luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to get you to consent in those times!)?
we were used to have a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for
and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could
hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when
we felt the money that we paid for it. 'Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till
all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare?and all because
of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher,7 which you dragged home late at night
from Barker's in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks
before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a
determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set
off from Islington,8 fearing you should be too late?and when the old book
seller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for
he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures?and
when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome?and when
you presented it to me?and when we were exploring the perfectness of it
(collating, you called it)?and while I was repairing some of these loose leaves
with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till daybreak?
was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat black clothes
which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become
rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity with which you flaunted it
about in that overworn suit?your old corbeau9?for four or five weeks longer
than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of
fifteen?or sixteen shillings was it??a great affair we thought it then?which
you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book that
pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old pur
chases now. 'When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number
of shillings upon that print after Leonardo,1 which we christened the 'Lady
Blanch'; when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money?and
thought of the money, and looked again at the picture?was there no pleasure
in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi's,2
and buy a wilderness of Leonardos. Yet do you? 'Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's Bar,
and Waltham,3 when we had a holiday?holidays, and all other fun, are gone
now we are rich?and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our
6. In Lamb's essays, his name for his sister, Mary. 2. Colnaghi was a London print seller. In the issue 7. The Elizabethan dramatic collaborators, whose of the London Magazine in which 'Old China' first plays were first collected in a large folio volume in appeared, the artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright
1647. (using the signature 'C. van Vinkboom') works
8. In the north of London, where the Lambs had some advice for Colnaghi into his essay: namely, been living. to immediately 'import a few impressions .. . of
9. A dark green cloth, almost black (hence its those beautiful plates from Da Vinci,' including name, the French for raven). 'Miss Lamb's favourite, 'Lady Blanche,' ' as he
1. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1 519), the great Ital-foresees that this issue 'will occasion a considerian painter. The painting is the one known as Mod-able call for them.' esty and Vanity. 3. All three are suburbs to the north of London.
.
512 / CHARLES LAMB
day's fare of savory cold lamb and salad?and how you would pry about at
noontide for some decent house, where we might go in and produce our
store?only paying for the ale that you must call for?and speculate upon the
looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a tablecloth?
and wish for such another honest hostess as Izaak Walton has described many
a one on the pleasant banks of the Lea, when he went-fishing?and sometimes
