have made me enter the lists of fame in | other persons; of course I have passed a very the painting way; but situated as I am, uneasy winter. Last Sunday (having by my imagination works, but I have no time chance heard that he was at Mr. Morgan's at or opportunity to acquire that method and Hammersmith) I wrote a letter to my friend precision of design which, though the infe- Mrs. Morgan, who informed me (to my great rior part of the art, is nevertheless neces- since the 3rd of November, and is at this time surprise) that he had been with them ever sary to our defence, if once we outstep the in lodgings in Southampton Buildings with an privacy of a family or friendly circle and intention of applying for advice from Mr. expose ourselves to the cold criticism of Abernethy; he had left them about a week, the public." Lady Bedingfield's letters had visited them once since, and was in very are delightful compositions, alike those good spirits. When Mrs. Montague was here written in girlhood, middle life, and old age. I ventured to make the request of a few lines Matilda went to London and had a brief from her if she found C. was not in the habit brilliant period of literary and artistic suc- of writing. I now fear I made an improper cess. She also wrote a "Biographical request, as I have not heard from her-perDictionary of Celebrated Women," a work haps C. did not remain long under her roof, of much usefulness in its day, and com- his affairs, excepting the slight intelligence but I am altogether in the dark about C. and piled with considerable taste and care. just received from kind Mrs. Morgan. I think Her pictures were exhibited at Somerset if you had seen C. you would have written to House, and besides portrait-painting, she me to tell me of it. Mrs. M. in her letter found time to contribute poetical pieces to hints about a disagreement between C. and the Monthly and other magazines. It Mr. Carlisle; I heard something of this bewas at this time that her friendship com- fore, but can make nothing of it. I wish C. menced with the Lambs, Southeys, Bar- would write: both Southey and myself have baulds, and others. written often to him, but can obtain nothing. You will probably see Southey in town in the spring, and perhaps my sister. My journey thither is still in the distance. My brother and sisters unite with me in kindest remembrances to you; and I remain, dear Miss Betham, Very affectionately yours, She visited the Southeys at Keswick, the celebrated Ladies of Llangollen, Mrs. Schimmelpenninck at Bath, and was constantly a guest of the Barbaulds at Stoke Newington, and the Lambs in the Temple. She met Madame de Staël, and was much struck with the fine eyes and audacious vanity of that remarkable woman. Each day of this happy time in London was marked by some pleasant event, as the following entries in her diary testify: "Supped with the Lambs." Spent the evening with the Barbaulds." "At the Lambs' and with them to the play." "Had a party, Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, Mr. Hazlitt," etc. "Dined with Barbara at the Lambs." The Barbara in question was her youngest sister (afterwards Mrs. Edwards), the little Barbara Betham to whom Mary Lamb wrote one of the most charming letters ever written to a child. It was printed for the first time in the Pall Mall Gazette, by the present writer's permission, a few years back; but as it is not generally accessible there, I give an extract from it later on. The following letters belong to this period. Some are without dates. From Mrs. Coleridge to Matilda Betham. I should long since have troubled you with a few lines, if I had not waited for a letter from Mr. Coleridge, who, I hoped, would be able to give me some account of you during his visit to Mr. and Mrs. Montague. Three months and more have elapsed, and he has not once addressed any of his northern friends, and we have heard very little of him from SARA COLERIDGE. In another letter, not dated, from Mrs. Coleridge occurs the following: reached us of Mrs. Coleridge's death [mother The following are from Coleridge: conversation with him. He displayed such Monday, April 4, 1808. 348 Strand. the present dejection of his spirits and loneli- | time enough to have half an hour's mournful ness. This did not mend the matter with me. I became worse and kept my bed all Tuesday and the greater part of yesterday. But thinking myself a little better yesterday morning, I determined to keep my engagement with you, and accordingly got up about four o'clock and attempted to dress myself for an evening visit. Half an hour's experience, however, was enough to show me the imprudence of the attempt. To walk would have been out of my power, and had I gone and returned in a coach, I should only have brought an alarm, instead of a visitor, being too unwell to have conversed, and agitated by the apprehension of being taken sick and giddy, in the presence of strangers perhaps, and three miles from my lodgings. It was too late to send you a note by the twopenny post, and I have no servant. I am a little, and only a little, better at pres-esteem, ent; if it be possible I shall put myself in the Hammersmith stage this evening, as I am not fit to be in lodgings by myself. In truth, I have had such a series of anxieties, cruel disappointments, and sudden shocks, from the first week of my arrival in London, that any new calamity suffices to overset me. The tidings of George Burnet's death, with its circumstances, told me in the most abrupt manner, and then as abruptly, and before I could prevent it, told to Mary Lamb, had agitated me violently, and the extreme efforts I made to suppress the bodily effects of my agitation in her presence, injured me still more. She dropped certain ominous words at the time, and on Saturday night, when I was somewhat recovering my spirits, having received a cheerful and humorous note from Charles Lamb, inclosing a scrap of your letter with Lady Jerningham's address, but informing my hospitable friends that he and his sister would come and dine with them - notwithstanding, on the Saturday night, as I was walking out with Mrs. Morgan and her sister to meet Mr. Morgan as he returned from town, and just as my whole tone of feeling was harmonized and become genial by the mild vernal air and the almost gay moonlight, Mr. Morgan replied to our welcoming with the sad news that Mary Lamb had been attacked with her complaint at five o'clock that morning, and taken off to the country to Charles at seven! On the Sunday William Godwin called on me, to inform me that Miss Lamb had been at their house on Friday, and that her manner of conversation had greatly alarmed them (dear excellent creature! such is the restraining power of her love for Charles Lamb over her mind, that he is always the last person in whose presence any alienation of her understanding betrays itself), that she talked far more and with more agitation concerning me than about G. Burnet had urged him to come over to me, and told Mrs. Godwin that she herself had written to William Wordsworth, exhorting him to come to town immediately, for that my mind was seriously unhinged. After Mr. Godwin's departure Lamb came. I had just DEAR MISS BETHAM,- At the time the little girl delivered me your letter and accompanying present, an acquaintance was coming up-stairs who had business of importance, and such as would require half an hour or more to settle, and whose time was valuable; yet having, though hastily, read through your note, I could not bear to send back a mere cold acknowledgment of the receipt. Though I had wholly forgotten the circumstance to which I owe it, believe me (if you knew me personally I venture to affirm that even this "believe me" would have been superfluous), I was more than pleased, I was much affected by the letter. It breathed a spirit so unlike that of the letters one is in the habit of receiving from people of the world; in short, it reminded me of my earliest letters from my dear friends at Grasmere. The only word in it which a little surprised me was that of "fame." I assure myself, that your thinking and affectionate mind will long ago have made a distinction between fame and reputation-between that awful thing which is a fit object of pursuit for the good, and the pursuit of which is an absolute duty of the great; that which lives and is a fellow-laborer of nature under God, producing even in the minds of worldlings a sort of docility, which proclaims, as it were, silence in the court of noisy human passions, and the reward of which without superstition we may well conceive to be the consciousness in a future state of each being in whose mind and heart the works of the truly famous have awakened the impulses of schemes of afterexcellence. What joy would it not be to you, or to me, Miss Betham, to meet a Milton in a future state, and with that reverence due to a superior, pour forth our deep thanks for the noble feelings he had aroused in us, for the impossibility of many mean and vulgar feel * * The incoherence of this sentence is Coleridge's, and we leave it as we find it. can therefore only say, that I am pleased and (for in honest truth I am what the world calls, ings and objects which his writings had secured to us! But putting fame out of the question, I should have been a little surprised even at the word "reputation," having only published a small volume twelve years ago, which, as my bookseller well knows, had no circulation; and, in honest truth, did not de-poor face is a miserable subject for a painter serve any, though perhaps as much as many that have attained it; a volume given by me to the public, "my poverty, and not my will, consenting." I should have been surprised even at any publicity of my name, if I were less aware of that sad, sad stain of the present very antigallican but woefully gallicizing age, the rage for personality, of talking and thinking ever about it, and B. and L. names, names, always names! The alliteration "Names of Novelties," would go far in characterizing the bad parts of the present generation (for, with pleasure I say it, it has many very good ones). Of me, and of my scanty juvenile writings, people know nothing; but it has been discovered, that I had the destiny of marrying the sister of Mrs. Southey, that I am intimate with Mr. Southey, and that I am in a more especial manner the friend and admirer of Mr. Wordsworth. This, like many of Coleridge's letters, has no signature. DEAR MISS BETHAM, -I sallied forth to find you, at least your abode, unfortunately leaving your direction behind me. I went to New Cavendish Street, and after many vain inquiries was positively assured by a man at the corner shop that you had removed from Foley Street to Old Cavendish Street, and that you did not reside in New Cavendish Street. I knocked at every door in Old Cavendish Street, not unrecompensed for the present pain by the remembrances of the different characters of voice and countenance with which my question was answered in all gradations, from gentle and hospitable kindness to downright brutality. I failed, returned home, and in the Exhibition catalogue found your true address. N.B. I looked, when I was at the Exhibition on Monday (the first open day), at the numbers, in order that I might not look at your works then. The crowd was so great-the number of detestable pushers so overpowering. But I shall go on Monday, the very moment the rooms are open, in order that may look at them singly, and as much alone as possible. It is quite shocking, that all that is good in the Exhibition is absolutely extinguished by the glare of raw colors put into wild shapes on innocent much-injured canvas. I write now to intreat that you would let me know what day you will be at home and disengaged next week, as I shall keep myself disengaged till I hear from you, for I am most sincerely, Your obliged, S. T. COLERIDGE. DEAR MISS BETHAM, Your bearer waits, and a gentleman is with me on business. I S. T. COLERIDGE DEAR MISS BETHAM, - Not my will, but accident and necessity, made me a truant from my promise. I was to have left Merton, in Surrey, at half past eight on Tuesday morning with a Mr. Hall, who would have driven me in his chaise to town by ten; but having walked an unusual distance on the Monday, and talked and exerted myself in spirits that have long been unknown to me, on my return to my friend's house, being thirsty, I drank at least a quart of lemonade; the consequence was that all Tuesday morning, till indeed two pain, and incapable of quitting my room, or o'clock in the afternoon, I was in exceeding dismissing the hot flannels applied to my body. However, determining to be in town on that night, I left Merton at five, walked stoutly on till I was detained an hour and a half on Clapham Common in an act of mere humanity-indeed a most affecting one, and not uninstructive, if to know by facts the dreadfully degraded and hardened hearts of the inhabitants of cities and their suburbs may be called instructive. At Vauxhall I took boat for Somerset House; two mere children were my Charons; however, though against tide, we sailed safely to the landing-place, when, as I was getting out, one of the little ones (God bless him!) moved the boat. On turning half-way round to reprove him, he moved it again, and I fell back on the landing, place. By my exertions I should have saved my head but for a large stone which I struck against just under my crown, and unfortunately in the very same place which had been con tused at Melton when I fell backward after hearing suddenly and most abruptly of Cap. tain Wordsworth's fate in the "Abergavenny," a most dear friend of mine. Since that time any great agitation has occasioned a feeling of, as it were, a shuttle moving from that part of the back of my head horizontally to my forehead, with some pain but more confusion. This sensation the accident brought on with great violence, but it is now abating. As soon as I go out at all I will do myself the pleasure of calling on you, for indeed I very much wish to see you. S. T. COLERIDGE. Pray would it be possible to draw the fol lowing figures for a seal? In the centre (as of a coat-of-arms) a rose or myrtle in blossom, on the right hand a genius (or genie) holding This letter has no date: From Mary Lamb. in the right hand two torches inverted, and | seem as if I had no other subject to write one at least recently extinguished; on the upon. Now, I think I see you with your feet other side a Love with a flaring torch and propped upon the fender, your two hands head averted, the torch in the direction of the spread out upon your knees an attitude you head, as one gazing after something going always chose when we were in familiar confiaway. In the corner of the left part of the dential conversation together-telling me long composition a large butterfly flying off; the stories of your own home, where now you say motto under it, "Che sarà sarà". What will you are "moping on with the same thing every be, will be. day," and which then presented nothing but pleasant recollections to your mind. How well I remember your quiet steady face bent over your book. One day, conscience-stricken at having wasted so much of your precious time in reading, and feeling yourself, as you prettily said, "quite useless to me," you went to my drawers and hunted out some unhemmed pocket-handkerchiefs, and by no means could prevail upon you to resume your story-books till you had hemmed them all. I remember too your teaching my little maid to read your sitting with her a whole evening to console her for the death of her sister, and that she in her turn endeavored to become a comforter to you, the next evening, when you wept at the sight of Mrs. Holcroft, from whose school you had recently eloped because you were not partial to sitting in the stocks. Those tears, and a few you once dropped when my brother teased you about your supposed fondness for an apple dumpling, were the only interruptions to the calm contentedness of your unclouded brow. MY DEAR MISS BETHAM,- My brother and myself return you a thousand thanks for your kind communication. We have read your poem many times over with increased interest, and very much wish to see you to tell you how highly we have been pleased with it. May we beg one favor? I keep the manuscript in the hope that you will grant it. It is that, either now or when the whole poem is completed, you will read it over with us. When I say with us, of course I mean Charles. I know that you have many judicious friends, but I have so often known my brother spy out errors in a manuscript which has passed through many judicious hands, that I shall not be easy if you do not permit him to look yours carefully through with you; and also you must allow him to correct the press for you. If I knew where to find you would call upon you. Should you feel nervous at the idea of meeting Charles in the capacity of a severe censor, give me a line, and I will come to you anywhere, and convince you in five minutes that he is even timid, stammers, and can scarcely speak for modesty and fear of giving pain when he finds himself placed in that kind of office. Shall I appoint a time to see you here when he is from home? I will send him out any time you will name; indeed, I am always naturally alone till four o'clock. If you are nervous about coming, remember I am equally so about the liberty I have taken, and shall be till we meet and laugh off our mutual fears. Yours most affectionately, M. LAMB. - We still remain the same as you left us, neither taller, nor wiser or perceptibly older, but three years must have made a great alteration in you. How very much, dear Barbara, I should like to see you ! We still live in Temple Lane. The lions still live in Exeter Change. Returning home through the Strand, I often hear them roar about twelve o'clock at night. I never hear them without thinking of you, because you seemed so pleased with the sight of them, and said your young companions would stare when you told them you had seen a lion. And now, my dear Barbara, farewell. I have not written such a long letter a long time, but I am very sorry I had nothing amusing to write about. Wishing you may pass happily Extract of a Letter from Mary Lamb to Barbara through the rest of your school days, and every future day of your life, Betham (aged 14). Nov. 2, 1814. It is very long since I have met with such an agreeable surprise as the sight of your letter, my kind young friend, afforded me. Such a nice letter as it is too; and what a pretty hand you write! I congratulate you on this attainment with great pleasure, because I have so often felt the disadvantage of my own wretched handwriting. You wish for London news. I rely upon your sister Ann for gratifying you in this respect, yet I have been endeavoring to recollect who you might have seen here, and what may have happened to them since, and this effort has only brought the image of little Barbara Betham, unconnected with any other person, so strongly before my eyes, that I I remain, Now you have begun I shall hope to have the pleasure of hearing from you again. I shall always receive a letter from you with very great delight. brances to Barbara, and to all to whom you ing for the conveyance of the picture to may think they will be acceptable. Cumberland, and also for what I perceive must not now be mentioned. Edith desires me to Yours very sincerely, C. LAMB. Have you seen "Christabel" since its pub-express her thanks at present, and hopes you lication ? E. T. H., June 1, 1816. From C. Lamb. DEAR MISS BETHAM, All this while I have been tormenting myself with the thought of having been ungracious to you, and you have been all the while accusing yourself. Let us absolve one another, and be quiet. My head is in such a state from incapacity for business that I certainly know it to be my duty not to undertake the veriest trifle in addition. I hardly know how I can go on. I have tried to get some redress by explaining my health, but with no great success. No one can tell how ill I am because it does not come out to the exterior of my face, but lies in my skull deep and invisible. I wish I was leprous, and black-jaundiced skin-over, and that all was as well within as my cursed looks. You must not think me worse than I am. I am determined not to be over-set, but to give up business rather, and get 'em to allow me a trifle for services past. O that I had been a shoemaker or a baker, or a man of large independent fortune. O darling laziness! heaven of Epicurus! Saint's Everlasting Rest! that I could drink vast potations of thee thro' unmeasured Eternity nitate. Scandalous, dishonorable, any kind of repose. I stand not upon the dignified sort. Accursed, damned desks, trade, commerce, business. Inventions of that old original busybody, brain-working Satan - Sabbathless, restless Satan. A curse relieves: do you ever try it? will one day give her an opportunity of expressing them herself at Keswick. We have heard of the miniature from a friend who saw it unexpectedly in the Exhibition, and was much struck with the likeness. I thank you likewise for your intentions with respect to Coleridge. You would have found him the most wonderful man living in conversation, but the most impracticable one for a painter, and had you begun the picture it is ten thou sand to one that you must have finished it from memory. His countenance is the most variable that I have ever seen; sometimes it is kindled with the brightest expression, and sometimes all its light goes out, and is utterly extinguished. Nothing can convey stronger indications of power than his eye, eyebrow, and forehead. Nothing can be more imbecile than all the rest of the face: look at them separately, you would hardly think it possible that they could belong to one head; look at them together, you wonder how they came so, and are puzzled what to expect from a charac ter whose outward and visible signs are so con. tradictory. I am sorry I should have expressed my sense of Lady Bedingfield's kindness so lamely that you were not certain I was gratified, and that Otium cum vel sine dig-in a very high degree. It has been my lot, Miss Betham, to meet with much injustice in the world, both as an individual and an author, and the effect it has had upon me has been to make me more sensible of any act of kindness. I have taken up a comfortable opinion that evil tongues speak only for themselves, but that favorable ones may be considered as speaking for posterity: and this opinion is likely to be true, because they who abuse me do it in their vocation, and have therefore an obvious motive for so doing; whereas, on the other hand, no person can have any other mo tive for praising me than the belief that I deserve praise. We who write poetry have a double object in view to please ourselves and to please others; it is very gratifying to succeed in either. Besides this general reason why I am greatly gratified in this instance, it will give me particular pleasure to see my own conceptions embodied, and set before me in a visible and permanent form. It has been al ways my wish to have my long poems accompa nied with prints, because so many pictures are A strange letter to write to a lady, but more honeyed sentences will not distil. I dare not ask who revises in my stead. I have drawn you into a scrape, and am ashamed, but I know no remedy. My unwellness must be my apology. God bless you (though he curse the India House, and fire it to the ground), and may no unkind error creep into "Marie." May all its readers like it as well as I do, and everybody about you like its kind author no worse. Why the devil am I never to have a chance of scribbling my own free thoughts, verse or prose, again? Why must I write of tea and drugs, and price goods and bales of indigo? Farewell. C. LAMB. Mary goes to her place on Sunday, I mean your maid foolish Mary; she wants a very little brains only to be an excellent servant; she is excellently calculated for the country, where nobody has brains.* From Southey to M. Betham. Keswick: July 2, 1808. Your letter, my dear madam, has just prevented some arrangements which I was mak • I think the date of this is 1815, but it is indistinct. lost to those readers who are not familiar with the costume. I particularly desired this for "Madoc," but the difficulty of getting designs was such that it was better to give up the attempt, and what little was done had better have been left undone. I got a ship copied from the Bayeux tapestry, and sent it to Pothat the subject of the poem was the discovery cocke to make a drawing from it; he, hearing of America by Madoc, chose to think of Co lumbus, and accordingly laid the right ship aside and put in its place one of Columbus's |