Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him.
It was then that Forster asked Lamb to inscribe something in Mr. Keymer's album: the passage on Coleridge was the result. Keymer was a London bookseller—the same to whom Bernard Barton, after Lamb's death, sent a character sketch of Lamb (see Bernard Barton and His Friends, page 113). Lamb, I might add, was much offended, as he told Mr. Fuller Russell, by a request from The Athenæum, immediately after Coleridge's death, for an article upon him.
Coleridge died in the house of James Gillman, in the Grove, Highgate, July 25, 1834, five months before Lamb's death. On his deathbed Coleridge had written, in pencil, in a copy of his Poetical Works, against the poem "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," the words: "Ch. and Mary Lamb—dear to my heart, yea, as it were, my heart. S. T. C. Aet. 63, 1834. 1797–1834—37 years!"
Coleridge's will contained this clause:—
And further, as a relief to my own feelings by the opportunity of mentioning their names, that I request of my executor, that a small plain gold mourning ring, with my hair, may be presented to the following persons, namely: To my close friend and ever-beloved schoolfellow, Charles Lamb—and in the deep and almost life-long affection of which this is the slender record; his equally-beloved sister, Mary Lamb, will know herself to be included …
The names of five other friends followed.
Page 407. Cupid's Revenge.
This paraphrase of Beaumont and Fletcher's play of the same name is placed here on account of the mystery of its date. Probably it belongs to a stage in Lamb's career some years earlier. It was printed first in Harper's Magazine, December, 1858, with the following prefatory note:—
The autograph MS. of this unpublished Tale by Charles Lamb came into our hands in the following manner: Thomas Allsop, Esq., who came to this country a few months since in consequence of his alleged complicity in the attempt made upon the life of Louis Napoleon by Orsini, was for many years an intimate friend and correspondent of Coleridge and Lamb. He is known as the author of the Recollections, etc., of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published nearly a quarter of a century ago. He brought with him in his flight to America a number of manuscripts of his friends. Among these were a volume of "Marginalia" by Coleridge; a series of notes by Lamb, nearly a hundred in all, many of them highly characteristic of the writer; and the tale of "Cupid's Revenge" which appears to have remained unpublished in consequence of the cessation of the magazine for which it was written. These MSS. have all been placed in our hands. In an early number we propose to publish a selection from the letters of Lamb, and the "Marginalia" of Coleridge.
(Editors of Harper's Magazine.)
A large number of the notes from Lamb to Allsop were published, as promised, under the editorship of George William Curtis. Allsop died in 1880.
APPENDIX
Page 425. Scraps of Criticism.
London Magazine, December, 1822. Not signed.
In December, 1822, the editor of the London Magazine inaugurated a new department to be called "The Miscellany"—a place of refuge for small ingenious productions. To ask Lamb's assistance would be the most natural thing in the world, and though no signature is attached, there is, I think, enough internal evidence for us to consider his the contribution to the first instalment which has the sub-title, "Scraps of Criticism."
The first two notes, on Gray, may be taken as companions to that in The Examiner Table-Talk (page 181), on the beard of Gray's Bard. The note on Richard III. is of a part with Lamb's Shakespearian criticisms, and it comes here as a kind of postscript to his examination of Cooke's impersonation (see page 41 and note to the same).
Page 425, second quotation. This passage describing Milton is in Gray's Progress of Poesy, III., 2, and not, as Lamb inadvertently says, in The Bard.
Page 425, foot. Salmasius. Salmasius, Claude de Saumaise (1588–1653), a professor at Leyden who wrote a defence of Charles I. in Latin, 1649, to which Milton replied, 1650, also in Latin. It was while engaged in this work that Milton lost his sight.
Page 426, second paragraph. Howell's Letters. Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ: Familiar Letters, Domestic and Foreign, divided into Sundry Sections, partly Historical, Political and Philosophical, 1645–1655. By James Howell (1594?-1666). It was James Russell Lowell's theory (shared by other critics) that Lamb borrowed the name Elia from Ho-Elianæ. But this was not the case. The letter referred to in line 22 is to Captain Thomas Porter, July 10, 1623; and the fourth letter from which Lamb quotes is to Sir James Crofts, August 21, 1623. I have restored Howell's capitals. The italics are Lamb's.
Page 427, at the end. The Salutation. Lamb was probably wrong in this theory. According to Larwood and Hotten's History of Signboards, 1867, the sign originally represented an angel saluting the Virgin Mary. In the time of the Commonwealth this was changed to a soldier saluting a civilian; and later it became the salutation of two citizens: the form of the old sign of the Salutation in Newgate Street, where Coleridge lived a while, and where Lamb and he talked into the night over egg-hot. Ben Jonson's Salutation, referred to in "Bartholomew Fair," was in Billingsgate. Salutation and Cat was a blend of two signs.
Page 427. The Choice of a Grave. London Magazine, January, 1823. Not signed.
There is a passage in the Elia essay on "Distant Correspondents," concerning Lord Camelford's fantastic instructions concerning the burial of his body, which bears upon this same subject.
Page 428. Wilks. London Magazine, January, 1823. Not signed.
John Wilkes (1727–1797) of The North Briton. Barry Cornwall writes in his Memoir of Lamb: "I remember that, at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replying, when the blackbirds were reported to have stolen all his cherries, 'Poor birds, they are welcome.' He said that those impulsive words showed the inner nature of the man more truly that all his political speeches."
Page 428. Milton. London Magazine, February, 1823. Not signed.
Page 428, foot. Mr. Todd. Henry John Todd (1763–1845), whose edition of Milton in six volumes, for long the standard, was first published in 1801. The lines in question are crossed out in the original manuscript of Comus, now preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge, and are not printed in ordinary editions of Milton. Todd was the first to print them, in his edition of Comus,
