The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous ProseLamb, Charles
General
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous Prose
Lamb, Charles
English literature
used to _grimace_, at the mutes, as he called it, and put 'em out with
my mops and my mows, till they couldn't stand at a door for me. And when
I was locked up, with nothing but a cat in my company, I followed my
bent with trying to make her laugh, and sometimes she would, and
sometimes she would not. And my schoolmaster could make nothing of me:
I had only to thrust my tongue in my cheek--in my cheek, Sir--and the
rod dropped from his finger: and so my education was limited, Sir. And I
grew up a young fellow, and it was thought convenient to enter me upon
some course of life that should make me serious; but it wouldn't do,
Sir. And I was articled to a drysalter. My father gave forty pounds
premium with me, Sir. I can show the indent--dent--dentures, Sir. But I
was born to be a comedian, Sir: so I ran away, and listed with the
players, Sir; and I topt my parts at Amersham and Gerrard's Cross, and
played my own father to his face, in his own town of Pogis, in the part
of Gripe, when I was not full seventeen years of age, and he did not
know me again, but he knew me afterwards; and then he laughed, and I
laughed, and, what is better, the drysalter laughed, and gave me up my
articles for the joke's sake: so that I came into court afterwards with
clean hands--with clean hands--do you see, Sir?
[Here the manuscript becomes illegible for two or three sheets onwards,
which we presume to be occasioned by the absence of Mr. Munden, jun. who
clearly transcribed it for the press thus far. The rest (with the
exception of the concluding paragraph, which seemingly is resumed in the
first hand writing) appears to contain a confused account of some
lawsuit, in which the elder Munden was engaged; with a circumstantial
history of the proceedings on a case of Breach of Promise of Marriage,
made to or by (we cannot pick out which) Jemima Munden, spinster,
probably the comedian's cousin, for it does not appear he had any
sister; with a few dates, rather better preserved, of this great actor's
engagements--as "Cheltenham (spelt Cheltnam) 1776;" "Bath, 1779;"
"London, 1789;" together with stage anecdotes of Messrs. Edwin, Wilson,
Lee Lewis, &c. over which we have strained our eyes to no purpose, in
the hope of presenting something amusing to the public. Towards the end
the manuscript brightens up a little, as we have said, and concludes in
the following manner.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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