Young Charles Lamb 1775–1802

438 Pages·1984·38.806 MB·English

by  Winifred F. Courtney (auth.)

YOUNG CHARLES LAMB 1775-1802
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
775-r8o2
1
Winifred F. Courtney
PALGRAV E MACMILLAN
© Winifred F. Courtney 1982, 1984
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
Fz'rst Edz'tz'on 1982
Reprz'nted 1984
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basz'ngstoke
Companz'es and representatz'ves
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-36379-9 ISBN 978-1-349-07056-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-07056-5
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, xgo8, from
The Flight of the Mind, Volume 1 of The Letters of Virginia Woolf,
edited by Nigel Nicolson (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.
and Hogarth Press Ltd, 1975)
Contents
List of Illustrations IX
Acknowledgments x
Note on Riferencing xm
Genealogical Trees XIV
Introduction xvi
I Starting Off
2 A Company of Witches I 2
3 Diversions I 8
The Times: No Popery, I 780 29
4 Schooling and Schoolfellows 34
The Times: The New Men and Women 50
5 Young City Man 58
6~~m ~
7 Coleridge 84
The Times: Church, State and the Young Radicals 95
8 Difficulties 99
9 Disaster I I4
I o Loneliness I 20
I I To Nether Stowey I36
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 75
I6 Political Lamb 186
I 7 New Friends: Dyer and Southey 203
I8 Robert Lloyd and John Woodvil 2I5
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 291
Vll
Vlll Contents
25 Antonio
26 The Journalist: 1801-2
27 Lamb and Co.: Life and Letters, 1801-2
Appendix A 341
Appendix B 343
Notes 347
Selected Bibliography 378
Index 387
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece Charles Lamb dressed as a Venetian Senator, I 8o4, 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, I 796-8: 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, I 794, by Sir
Thomas Lawrence; Thomas Manning, by an un
known artist; George Dyer in I 795, by J. Cristall
Plate VII Hester Savory, miniature, artist unknown
IX