of Hogarth to the grand style
had been denounced by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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