YOUNG CHARLES LAMB 1775-t8o2 Charles Lamb at 29, dressed as a Venetian Senator; by William Hazlitt, 1804. One of Hazlitt's most sensitive portraits before he gave up painting for writing. (Hazlitt first met Lamb in 1803) National Portrait Gallery YOUNG CHARLES LAMB 1775-1802 Winifred F. Courtney © Winifred F. Courtney 1 g82 Softcover reprint of the hardcover ISt edition 1982 978-0-333-31534-7 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1!)82 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-05994-2 ISBN 978-1-349-05992-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05992-8 For Denis I had no notion what an exquisite writer Lamb is; and thus I have a juster opinion of Miss V. S.: and God knows how I shall have the courage to dip my pen tomorrow. -Virginia Woolf (as Miss Stephen) to Clive Bell, 1908, from The Flight ofthe Mind, Volume 1 of The Letters of Virginia Woolf, edited by Nigel Nicolson (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. and Hogarth Press Ltd, 1975) Contents List l!f Illustrations tx Acknowledgments x Note on Referencing xtn Genealogical Trees XIV Introduction XVI I Starting Off I 2 A Company of Witches I 2 3 Diversions I 8 The Times: No Popery, I78o 29 4 Schooling and Schoolfellows 34 The Times: The New Men and Women 50 5 Young City Man 58 6 Ann Simmons 69 7 Coleridge 84 The Times: Church, State and the Young Radicals 95 8 Difficulties 99 9 Disaster I I4 10 Loneliness I 20 I I To Nether Stowey I 36 I 2 Charles Lloyd I 4 7 I 3 The Tragic Poet I 55 I4 The Break with Coleridge I6o I 5 The Quaker Lloyds I 7 5 I6 Political Lamb I86 I7 New Friends: Dyer and Southey 203 I 8 Robert Lloyd and John Woodvil 2 I 5 I9 Cheerfulness Breaks In 225 20 Mary Lamb-and Coleridge-Come Home 235 2 I Thomas Manning 245 22 Godwin 259 23 The Move to London 268 24 Lamb Among the Lions 278 The Times: Theatrical Interlude 29I Vll viii Contents 25 Antonio 343 26 The Journalist: r8or-2 343 27 Lamb and Co.: Life and Letters, r8or-2 343 Appendix A 34 1 Appendix B 343 Notes 347 Selected Bibliography 378 Index 387 List of Illustrations Frontispiece Charles Lamb dressed as a Venetian Senator, 1804, by William Hazlitt Plate I Places associated with Lamb, drawn by an unknown artist: 7 Little Queen Street; Blenheims, the Ann Simmons Cottage at Widford; Interior of the Salu­ tation and Cat; 45 Chapel Street, Pentonville Plate II The Robert Hancock Portraits, 1796-8: William Wordsworth; Robert Southey; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Charles Lamb Plate III The Lloyds: Charles Lloyd the Poet, by John Constable; Robert Lloyd, artist unknown; Sophia Lloyd and Child, by John Constable Plate IV 'New Morality', cartoon by James Gillray Plate V John Thelwall, Joseph Priestley and others, detail from 'Copenhagen House', by James Gillray, 1795 Plate VI Some of Lamb's close friends who were radicals: Thomas Holcroft and William Godwin, 1 794, by Sir Thomas Lawrence; Thomas Manning, by an un­ known artist; George Dyer in 1795, by J. Cristall Plate VII Hester Savory, miniature, artist unknown ix Acknowledgments This book has been assisted and encouraged in countless ways by generous friends and professionals: Victor Allen, Barbara Bannon, F. L. Beaty, Michael Biddle, W. H. Bond, A. Day Bradley, Donald Breidt, Helen Burnham, Marchette Chute (who said, 'Yes, write it', over her own rose-hip tea), Kathleen Coburn (who allowed me to work in the Coleridge Collection, Victoria College Library, Toronto), my son Stephen Courtney, Jill Davies and Richard Pankhurst of the Royal Asiatic Society,Judith Damkoehler, Helen Duncan, Helen Einhorn, Kenneth Garlick, Marilyn Gaull, Janice Johnson, Betty Karpoff, Jessie Kitching, V. J. Kite, Molly Lefebure, R. F. Lloyd, Lillian McClintock, Sian Morgan, Leslie Parris of the Tate Gallery, W. Hugh Peal, Jean Peters, Miriam Phelps, Thoreau Raymond, Lynne Robinson, Duane Schneider, Aileen Ward, Carl Woodring, and Richard Wordsworth, whose Annual Wordsworth Summer Conference in the Lake District has twice provided information, stimulus and valuable friendship. I record with sorrow the death before this book appeared of Dr Sam M. Seitz, psychiatrist, who provided voluntary and penetrat­ ing modern professional interpretations of the psychological prob­ lems of Mary Lamb, Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd and who became through this association a close personal friend. Especial thanks goes to Marguerite Bodycombe for her voluntary, indefatigable typing of the first lengthy draft; to Malcolm C. Johnson, who encouraged this book from an early stage, and long thereafter; to Carl H. Pforzheimer,Jr, who offered me the use of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, and Donald H. Reiman, editor and scholar, whom I found there and who suggested many fruitful avenues of research, as well as Mihai M. Handrea, librarian, and the editorial and library staffof the Pforzheimer. The staff of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts provided research facilities, as did the Croton Free Library through its statewide borrowing system, and the R. R. Bowker Company Library in New York. The British Library kindly provided microfilm. X Acknowledgments XI It was good to meet the Charles Lamb Society in London, of whom Florence Reeves and Basil Savage were particularly helpful; helpful also were the A. D. G. Cheynes, the Sidney Halls, Mary R. Wedd and Mr D. 0. Pam and the staff of the Edmonton Main Library, where the Society's Charles Lamb Library was housed until recently (it is now in the Guildhall, London). Edwin W. Marrs, Jr, editor of the fine new Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb, has been most prompt and kind in providing information. I am grateful to the staff of the New York Public Library, where most of my research was done, and to Lola L. Szladits, Curator of its Berg Collection, who allowed me to study the Keats marginalia in a book by Charles Lamb (acknowledged below) and provided other assistance. Burton R. Pollin was kind enough to send me copies of his many articles on members ofLamb's circle. Mr T. R. T. Manning and his aunt Miss Ruth B. Manning were gracious hosts in Norfolk and Suffolk, providing the oppor­ tunity to look at the family memorabilia ofThomas Manning. Anne Lonsdale of Oxford University's Oriental Institute, now writing a much-needed biography of Manning, was most generous in sharing her knowledge. Clement Alexandre spent many hours going over earlier versions of the manuscript and providing editorial advice, sometimes severe and therefore immensely valuable. David V. Erdman gave much time and lent his own unpublished notes on the history of the Albion newspaper, for which Lamb wrote, as well as other material and assistance for my three-part article which provides the basis for much of Chapter 26. E. P. Thompson kindly provided me with an interesting sidelight on Lamb and John Thelwall. My husband, Denis A. Courtney, read and proof-read all chapters in several versions, offering valuable suggestions, helped me in retyping the final manuscript and in countless other chores, besides providing inestimable moral (and financial!) support. Richard Garnett, T. M. Farmiloe, Julia Tame and others at Macmillan have been patient, prompt and responsive. I am also indebted to the following firms and individuals: Cornell University and Cornell University Press for permission to quote extensively from The Letters q[Charles and Mary Anne Lamb, edited by Edwin W. Marrs, Jr, Volume 1, copyright © 1975 by Cornell University, Volume n, copyright © 1976 by Cornell University, Volume m, copyright© 1978 by Cornell University; and to Cornell University and its Press for permission to quote from The Letters qf xu Acknowledgments John Wordsworth, edited by Carl H. Ketcham, 1969; to Roger Robson Maddison of Knapp-Fishers, Solicitors, London, and his co-trustee for the Estate of the late E. V. Lucas, and Associated Book Publishers (UK) Ltd for permission to quote from Volumes 1, II and III of The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, edited by E. V. Lucas, 1935; to Lord Abinger for permission to read and to quote from William Godwin's unpublished diaries, recorded on microfilm at the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library; to Oxford University Press and Mr A. H. B. Coleridge for permission to quote from Volume 1 of The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Earl Leslie Griggs, 1956; to Columbia University Press and Professor Kenneth Curry on behalf ofthe late Mrs F. F. Boult for permission to quote from Volumes 1 and II of New Letters of Robert Southey, edited by Kenneth Curry, 1965; to the Charles Lamb Society, London, for permission to quote from two (then) unpublished articles in its possession, and The Charles Lamb Bulletin (formerly The Charles Lamb Sociery Bulletin) for quotation from published articles including two of my own (all specifically acknowledged in the text); to the British Library, Department of Manuscripts, for permission to quote from a letter ofSir John Stoddart; to the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, for the Keats marginalia in Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Who Lived About the Time of Shakespeare; to Studies in Romanticism for quotations from Burton R. Pollio's 'Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd asJ acobins and Anti-J acobins' in its Summer 1973 issue; to the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation, Inc., for permission to quote from Volume 1 of Shelley and His Circle, edited by Kenneth Neill Cameron, 1961; to the Author's Literary Estate, Harcourt Brace jovanovich, Inc., and the Hogarth Press Ltd for permission to quote from Virginia Woolf's The Common Reader: Second Series, and The Flight of the Mind, Volume I of The Letters of Virginia Woolf, edited by Nigel Nicolson.