Stricken frere
Kay Dick
A Portrait of Charles Lamb David Cecil (Cape £7.95)
Coleridge liked him, though he quarrel- led with him, Wordsworth liked him, if Wordsworth could be said to like anyone Other than Dorothy, Hazlitt liked him and Praised his controversial gifts, Carlyle could not stand him ('such a despicable abortion'), and, I think, Lord David Cecil likes him, in retrospect that is, in a biographical nature, devoting his stylish ur- banity and tenderness of mind to an har- monious likeness, A Portrait of Charles Lamb. A prettily illustrated volume it must be added.
None better than Lord David at enlisting our sympathy for this melancholic little man who chirped so bookishly with his Elia Essays, and introduced his alter egos minor Pleasures and local interests while slaving away at his daily clerical task with the East India Company. None better than Lord David to convey empathy with this jokey fellow, this book-bound London 'cockney', coping with the grim genetic fac- tor of insanity in small matter-of-fact steps, emotionally drained by his own mental breakdown and sister Mary's matricide and recurrent madness. The facts of Charles Lamb's life are indeed horrific, and one feels almost mean in spirit in not caring as much about him as does Lord David.
For those who have no reservations about Lamb's prose (in particular the Elia Essays) this Portrait is what such readers have long been waiting for — a perfect con- firmation of their admiration. When one Considers how unrelated to Lord David's Own background (not to mention his Previous biographical subjects) was Lamb's lower middle-class insularity, one is full of astonished praise for the way this biographer is able to come to grips with an environment and society which, one assumes, are near foreign territory to him.
Charles Lamb presented by Lord David Is a,plucky friendly soul who simultaneous- ly Jived on two levels, a merry somewhat Childlike social creature, addicted to puns and alcohol, perpetually shadowed and haunted by the incipient madness which ran through his family. He himself suffered six weeks 'spent very agreeably in a mad house ai Hoxton', time shortly followed by 'Y's matricide and subsequent removal te an Islington mad-house. Lamb, on fVlary's temporary recovery, declared that he would assume total responsibility for her and this he did to the end of his life. The Picture is starkly drawn by Lord David as he gives us a view of Mary conscientiously Packing her straight-jacket into a suitcase and tripping off, hand in hand with Charles, to the nearest asylum whenever she felt madness striking again in her, Today, of course, Mary would, perhaps, have been given psychiatric help and some attempt made to get at the root of the problem. Lord David does not speculate over-much about the love between these siblings which bound and limited them both to a doomed life. He stays with the facts although, ten- tatively, he suggests there are potentials for further exploration. After all, this is merely a portrait.
Admirably does Lord David set the scene to that childhood and youth. The rather squalid rooms in the Inner Temple, the patronage of father Lamb's employer, Samuel Salt, who placed his books at the disposal of Mary and Charles (brother John was a hearty extrovert), and who placed Charles at Christ's Hospital, where he met Coleridge, and flourished in spite of harsh discipline and spartan conditions. At 15 Charles was at work, and in 1792, he found that desk ,at the East India Company which he was to immortalise in his Elia Essays. A harsh life, yet not wholly uncomfortable for the period, considering the circumstances. When Salt died he left a little money to the Lamb family which made them, relatively, well-off, able to entertain friends and give themselves small pleasures. Lord David deals with Lamb's abortive youth infatua- tion, 'calf love', for Ann Simmons as mere- ly an extension of poetic feeling, which in- deed it was. Lamb had no passion in him, only a despairing loving constancy for Mary. Later, in middle age, he sent a pro- posal of marriage, by letter, to the actress Frances Kelly, almost a whim of the moment incident, and was not at all distressed when the lady very kindly turned him down.
Lord David ascribes 'genius' to Lamb, admitting that his poetry never rose above verse, that his novel was bad, and that his plays were indifferent. Here it is that one might disagree. Those fictitious auto- biographical essays, which have kept his name in front of us today, appeal to Lord David because of their 'irony', which in his view has the 'advantage of keeping sentiment from becoming sickly', although even Lord David finds flaws. `Lamb is sen- timental in the bad sense of the word, too obviously out to touch the reader's heart and failing to do so in consequence.' This might appear to be a contradiction of his previous statement. However, Lord David concludes that Elia 'can touch the heart and set the mind astir and reflecting'. It is a matter of taste of course. Lamb's version was purely local, that of a Londoner familiar only with a few streets, and he made the most of his personal landscape. His propensity to retreat into fantasy and the past (even in his choice of admired books) is understandable, considering his burdens and the fact that he drank like a fish — Lord David is too kind here, with his use of the word 'tipple'. In spite of Lord David's advocacy one has to disagree, very strongly, with the classification of 'genius'. I have a very strong feeling that Lord David is overkind in his final estimate of Lamb's prose simply because this little man has somehow touched his heart with his sad life. The sheer horror of it has brought out all of Lord David's compassion. Clearly no one else will ever write so freely, nor so elegantly, about Charles Lamb as does Lord David Cecil.
Previous page
