as often as i pass a little blue-coat boy i gaze upon him lovingly: i reverence the quaint vision of a bygone age called up by the long blue gaberdine, the red leathern belt, the yellow stockings—a quaint monkish figure still to be seen in crowded london streets, still adding to their picturesqueness and ever-varying charm.
you, too, dear reader, have yourself probably asked the meaning of the strange sight, as you have passed one of these english lads so strangely attired. perhaps you have been shown the famous old school, in the midst of the bustle of london, surrounded by ugly warehouses, offices, and shops; and you have seen the effigy of the founder, “that godly and royal child, king edward the sixth, the flower of the tudor name—the young flower that was untimely cropped as it began to fill our land with its2 early odours—the boy-patron of boys—the serious and holy child who walked with cranmer and ridley.”
alas, london is no longer to be the home of these boys, and the cloisters of the old grey friars will soon moulder away, when the merry noise of sports and revels cease to awaken them to life.
as i looked through the bars the other day watching the boys at their games, a strange fancy came to me. i thought i saw a pale and studious “grecian” (as they call the head boys of the school), and walking at his side, with glittering eyes full of wonderment, was a younger lad—a boy with crisply curling black hair, and with ruddy brown complexion, and in his look so much lovableness and trustfulness, that i felt myself envying the elder lad, whose hand rested so affectionately on the shoulder of his friend. i drew near to listen to their talk. the thoughtful grecian was discoursing learnedly yet so sweetly about some deep matter of philosophy: it seemed somewhat beyond the younger boy, but he listened quietly, rapt in admiration. suddenly the school-bell sounded. “hurry on, charles! ‘’mid deepest meditation sounds the knell.’ that’s3 how your good old elizabethans would put it. we’ll have another talk after supper.” “i—i’ve n—not h—h—had o—one t—t—talk y—yet, s ... t ... c,” stammered the other in reply: a painful contrast to the sublime eloquence that flowed from his companion.
the noise of the bell and scampering of the boys soon made me realise that fancy had led me back a hundred years and more, and had given me a glimpse of the boyhood of two famous englishmen, who have added glory to their ancient school—samuel taylor coleridge, poet and philosopher, and charles lamb, essayist and critic, the best beloved of all the good and great men whose writings are dear to us.
some day you will read the story of the lives of these two men, and you will love their books,—the weird and fairy poetry of coleridge, recalling a dreamy youth reared amid the woodlands of devon—the genial and sweet essays of lamb, so full of gentle humour, and kindliness, and humanity, so rich in tender thoughts concerning all his fellow-creatures in the great city where he was born and bred, which he loved passionately. to london he had given “his4 heart and his love in childhood and in boyhood,” and throughout his life his heart was filled with “fulness of joy at the multitudinous scenes of life in the crowded streets of ever dear london.”
charles lamb’s essays are among the greatest of our treasures, but even more beautiful than his writings is the record of his noble life—a life of saintly self-sacrifice, cheerfully devoted to the guardianship of a lonely sister, whose girlhood would have been spent in loveless solitude but for her brother’s love. mary lamb’s tragic story (too sad to be told here) was illumined by the light of this brotherly love which shone forth when the world was very dark and gloomy.
mary lamb had something of her brother’s gift of writing; it was she indeed to whom you owe many of the tales of shakespeare you are so fond of. they loved children, and they loved shakespeare, and their stories from shakespeare have been and are still read by boys and girls all the world over. they wrote, too, a whole collection of poetry for children, and here also mary’s share was much greater than her brother’s. “mine,” wrote charles, “are but one-third in quantity of the whole.” ... “perhaps5 you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old bachelor and an old maid. many parents would not have found so many.” this collection of “poetry for children” in two small volumes, was so much liked by the children that all the copies were soon bought up, and charles lamb himself could not get a copy, when later in life he sought one far and wide. so rare is the book now that only one or two copies are known to exist, and even the british museum does not possess these precious little volumes. a small selection of the poems are now once again offered to boys and girls: if this prove welcome, more will follow. they are simple little poems such as children should care for, and even grown-up people, for whom they were never intended, cherish every word written by mary and charles lamb, because they know how much goodness and humility dwelt in their souls. if there were any wish to be learned and to explain how they came to write these verses, one would have to tell you something about other writers who were then living and writing, more especially about lamb’s friend “s. t. c.,”6 who, together with an even greater poet, william wordsworth, had published ten years before, in 1798, a small volume of simple english poems, which was destined to have the greatest influence on english poetry for long years to come. in that volume wordsworth first printed the sweet little poem i am sure you know, called we are seven, and coleridge, “the inspired charity boy,” as charles lamb called him, gave the world the magical ballad of the ancient mariner. one verse from this ballad ought to be printed on the title-page of this little book of poems by mary and charles lamb:—
“he prayeth best, who loveth best
all things both great and small;
for the dear god who loveth us,
he made and loveth all.”
i. g.
