Charles Lamb: A Memoir | Page 7

Hospital five and thirty years ago," it would appear that the comforts enjoyed by Lamb himself exceeded those of his schoolfellows, owing to his friends supplying him with extra delicacies. There is no doubt that great tyranny was then exercised by the older boys (the monitors) over the younger ones; that the scholars had anything but choice and ample rations; and that hunger ("the eldest, strongest of the passions") was not a tyrant unknown throughout this large institution.
Lamb remained at Christ's Hospital for seven years; but on the half- holidays (two in every week) he used to go to his parents' home, in the Temple, and when there would muse on the terrace or by the lonely fountain, or contemplate the dial, or pore over the books in Mr. Salt's library, until those antiquely-colored thoughts rose up in his mind which in after years he presented to the world.
Amongst the advantages which Charles derived from his stay at Christ's Hospital, was one which, although accidental, was destined to have great effect on his subsequent life. It happened that he reckoned amongst his schoolfellows one who afterwards achieved a very extensive reputation, namely, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This youth was his elder by two years; and his example influenced Lamb materially on many occasions, and ultimately led him into literature. Coleridge's projects, at the outset of life, were vacillating. In this respect Lamb was no follower of his schoolfellow, his own career being steady and unswerving from his entrance into the India House until the day of his freedom from service--between thirty and forty years. His literary tastes, indeed, took independently almost the same tone as those of his friend; and their religious views (for Coleridge in his early years became a Unitarian) were the same.
When Coleridge left Christ's Hospital he went to the University--to Jesus College, Cambridge; but came back occasionally to London, where the intimacy between him and Lamb was cemented. Their meetings at the smoky little public house in the neighborhood of Smithfield--the "Salutation and Cat"--consecrated by pipes and tobacco (Orinoco), by egg-hot and Welsh rabbits, and metaphysics and poetry, are exultingly referred to in Lamb's letters. Lamb entertained for Coleridge's genius the greatest respect, until death dissolved their friendship. In his earliest verses (so dear to a young poet) he used to submit his thoughts to Coleridge's amendments or critical suggestions; and on one occasion was obliged to cry out, "Spare my ewe lambs: they are the reflected images of my own feelings."
It was at a very tender age that Charles Lamb entered the "work-a-day" world. His elder brother, John, had at that time a clerkship in the South Sea House, and Charles passed a short time there under his brother's care or control, and must thus have gained some knowledge of figures. The precise nature of his occupation in this deserted place, however (where some forms of business were kept up, "though the soul be long since fled," and where the directors met mainly "to declare a dead dividend"), is not stated in the charming paper of "The South Sea House." Charles remained in this office only until the 5th April, 1792, when he obtained an appointment (through the influence, I believe, of Mr. Salt) as clerk in the Accountant's Office of the East India Company. He was then seventeen years of age.
About three years after Charles became a clerk in the India House, his family appear to have moved from Crown Office Row into poor lodgings at No. 7 Little Queen Street, Holborn. His father at that time had a small pension from Mr. Salt, whose service he had left, being almost fatuous; his mother was ill and bedridden; and his sister Mary was tired but, by needle-work all day, and by taking care of her mother throughout the night. "Of all the people in the world" (Charles says), "she was most thoroughly devoid of all selfishness." There was also, as a member of the family, an old aunt, who had a trifling annuity for her life, which she poured into the common fund. John Lamb (Charles's elder brother) lived elsewhere, having occasional intercourse only with his kindred. He continued, however, to visit them, whilst he preserved his "comfortable" clerkship in the South Sea House.
It was under this state of things that they all drifted down to the terrible year 1796. It was a year dark with horror. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in the family, which caused even Charles himself to be placed, for a short time, in Hoxton Lunatic Asylum. "The six weeks that finished last year and began this (1796), your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse, at Hoxton." These are his words when writing to Coleridge.
Mary Lamb had previously been repeatedly attacked by the same dreadful disorder;