It was brought, and on it
was a picture of the fish. Lamb kissed it, and then left the table, and
began to wander about the room, with an uncertain step, &c.
This visit must have taken place, I suppose, at or after the time when
Lamb was living at Colebrook Cottage; and the breakfast took place
probably in Mr. Henry Crabbe Robinson's chambers in the Temple, where I
first met Wordsworth.
In the year 1827 Lamb moved into a small house at Enfield, a "gamboge-
colored house," he calls it, where I and other friends went to dine with
him; but it was too far from London, except for rare visits.--It was
rather before that time that a very clever caricature of him had been
designed and engraved ("scratched on copper," as the artist termed it) by
Mr. Brook Pulham. It is still extant; and although somewhat ludicrous and
hyperbolical in the countenance and outline, it certainly renders a
likeness of Charles Lamb. The nose is monstrous, and the limbs are dwarfed
and attenuated. Lamb himself, in a letter to Bernard Barton (10th August,
1827), adverts to it in these terms: "'Tis a little sixpenny thing--too
like by half--in which the draughtsman has done his best to avoid
flattery.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190