SOME ANECDOTES OF CHARLES LAMB.

Otago Witness, Issue 1905, 25 May 1888, Page 31

SOME ANECDOTES OF CHARLES LAMB.

It is told of Charles Lamb that one after- i noon, returning from a dinner party, having I taken a seat in a crowded omnibus, a stout gentleman subsequently looked in and politely asked, " All full inside ?" | " I don't know how it may be with the other passengers," answered Lamb, " but ■ that last piece of oyster pi 9 did the business with me." j Coleridge, during one of his interminable tabletalks, said to Lamb, " Charlie, did you ever hear me preach ?" " I never heard you do anything else," was the prompt and witty reply of Elia, which has become a favourite bye-word at the pre« sent day. The regular routine of clerkly business ill suited the literary tastes and the wayward though innocent habits of our essayist. Once, at the India House, one in authority said to him, " I have remarked, Mr Lamb, that you come very late in the morning." " Yes, sir," Teplied the wit ; " but Igo away early in the afternoon." The oddness of the excuse silenced the reprover, who turned away with a smile. A retired cheesemonger, who hated any allusion to the business that had enriched him, once remarked to Charles Lamb, in the course of a discussion on the poor law, " You must bear in mind, sir, that I have got rid of all that stuff which you poets call the • milk of human kindness.' " Lamb looked at him steadily, and gave his acquiescence in these words : " Yes, sir, lam aware of it ; you turned it all into cheese several years ago 1" LAMB AND THE POET. Lamb was once invited by an old friend to meet an author who had just published a volume of poems. When he arrived, being somewhat early, he was asked by his host to look over the volume of the expected visitor. A few minutes convinced Elia that it possessed very little merit, being a feeble echo of different authors. The opinion of the poetaster was fully convinced by the appearance of the gentleman himself, whose self-conceit and confidence in his own book were so manifest as to awaken in Lamb that spirit of mischievous waggery so characteristic of the humourist. Lamb's rapid and tenacious memory enabled, him during the dinner to quote fluently several passages from the pretender's volume. These he gave with this introduction: 11 This reminds me of some verses I wrote when I was very young." He then, to the astonishment of the gentleman in question, quoted something from the volume. Lamb tried this a second time ; the gentleman looked still more surprised, and seemed evidently bursting with suppressed indignation. At last, as a climax to the fun, Lamb coolly quoted the well-known opening lines of "Paradise Lost" as written by himself. This was too much for the versemonger. He immediately rose to his legs, and with an impressive solemnity of manner, thus addressed the claimant to so many poetical honours: "Sir, I have tamely submitted all this evening to hear you claim the merit that may belong to any little poems of my own ; this I have borne in silence ; but, sir, I never, will sit quietly by and see the immortal Milton robbed of "Paradise Lost.'" LAMB'S UNCOMFORTABLE DIPPING. "Coleridge," says De Quincey, "told me of a ludicrous embarrassment which Lamb's stammering caused him at Hastings. Lamb had been medically advised to a course of sea bathing, and, accordingly, at the door of his bathing machine, whilst he stood shivering with cold, stood two attendants, one at each shoulder, like heraldic supporters. They waited for the word of command from their principal, who began the following oration to them: • Hear me, men. Take notice of this : lam to be dipped ' " What more he would have said is unknown to land or sea-bathing machines ; for, having reached the word dipped, he commenced such a rolling fire of di-di-di-di that when at length he descended aplomb upon the full word dipped, the two men, rather tired of the long suspense, became satisfied that they had reached what lawyers call • the operative ' clause of the sentence, and both exclaiming at once, ' Oh, yes, sir, we're quite aware of that,' down they plunged him into the sea. "On emerging, Lamb sobbed so much from the cold that he found no voice suitable to his indignation ; and again addressing the men who stood respectfully listening, he began thus : ' Men, is it possible to obtain your attention ? ' " * Oh, surely, sir, by all means.' "'Then, listen: once more I tell you I am to be di-di-di,' and then, with a burst of indignation 'dipped, I tell you ' " ' Ob, decidedly, sir,' and down the stammerer went for the second time. " Petrified with cold and wrath, onoe more Laml) made a feeble attempt at explanation. "•Grant me pa-pa-patience; is it mum-um-murder you me-me-mean? Again and aga-gain, I tell you I'm to be dipped— !' now speaking furiously with the voice of an iujured man. " • Oh, yes, sir,' said the men, •we know that — we fully understand it ; ' and, for the j third time, down went Lamb into the sea. " ' Oh, limbs of Satan ! ' he said on coming up for the third time, • it's now too late. I tell you that I am — no, that I -was to be di-di-di-dipped only once I ' " A FEW OF LAMB'S FUNNY SAYINGS. " I was going," says Charles Lamb, "from my house at Enfield to the India House - one morning, when I met Coleridge on his way to pay me a visit. He was brimful of some new idea, and — in spite of telling him that

time was precious— he drew me within the door of an unoccupied garden by the ' roadside, and there, sheltered from observationby a hedge of evergreens, he took me bytha button of my coat, and, closing his eyes, commenced an eloquent discourse,' waving his right hand gently as the musical words flowed in an unbroken stream from his lips. I listened entranced ; but the striking of a church clock recalled me to a sense of duty. I saw it was of no use to attempt to break away ; so, taking advantage of his absorption in his subject, and, with my penknife, quietly severing the button from my coat, I decamped. Five hours afterwards, in passing the same garden on my way home, I heard Coleridge's voice ; and, on looking in, there he was, with closed eyes, the button in hia fingers, and the right hand gracefully waving : just as when I left; him. He had never missed me?" Many of Lamb's puns aotually oause laughter by reason of their baldness. Hera is an example. When his friend Cary, the translater of Dante, expressed an uncertainty as to the choice of a calling for one of his sons, Lamb suggested — "Make him an Apothe-Cary." ; On one occasion Lamb confided a pet dog to the care of Mr Patmore, and shortly afterwards wrote the following letter of inquiry : — Dear Patmore,— Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash? (I should have asked if Mrs Patmore . kept her ruled and was improving — 'but Dash came uppermost. The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing.) Goes h& •' muzzled, or aperto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation ? You cannot be too careful to watch the ■ first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with,h,itn. All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers ; but I protest they seem to me i very rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people to those who are not used to them. Try him with hot water.' 'If he won't lick it up, it is a sign he does not like it. Does he wag his tail horizontally or perpendioularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful ? I mean, when be is pleased ; for other* wise there is no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children yet ? If he has, have them shot, and keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had it at one time, but, that was in Hyder-Ally's time. Do you get paunch for him ? Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull out his teeth (if he would let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as a Bedlamite. It would be rather fun to see his odd ways. It might amuse Mrs Patmore and the children. They'd have more sense than he ! He'd be like a fool kept in the family to keep the household in good humour with their own understanding. You might teach him the maddanco set to the mad-howl. Madge Owl-et would be nothing to him. "My, bow he capers!" (One of the children speaks this.) [Here are some lines erased.] " What I scratch out is a German quotation, from Lessing, on the bite of rabid animals ; but, I remember, you don'fc read German. But Mrs Patmore may, ss I wiib I bad let it stand. The meaning in English U : Avoid to approach an animal suspected of madness as you would avoid a fire or a precipice — which I think is a ' sensible observation. The Germans are certainly prof ounder than 1 we. I£ the slightest suspicion arises in your breast that all is not right with him (Dasb), muzzle him, and lead him in a string (common pack-thread will do— -be don't care for twist), to Hood's, bis quondam master, and he'd take him in at any time. You may mention your suspicion or not, as yoa like, or as you think it may wound or not Mr H.s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a few follies in Dash, in consideration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is deaf ; aad, if ypa hinted anything, 10 to one be would not bear you. Besides, you will have discharged your conscience, and laid the child at the right ,door, as they say. Home friend 'of Lamb's was declaiming to him against what is called mock-modesty. "Well," stammered the listener, "there is no mock-modesty about you — nor real either!" • 1 Wordsworth says he could write as well as Shakespeare if he had a mind, so you see it wants nothing but the mind. , When Lamb was a clerk in the India House, he was one day rebuked by a superior, who said: "I have remarked, Mr Lamb, that you always come to the office very; late." "That's true," was the answer, "but you must remember that I always go away very j early to make up for it." ■ Crabb Robinson, just called to the Bar, told Charles Lamb exultingly that he was retained in a cause in the King's Bench. "Ah 1" was the reply, " the first great cause least understood."