Lamb and Co.: Life and Letters, 1801–2

Abstract

Journalism was not all of Lamb’s life in 1801 and 1802. The Albion took up perhaps two months, mid-June to mid-August, 1801; the Morning Chronicle two weeks in September, and the Morning Post some six weeks from early January 1801, to mid-February 1802. Around and even during these periods he was much occupied with friendship. Only some thirty-five letters survive from these two busy years,¹ something less than two a month, but from Godwin’s diary we know that Lamb was at home most of this time and learn a good deal about his social life. New on the London scene was that feckless companion of Pantisocrats George Burnett, not to mention someone called the Goul, another ne’er-do-well, sometimes assistant to Rickman.

I am never C. L. but always C. L. and Co. To Mary Hutchinson Wordworth, 1818 (CL ii, 226)

He chose his companions for some individuality of character which they manifested …. They were, for the most part, persons of an uncertain fortune …. His intimados, to confess a truth, were in the world’s eyes a ragged regiment. He found them floating on the surface of society; and the colour, or something else, in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck to him—but they were good and loving burrs for all that. Lamb on Lamb, Preface to The Last Essays of Elia (Elia, 152).