Dream-Child by Eric G. Wilson

Author:Eric G. Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

Hogsflesh

Lamb’s circumlocution to Wordsworth in 1804 characterizes his first decade of the nineteenth century: “I am not plethorically abounding in Cash at this present” (M, 2:146). His salary from the East India Company, even though it had grown from £40 to £130 from 1796 to 1802, was still not enough to cover the Lambs’ expenses comfortably, mainly because of the cost of private asylums. Charles’s heavy smoking and drinking, and the siblings’ frequent holidays, didn’t help.

Lamb needed extra money. When Coleridge backed out of reviewing Godwin’s new biography of Chaucer, Lamb took it on. But on November 7, 1803, Lamb confesses to Godwin that he has been strangely “hindered in the review.” He promises to complete it soon. But the next day though he admits he can “produce nothing but absolute flatness and nonsense.” Part of the problem is his depression. His “health and spirits are so bad, and [his] nerves so irritable,” that if he persists in trying, he will “teaze” himself into a fever. If you knew how “sore and weak a brain I have,” you would “allow for many things in me, which you set down for whims” (M, 2:126–27).

In passing, Lamb had a conversation about the book with Godwin’s new wife. He told her he delighted in the book generally, but he did find a fault. He didn’t wish to go into particulars but preferred to discuss his opinions with Godwin in person. But Mary Jane rushed to her husband and told him Lamb did not favor the book. This angered Charles. He wrote to Godwin on November 10. Yes, he does believe that the book’s “one considerable error” is a tendency to be too conjectural about Chaucer’s life. But he is “greatly delighted” on the whole. As for the review—Godwin should be more patient. “You, by long habits of composition, & a greater command gained over your own powers, cannot conceive of the desultory and uncertain way in which I (an author by fits) sometimes cannot put the thoughts of a common letter into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an engagement will act upon me to torment.” Reviewing is especially difficult. My “head is so whimsical a head, that I cannot, after reading another man’s book, let it have been never so pleasing, give any account of it in any methodical way, I cannot follow his train.—Something like this you must have perceiv’d of me in conversation. Ten thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts: but I cannot grasp at a whole” (M, 2:128).

In “Old and New Schoolmaster,” an Elia essay from May 1821, Lamb expounds upon his reading habits, versus those of a polished teacher. “My reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical,” Elia admits. “Odd, out of the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most of my notions, and ways of feeling.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.