THE CAMBRIDGE MISCELLANY XIX CHARLES LAMB in this web service
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CHARLES LAMB AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES BY EDMUND BLUNDEN CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1937 in this web service
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by, New York www.carnbridge.org Information on this title: /978no768oI04 1937 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of. First published 1937 First paperback edition 20II A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-107-68010-4 Paperback has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external Of third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. in this web service
CONTENTS PREFACE PAGE VlI CHAPTER I An Eighteenth-Century Childhood 1 II The New Poetry 33 III Charles and Mary 64 IV The New Criticism 94 V Almost Perfect Sympathies 122 VI Elia 149 VII Elia's Farewell 176 INDEX 207 in this web service
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PREFACE It was in my mind to attempt a large account of Charles Lamb and to proceed with researches for that purpose, when the Master and Fellows of Trinity College honoured me with an invitation to give the Clark Lectures of 1932; and the subject of Lamb being uppermost, I perhaps injudiciously offered it. I say injudiciously because the occasion did not seem to require the kind of diurnal and detailed reconsideration which I had begun to see shaping itself to my hand; a series of lectures for an audience however learned and sympathetic would mean not a collection but a selection of topics and biographical circumstances. My hosts accepted my proposed subject, and the ensuing pages are the after-effect of their benevolence. I am delighted to record here my gratitude for the honour done to me by the Master and Fellows, as to a line of men of letters before me, and to add that, whatever the fate of the lectures may be, the lecturer's memory has been enriched by a series of personal experiences, kind beyond his deservings. May I thank, too, in this web service
Vlll PREFACE in this web service the members of the audience who supported me (in spite of a busy term, and my failure to master the acoustic mysteries of the Hall of Trinity) with such intrepid attention? The scope, then, of this book is that of a sketch; the biographical element is mainly confined to the needs of a critical theme. I have not called up all the reserves of information for it, although I have usually endeavoured not to employ the most battered references and anecdotes. The text of the lectures is, with a few adjustments found necessary on revision, that which was spoken; but I have added footnotes. Were there more of these, they might provide some relief to the persistent questioning in the text; for, like Mr F. V. Morley, who was exploring the psychological history of "Lamb before Elia" while I was moving nearly in a parallel with him, I have been mainly aware of the peculiar hazard of all dogmatizing on the inwardness of Lamb the mystificator. Of course I have ventured some round decisions; but no lecturer was ever complete without them, and Lamb would have winked at them. This world being handicapped with a 24-hour day, and this hand being already a trifle obstinate and erratic, it may be that the present volume will remain my only lengthy observation on Charles Lamb; were I to go farther, and accom
PREFACE plish an elaborate renovation, one aspect would be unaltered. I mean the great honour and admiration which all have for Mr E. V. Lucas as Lamb's editor and biographer. His work is beyond praise; and it is only the fact that there are in the course of time shiftings of idea, and various possibilities of treatment, and-even after his wonderfully vigilant enquiries--discoveries of letters, documents, writings to be made, that allows me to think of any experiment in Elian biography by me or anybody, such short reviews as the present excepted. I lament intensely the loss of Mrs G. A. Anderson, who above all people realized what Mr Lucas himself had not recaptured of Lamb's friendships and interests, and who studied to complete the portrait. "Thou shouldst have longer lived!" or shall I say, varying another of Lamb's utterances, "Mild G. A. A.! thou hast now thy C. L. in heaven". 1988 ix E. B. in this web service