wanting, the source of the information as to Dyer's nickname, which Southey passed on to Bedford some seventeen years later. It also indicates the rapid growth of the friendship between Lamb and Rickman. and shows a common estimate of the foolishness of their over-conscientious friend Dyer, the result clearly of anxious conferences between them on the subject of the poet's wilfulness.
II.
To the Theological Propositions submitted by him to Coleridge, Lamb should have added this other: Whether a "canceller," inflexible on his own account, can be touched by remorse on finding himself the innocent cause of a "cancel" by another?
By the destruction of his Preface, Dyer unwittingly helped to secure for himself immortality in the writings of Charles Lamb, the while his friends were pouring blame upon him for his conduct; but that to him was due a subsequent considerable "cancel" by Lamb himself appears to be unrecognized by students of 'Elia.'
When Lamb first published his 'Oxford in the Vacation' in The London Magazine for October, 1820, the essay contained some lines beginning, "D. commenced life, after a course of hard study"—too many to print here, but well known to all having a more than superficial acquaintance with literary matters. Protests were entered against these passages, which were considered by some to be objectionable. The London Magazine gave official heed to complaining pens; and Elia replied with kindly willingness to have" an error of judgment" imputed to him, or to be impeached of having "set down too hastily" "the anecdote respecting Dr. ———."
This, however, is common knowledge, as also is Dyer's letter to William King just after the publication of 'Oxford in the Vacation.'[1] Not so well known are (a) the 'Letter from Dr. Petre' in Blackwood's for May, 1821 (p. 141), with its reference to Elia's
"ribald treatment of G. D. (one of the most inoffensive men on the face of the earth) of which, to be sure, he had afterwards grace enough to be ashamed";
and (b) what Dyer himself wrote of the matter in 1823 in his 'Address to the Subscribers to the Privileges of the University of Cambridge,' (in which, by the way, "C. Lambe [sic], Esq., India House," figures in the 'List of Subscribers'). Dyer's words in the text (p. 9) are:—
"What was formerly hinted in The Gentleman's Magazine about liberal terms was said to do justice to others, and to prevent inferences, which might be drawn, from the insinuations of an admired writer, in a popular magazine, under, indeed, the best feelings, and from the purest intentions, but with an imperfect knowledge of the writer's engagements, of the motives, by which he has been influenced, and of the circumstances in which he has been placed."
Following this, in a foot-note, Dyer continues:—
"The Essays entitled, Elia, have been since collected, and published in a volume, with the exceptionable, the very incorrect, and some rather too witty passages alluded to, suppressed. By the way, the Essay, entitled 'Oxford in the Vacation' should evidently be read as a Fiction. It may be questioned, whether the facetious Elia ever saw Oxford in his life. What, however, he says of G. D. and his pursuits there is funny enough, when not too complimentary." [Dyer's own punctuation is here preserved.]
Notwithstanding all this, it is evident that the 1823 'Elia' volume, when first printed, contained the 'Oxford in the Vacation' essay in the complete form in which it had appeared in The London Magazine, and that either Lamb's own second thoughts, or the suggestion of some friend, caused the excision of the offending passages just prior to the binder's putting up the sheets in boards. As a result, in the published volume, as we have it, the greater part of p. 25 and the whole of p. 26 present an unworkmanlike stretch of imprinted paper; and it will be found on computation that the suppressed matter would have exactly filled these unoccupied spaces.
A copy of the 1823 'Elia' containing the cancelled text would be, indeed, a bibliographical treasure to put the British Museum alongside of the volume of Dyer's 1801 'Poems' which contains the half-burnt, suppressed Preface, carrying the certificate in Lamb's handwriting, "Snatch'd out of. the fire." J. Rogers Rees.
'THE FREEMAN'S JOURNAL,'
1763-1913.
(See ante, pp. 321, 344.)
Dr. Gray saw that under Lord Aberdeen's Administration nothing was to be expected for Ireland from Parliamentary action, and he accordingly devoted his attention to local affairs. Having become a member of the reformed Corporation of Dublin in 1852, he put forth all his influence and that of his paper to secure pure water for the city.
- ↑ Printed in The Mirror for 13 Nov., 1841, pp. 311-12.
