The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol 5 | Page 9

Elia essay on "Newspapers" tells us; and he
died of apoplexy in 1805.
Coleridge's employment on the Evidences of Religion, whatever it may
have been, did not reach print.
Le Grice was Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858), an old Christ's
Hospitaller and Grecian (see Lamb's Elia essays on "Christ's Hospital"
and "Grace before Meat"). Le Grice passed to Trinity College,
Cambridge. He left in 1796 and became tutor to William John
Godolphin Nicholls of Trereife, near Penzance, the only son of a
widowed mother. Le Grice was ordained in 1798 and married Mrs.
Nicholls in 1799. Young Nicholls died in 1815 and Mrs. Le Grice in
1821, when Le Grice became sole owner of the Trereife property. He
was incumbent of St. Mary's, Penzance, for some years. Le Grice was a
witty, rebellious character, but he never fulfilled the promise of his
early days. It has been conjectured that his skill in punning awakened
Lamb's ambition in that direction. Le Grice saw Lamb next in 1834, at
the Bell at Edmonton. His recollections of Lamb were included by
Talfourd in the Memorials, and his recollections of Coleridge were
printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, December, 1834. I know
nothing of Miss Hunt.
Of Lamb's confinement in a madhouse we know no more than is here
told. It is conjectured that the "other person" to whom Lamb refers a
few lines later was Ann Simmons, a girl at Widford for whom he had
an attachment that had been discouraged, if not forbidden, by her
friends. This is the only attack of the kind that Lamb is known to have
suffered. He once told Coleridge that during his illness he had
sometimes believed himself to be Young Norval in Home's "Douglas."
The poem in blank verse was, we learn in a subsequent letter, "The
Grandame," or possibly an autobiographical work of which "The
Grandame" is the only portion that survived.
White was James White (1775-1820), an old Christ's Hospitaller and a
friend and almost exact contemporary of Lamb. Lamb, who first
kindled his enthusiasm for Shakespeare, was, I think, to some extent
involved in the _Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his

Friends_, which appeared in 1796. The dedication--to Master Samuel
Irelaunde, meaning William Henry Ireland (who sometimes took his
father's name Samuel), the forger of the pretended Shakespearian play
"Vortigern," produced at Drury Lane earlier in the year--is quite in
Lamb's manner. White's immortality, however, rests not upon this book,
but upon his portrait in the Elia essay on "Chimney-Sweepers."
The sonnet "To my Sister" was printed, with slight alterations, by Lamb
in Coleridge's Poems, second edition, 1797, and again in Lamb's Works,
1818.
Coleridge's _Condones ad Populum; or, Addresses to the People_, had
been published at Bristol in November, 1795.]

LETTER 2
CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE
[Probably begun either on Tuesday, May 24, or Tuesday, May 31, 1796.
Postmark? June 1.]
I am in such violent pain with the head ach that I am fit for nothing but
transcribing, scarce for that. When I get your poems, and the Joan of
Arc, I will exercise my presumption in giving you my opinion of 'em.
The mail does not come in before tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.
The following sonnet was composed during a walk down into
Hertfordshire early in last Summer.
The lord of light shakes off his drowsyhed.[*] Fresh from his couch up
springs the lusty Sun, And girds himself his mighty race to run.
Meantime, by truant love of rambling led, I turn my back on thy
detested walls, Proud City, and thy sons I leave behind, A selfish,
sordid, money-getting kind, Who shut their ears when holy Freedom
calls. I pass not thee so lightly, humble spire, That mindest me of many
a pleasure gone, Of merriest days, of love and Islington, Kindling anew
the flames of past desire; And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on,
To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.
[Footnote: Drowsyhed I have met with I think in Spencer. Tis an old
thing, but it rhymes with led & rhyming covers a multitude of licences.]
The last line is a copy of Bowles's, "to the green hamlet in the peaceful
plain." Your ears are not so very fastidious--many people would not
like words so prosaic and familiar in a sonnet as Islington and
Hertfordshire. The next was written within a day or two of the last, on

revisiting a spot where the scene was laid of my 1st sonnet that "mock'd
my step with many a lonely glade."
When last I roved these winding wood-walks green, Green winding
walks, and pathways shady-sweet, Oftimes would Anna seek the silent
scene, Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat. No more I hear her
footsteps in the shade; Her image only in these pleasant