Lamb, Charles

Autograph manuscript poem ("The Gods have made me most unmusical... Yet I do admire, / O tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire, / Thy painful labors..."), signed "Ch^s. Lamb", twenty-two lines in heroic couplets, fair copy, one page, 4to (9½ x 7¾ in.; 243 x 199 mm.); some light soiling and browning. [with]: autograph address wrapper ("For Saint Clare at Sign^r Vincenzo Novello's Musical Repository by Frith Street Soho"), postmarked 1 May 1834; seal tears, some splitting at folds. Red morocco-backed folder.

Sale, Christie's London, 30 November 2005, lot 36. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

"....I sit at Oratorios like a fish
Incapable of sound, and only wish
The thing was over..."

Although — as he himself admits here ("... Theorbos, violins, French horns, guitars / Leave in my wounded ears inflicted scars...") — Lamb had no musical inclinations, he enjoyed the company of Clara Novello (1818-1908), the fourth daughter of the music publisher Vincent Novello, whom Lamb counted amongst his circle.

Clara had made her public debut in October 1832 and soon became one of the pre-eminent singers of the period. Lamb's poem to her, titled "To Clara N.", was published in the Athenæum on 26 July 1834, a few months after he sent this copy to her. The published text, aside from a few very minor changes to punctuation, follows this manuscript.