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THE

■

LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB

1825-1834
VOLUME V

1$>

TV.-fi.

v. b

479 1/S

LETTER CCCCLXI

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE

September 30, 1825.

Dear H., — I came home in a week from
Enfield, worse than I went. My sufferings have
been intense, but are abating. I begin to know
what a little sleep is. My sister has sunk under
her anxieties about me. She is laid up, deprived
of reason for many weeks to come, I fear. She
is in the same house, but we do not meet. It
makes both worse. I can just hobble down as
far as the " Angel " once a day ; further kills
me. When I can stretch to Copenh [agen] Street
I will. If you come this way any morning I can
only just shake you by the hand. This gloomy
house does not admit of making my friends wel-
come. You have come off triumphant with
Bartholomew Fair. Yours (writ with difficulty),

C. Lamb

CCCCLXII. — TO WILLIAM AYRTON

October, 1825.

Dear Ayrton, — I am not nor can be forget-
ful of you. All this summer almost I have been
ill. I have been laid up (the second nervous
attack) now six weeks. I have only known what

sleep is, and that imperfect, for a week past. I
have a medical attendant on me daily, and am
brought low, though recovering. In the midst of
my sufferings Mary was overcome with anxiety
and nursing, and is ill of her old complaint which
will last for many weeks to come ; she is with
me in the house. I have neither place at present
to receive old friends, but for a minute's chat
or so, nor strength for some time I fear to
stretch to them. Mr. Burney, who is come
home, will corroborate this. But I hope again
to see you and Mrs. A., for whose restoration
I heartily pray. No longer reproach me, who
never was but yours truly, C. Lamb

CCCCLXIII.— TO THOMAS ALLSOP

October 5, 1825.

Dear A., — Have received your drafts. We
will talk that over Sunday morning. I am strong-
ish, but have not good nights, and cannot settle
my inside.

Farewell till Sunday.

I have no possible use for the first draft, so
shall keep them as above.

Yours truly, C. L.

I only trouble you now because, if the
drafts had miscarried, any one might have
cash'd 'em. Remember at home. Ludlow is
charming.

CCCCLXIV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

October 18, 1825.

Dear H., — The first bit of writing I have
done these many weeks. The quotations from
both the Colliers are correct, I assure you.

C. Lamb, getting well, but weak

CCCCLXV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

October 24, 1825.

Who is your compositor ? I cannot praise
enough the beauty and accuracy of the Garrick
Play types. That of Zelidaura and Felisbravo,
two or three numbers back, was really a poser.
He must be no ordinary person who got through
it (so quaint) without a slip. Not one in 10,000
would have done it. Moxon (of the great House
of Longman, Shortman & Co.) is a little fretful
that youhave extracted a bit (only) from his friend
Cole's book about Hervey and Weston Favell.
C. is gaping for it, and has sent M. a very curi-
ous old man's will for your book, which M. only
keeps till you gratify him by a tiny notice : any-
thing about the meditator among ye Tombs.

CCCCLXVI. — TO WILLIAM HONE

October 24, 1825.

I send a scrap. Is it worth postage ? My friends
are fairly surprised that you should set me down
so unequivocally for an ass, as you have done.

Here he is

what follows ?

The Ass

Call you this friendship ? Mercy ! What a dose

you have sent me of Burney ! — a perfect opening

(a pun here is intended) draught.

NOTE

[This is written on the back of the MS. " In re Squirrels "
for Hone's Every-Day Book. Lamb's previous contribution
had been The Ass which Hone had introduced with a few words.
— E. V. Lucas.]

CCCCLXVII. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

December 5, 1825.

Dear A., — You will be glad to hear that we
are at home to visitors ; not too many or noisy.
Some fine day shortly Mary will surprise Mrs.
Allsop. The weather is not seasonable for formal
engagements. Yours most ever, C. Lamb

CCCCLXVIII. — TO THOMAS MANNING

December 10, 1825.

My dear M., — We have had sad ups and
downs since you saw us, but are at present in
untroubled waters, though not by them, for our
old New River has taken a jaundice of the muds
and rains, and looks as yellow as Miss

Your red trunk (not hose, tho' a flame-coloured
pair was once esteem' d a luxury) is safe deposited

at the Peacock, who by the by is worth your
seeing. She has had her tail brush' d up, and
looks as pert as A-goose with a hundred eyes in
My-thology : I don't know what yours says of it.
Your gown will be at the Bell, Totteridge, by
the Telegraph on Monday ; time enough, I hope,
to go out to the curate's to an early tea in it.
We have a corner at double dumbee for you,
whenever you are dispos'd to change your Inn.
Believe us yours as ever,

Ch. and Mary Lamb

CCCCLXIX. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

December, 1825.

Dear O., — I leave it entirely to Mr. Colburn ;
but if not too late, I think the Proverbs had
better have L. sign'd to them and reserve Elia
for Essays more Eliacal. May I trouble you to
send my Magazine, not to Norris, but H. C.
Robinson, Esq., King's Bench Walks, instead.
Yours truly, C. Lamb

My friend Hood, a prime genius and hearty
fellow, brings this.

CCCCLXX.— TO CHARLES OLLIER

Early, 1826.

Dear Oilier, — I send you two more proverbs,
which will be the last of this batch, unless I send

you one more by the post on Thursday ; none
will come after that day ; so do not leave any
open room in that case. Hood sups with me
to-night. Can you come and eat grouse ? *T is
not often I offer at delicacies.

Yours most kindly, C. Lamb

CCCCLXXI. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

January, 1826.

Dear O., — We lamented your absence last
night. The grouse were piquant, the backs in-
comparable. You must come in to cold mutton
and oysters some evening. Name your evening ;
though I have qualms at the distance. Do you
never leave early ? My head is very queerish,
and indisposed for much company ; but we will
get Hood, that half Hogarth, to meet you. The
scrap I send should come in after the Rising with
the Lark.

Colburn, I take it, pays postages.

Yours truly

CCCCLXXII. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

January 25, 1826.

Dear O., — I send you eight more jests, with
the terms which my friend asks, which you will
be so kind as to get an answer to from Mr. Col-
burn, that I may tell him whether to go on with
them. You will see his short note to me at the

end, and tear it off. It is not for me to judge, but,
considering the scarceness of the materials, what
he asks is, I think, mighty reasonable. Do not
let him be even known as a friend of mine. You see
what he says about five going in first as a taste,
but these will make thirteen in all. Tell me by
what time he need send more ; I suppose not
for some time (if you do not bring them out this
month).

Keep a place for me till the middle of the
month, for I cannot hit on anything yet. I
mean nothing by my crotchets but extreme
difficulty in writing. But I will go on as long
as I can. C. Lamb

CCCCLXXIII. — TO MR. HUDSON

February i, 1826.

Sir, — I was requested by Mr. Godwin to en-
quire about a nurse that you want for a lady who
requires constraint. The one I know does not go
out now ; but at Whitmore House, Mr. War-
burton's, Hoxton (to which she belongs), I dare
say you may be very properly provided. The terms
are eight-and-twenty shillings a week, with her
board ; she finding her beer and washing : which
is less expensive than for a female patient to be
taken into a house of that description with any
tolerable accommodation.

I am, Sir, your humble servant,

C. Lamb
l5

CCCCLXXIV. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

February 4, 1826.

Dear O., — I send a proverb, and a common
saying, which is all I shall have against next
month. What may I say of terms to my Chinese
friend ? He will be on the fret, thinking he has
ask'd more than Mr. C. will give, and he won't
know whether to go on translating. Be explicit.
Yours truly, C. Lamb

Don't lose these : I keep no copies. Re-
member I don't want to palm a friend upon the
Magazine. I am quite content with my single
reception in it.

CCCCLXXV. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

1826.

Dear O., — We dine at four on Monday. As
I expect the authoress to tea, pray have a bit of
opinion to give on her manuscript, or she will
haunt me.

Could you let me have the last magazine I
wrote in, and which I had not about July or
August last, containing the Essay on Sulkiness,
being the last of the Popular Fallacies.

Till I see you. A-Dieu.

C. Lamb

CCCCLXXVI. — TO WILLIAM HAZLITT

1826.

Dear H., — Lest you should come to-morrow,
I write to say that Mary is ill again. The last
thing she read was the Thursday Nights, which
seem'd to give her unmixed delight, and she
was sorry for what she said to you that night.
The Article is a treasure to us for ever. Stoddart
sent over the magazine to know if it were yours,
and says it is better than Hogarth's Mod. Midn.
Conversation, with several other most kind men-
tions of it: he signs his note, An old Mitre
Courtian. C. Lamb

CCCCLXXVII. — TO BERNARD BARTON

February 7, 1826.

Dear B. B., — I got your book not more than
five days ago, so am not so negligent as I must
have appeared to you with a fortnight's sin upon
my shoulders. I tell you with sincerity that I
think you have completely succeeded in what
you intended to do. What is poetry may be
disputed. These are poetry to me at least. They
are concise, pithy, and moving. Uniform as they
are, and unhistorify'd, I read them thro' at two
sittings without one sensation approaching to
tedium. I do not know that among your many
kind presents of this nature this is not my favour-
ite volume. The language is never lax, and there

is a unity of design and feeling : you wrote them
with love — to avoid the cox-combical phrase
con amore. I am particularly pleased with the
Spiritual Law, pages 34-5. It reminded me of
Quarles, and Holy Mr. Herbert, as Izaak Walton
calls him : the two best, if not only, of our de-
votional poets, tho' some prefer Watts, and some
To?n Moore.

I am far from well or in my right spirits, and
shudder at pen and ink work. I poke out a
monthly crudity for Colburn in his magazine,
which I call Popular Fallacies, and periodically
crush a proverb or two, setting up my folly
against the wisdom of nations. Do you see the
New Monthly ?

One word I must object to in your little
book, and it recurs more than once — fadeless is
no genuine compound ; loveless is, because love
is a noun as well as verb, but what is a fade? —
and I do not quite like whipping the Greek
drama upon the back of "Genesis," page 8. I
do not like praise handed in by disparagement ;
as I objected to a side censure on Byron, &c, in
the lines on Bloomfield : with these poor cavils
excepted, your verses are without a flaw.

C. Lamb

My kind remembrances to your daughter and
A. K. always.

CCCCLXXVIII. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

March 16, 1826.

Dear Oilier, — If not too late, pray omit the
last paragraph in Actors' Religion, which is
clumsy. It will then end with the word Mug-
gletonian. I shall not often trouble you in this
manner, but I am suspicious of this article as
lame. C. Lamb

CCCCLXXIX. — TO BERNARD BARTON

March 20, 1826.

Dear B. B., — You may know my letters by
the paper and the folding. For the former, I
live on scraps obtained in charity from an old
friend whose stationery is a permanent perquisite ;
for folding, I shall do it neatly when I learn
to tye my neckcloths. I surprise most of my
friends by writing to them on ruled paper,
as if I had not got past pothooks and hangers.
Sealing wax, I have none on my establishment.
Wafers of the coarsest bran supply its place.
When my Epistles come to be weighed with
Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in deli-
cate irony, judicious reflexions, &c, his gilt post
will bribe over the judges to him.

All the time I was at the East India House
I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to the
stumps, marring rather than mending the primi-
tive goose quill. I cannot bear to pay for articles

I used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out
his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in
Mesopotamos, I think it went hard with him,
reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, where
he had so many for nothing. When I write to
a great man, at the Court end, he opens with
surprise upon a naked note, such as Whitechapel
people interchange, with no sweet degrees of
envelope : I never inclosed one bit of paper in
another, nor understand the rationale of it.
Once only I seal'd with borrow'd wax, to set
Walter Scott a-wondering, sign'd with the im-
perial quarter' d arms of England, which my
friend Field gives in compliment to his descent
in the female line from O. Cromwell. It must
have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering.
To your questions upon the currency, I refer
you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, where, if you
can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, tho',
the best ministry we ever stumbled upon. Gin
reduced four shillings in the gallon, wine two
shillings in the quart. This comes home to
men's minds and bosoms. My tirade against
visitors was not meant particularly at you or
A. K. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not
just now feel the grievance. I wanted to make
an article. So in another thing I talk'd of some-
body's insipid wife, without a correspondent object
in my head : and a good lady, a friend's wife,
whom I really love (don't startle, I mean in a
licit way) has looked shyly on me ever since.

The blunders of personal application are ludi-
crous. I send out a character every now and
then, on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my
friends. Popular Fallacies will go on ; that word
" concluded "is an erratum, I suppose, for con-
tinued. I do not know how it got stuff' d in
there. A little thing without name will also be
printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out
of your way, so I recommend you, with true
author's hypocrisy, to skip it. We are about to
sit down to roast beef, at which we could wish
A. K., B. B., and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to
be humble partakers. So much for my hint at
visitors, which was scarcely calculated for drop-
pers in from Woodbridge. The sky does not
drop such larks every day.

My very kindest wishes to you all three, with
my sister's best love. C. Lamb

CCCCLXXX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

March 22, 1826.

Dear C, — We will with great pleasure be
with you on Thursday in the next week early.
Your finding out my style in your nephew's pleas-
ant book is surprising to me. I want eyes to
descry it. You are a little too hard upon his
morality, though I confess he has more of Sterne
about him than of Sternhold. But he saddens
into excellent sense before the conclusion. Your
query shall be submitted to Miss Kelly, though

it is obvious that the pantomime, when done,
will be more easy to decide upon than in pro-
posal. I say, do it by all means.

I have Decker's play by me, if you can filch
anything out of it. Miss Gray, with her kitten
eyes, is an actress, though she shows it not at all,
and pupil to the former, whose gestures she
mimics in comedy to the disparagement of her
own natural manner, which is agreeable. It is
funny to see her bridling up her neck, which is
native to F. K. ; but there is no setting another's
manners upon one's shoulders any more than their
head. I am glad you esteem Manning, though
you see but his husk or shrine. He discloses
not, save to select worshippers, and will leave the
world without any one hardly but me knowing
how stupendous a creature he is. I am perfect-
ing myself in the Ode to Eton College against
Thursday, that I may not appear unclassic. I
have just discovered that it is much better than
the Elegy. In haste, C. L.

P. S. — I do not know what to say to your
latest theory about Nero being the Messiah,
though by all accounts he was a 'nointed one.

CCCCLXXXI. — TO H. F. CARY

April 3, 1826.

Dear Sir, — It is whispered me that you will
not be unwilling to look into our doleful hermit-

age. Without more preface, you will gladden
our cell by accompanying our old chums of the
London, Darley and Allan Cunningham, to En-
field on Wednesday. You shall have hermit's fare,
with talk as seraphical as the novelty of the di-
vine life will permit, with an innocent retrospect
to the world which we have left, when I will
thank you for your hospitable offer at Chiswick,
and with plain hermit reasons evince the ne-
cessity of abiding here.

Without hearing from you, then, you shall
give us leave to expect you. I have long had it
on my conscience to invite you, but spirits have
been low ; and I am indebted to chance for this
awkward but most sincere invitation.

Yours, with best love to Mrs. Cary,

C. Lamb

Darley knows all about the coaches. Oh, for
a Museum in the wilderness!

CCCCLXXXII. — TO CHARLES OLLIER

April, 1826.

Dear O., — Will you let the fair bearer have
a magazine for me for this month (April) —
and can you let me have for my Chinese friend
one of last month (March) and of this (in case
only that something of his is inserted) ? Is such
a privilege conceded to occasional contributors
of having the numbers they appear in ? I do not

want it, if not usual, . . . and send a line if he
may go on with the jests. Yours,

C. Lamb

Write, if but a line.

i Mag. for me, Apr.

i for Chinaman, March.

i Do. (if jests are in) Apr.

3 books, or at least i for me. If you are out,
I '11 call to-morrow.

CCCCLXXXIII. — TO VINCENT NOVELLO

[p. m. May 9, 1826.]

Dear N., — You will not expect us to-morrow,
I am sure, while these damn'd Northeasters con-
tinue. We must wait the Zephyrs' pleasures. By
the bye, I was at Highgate on Wensday, the only
one of the Party. Yours truly, C. Lamb

Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly
writes, has set in with its usual severity.
Kind remembrances to Mrs. Novello, &c.

CCCCLXXXIV. — TO BERNARD BARTON

May 16, 1826.

Dear B. B., — I have had no spirits lately to
begin a letter to you, though I am under obliga-
tions to you (how many!) for your neat little
poem. 'Tis just what it professes to be, a simple

tribute in chaste verse, serious and sincere. I do
not know how Friends will relish it, but we out-
lyers, Honorary Friends, like it very well. I have
had my head and ears stufFd up with the east
winds. A continual ringing in my brain of bells
jangled, or the spheres touch'd by some raw
angel. It is not George Third trying the hun-
dredth psalm ? I get my music for nothing. But
the weather seems to be softening, and will thaw
my stunnings. Coleridge writing to me a week
or two since begins his note — " Summer has set
in with its usual severity." A cold summer is all
I know of disagreeable in cold. I do not mind
the utmost rigour of real winter, but these smil-
ing hypocrites of Mays wither me to death. My
head has been a ringing chaos, like the day the
winds were made, before they submitted to the
discipline of a weathercock, before the quarters
were made.

In the street, with the blended noises of life
about me, I hear, and my head is lightened, but
in a room the hubbub comes back, and I am
deaf as a sinner. Did I tell you of a pleasant
sketch Hood has done, which he calls Very
Deaf Indeed? It is of a good-natur'd stupid-
looking old gentleman, whom a footpad has
stopt, but for his extreme deafness cannot make
him understand what he wants ; the unconscious
old gentleman is extending his ear-trumpet very
complacently, and the fellow is firing a pistol
into it to make him hear, but the ball will

pierce his skull sooner than the report reach his
sensorium. I chuse a very little bit of paper, for
my ear hisses when I bend down to write. I
can hardly read a book, for I miss that small
soft voice which the idea of articulated words
raises (almost imperceptibly to you) in a silent
reader. I seem too deaf to see what I read. But
with a touch or two of returning Zephyr my
head will melt. What lyes you Poets tell about
the May ! It is the most ungenial part of the
year, cold crocuses, cold primroses, you take
your blossoms in ice, a painted sun, —

Unmeaning joy around appears,
And Nature smiles as if she sneers.

It is ill with me when I begin to look which
way the wind sits. Ten years ago I literally did
not know the point from the broad end of the
vane, which it was that indicated the quarter.
I hope these ill winds have blow'd over you, as
they do thro' me. Kindest remembrances to
you and yours. C. L.

CCCCLXXXV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

June I, 1826.

Dear Coleridge, — If I know myself, nobody
more detests the display of personal vanity which
is implied in the act of sitting for one's picture
than myself. But the fact is, that the likeness
which accompanies this letter was stolen from
my person at one of my unguarded moments by

some too partial artist, and my friends are pleased
to think that he has not much nattered me.
Whatever its merits may be, you, who have so
great an interest in the original, will have a sat-
isfaction in tracing the features of one that has
so long esteemed you. There are times when in
a friend's absence these graphic representations
of him almost seem to bring back the man him-
self. The painter, whoever he was, seems to
have taken me in one of those disengaged mo-
ments, if I may so term them, when the native
character is so much more honestly displayed
than can be possible in the restraints of an
enforced sitting attitude. Perhaps it rather de-
scribes me as a thinking man than a man in the
act of thought. Whatever its pretensions, I know
it will be dear to you, towards whom I should
wish my thoughts to flow in a sort of an undress
rather than in the more studied graces of diction.
I am, dear Coleridge, yours sincerely,

C. Lamb

CCCCLXXXVI. — TO LOUISA HOLCROFT

Enfield, June 17, 1826.

Dear Louisa, — I think I know the house
you have in view. It is a capital old manor
house lately in possession of Lord Cadogan. But
whether it be that or another, we shall have in
the meantime a small room and bed to let,
pretty cheap, only two smiles a week, and find

your own washing. If you are not already on
the road, set out from the Bell, Holborn, at
half-past four, and ask to be set down at Mr.
Lamb's on the Chase. Mary joins in the hope
of seeing you very speedily, and in love to you
all. Yours truly, C. Lamb

Mary has left off writing letters ; I do all.

CCCCLXXXVII. — TO JOHN B. DIBDIN

June 30, 1826.

Dear D., — My first impulse upon opening
your letter was pleasure at seeing your old neat
hand, nine parts gentlemanly, with a modest dash
of the clerical : my second a thought, natural
enough this hot weather, Am I to answer all
this? why 'tis as long as those to the Ephesians
and Galatians put together — I have counted the
words for curiosity. But then Paul has nothing
like the fun which is ebullient all over yours.
I don't remember a good thing (good like yours)
from the 1st Romans to the last of the Hebrews.
I remember but one pun in all the Evangely,
and that was made by his and our Master : Thou
art Peter (that is Doctor Rock) and upon this
rock will I build, &c. ; which sanctifies punning
with me against all gainsayers. I never knew an
enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man.

Your fair critic in the coach reminds me of
a Scotchman who assured me that he did not see

much in Shakspeare. I replied, I dare say not.
He felt the equivoke, look'd awkward, and red-
dish, but soon return' d to the attack, by saying
that he thought Burns was as good as Shakspeare:
I said that I had no doubt he was — to a Scotch-
man. We exchang'd no more words that day.
Your account of the fierce faces in the Hanging,
with the presumed interlocution of the eagle and
the tiger, amused us greatly. You cannot be so
very bad, while you can pick mirth off from rot-
ten walls. But let me hear you have escaped out
of your oven. May the Form of the Fourth
Person who clapt invisible wet blankets about
the shoulders of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego, be with you in the fiery trial. But get out
of the frying-pan. Your business, I take it, is
bathing, not baking.

Let me hear that you have clamber'd up to
Lover's Seat ; it is as fine in that neighbourhood
as Juan Fernandez, as lonely too, when the fish-
ing-boats are not out ; I have sat for hours, star-
ing upon a shipless sea. The salt sea is never so
grand as when it is left to itself. One cockboat
spoils it. A sea-mew or two improves it. And
go to the little church, which is a very protestant
Loretto, and seems dropt by some angel for the
use of a hermit, who was at once parishioner
and a whole parish. It is not too big. Go in
the night, bring it away in your portmanteau,
and I will plant it in my garden. It must have
been erected in the very infancy of British Chris-

tianity, for the two or three first converts ; yet
hath it all the appertenances of a church of the
first magnitude; its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal
font — a cathedral in a nutshell. Seven people
would crowd it like a Caledonian Chapel. The
minister that divides the word there, must give
lumping pennyworths. It is built to the text
of "two or three assembled in my name." It
reminds me of the grain of mustard seed. If the
glebe land is proportionate, it may yield two
potatoes. Tythes out of it could be no more split
than a hair. Its first-fruits must be its last, for
'twould never produce a couple. It is truly the
strait and narrow way, and few there be (of Lon-
don visitants) that find it. The still small voice
is surely to be found there, if anywhere. A
sounding-board is merely there for ceremony.
It is secure from earthquakes, not more from
sanctity than size, for 'twould feel a mountain
thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would.
Go and see, but not without your spectacles.

By the way, there 's a capital farm-house two-
thirds of the way to the Lover's Seat, with in-
comparable plum cake, ginger-beer, &c. Mary
bids me warn you not to read the Anatomy of
Melancholy in your present low way. You '11 fancy
yourself a pipkin, or a headless bear, as Burton
speaks of. You '11 be lost in a maze of remedies
for a labyrinth of diseasements, a plethora of cures.
Read Fletcher ; above all the Spanish Curate, the
Thief, or Little Nightwalker, the Wit Without

3°

Money, and the Lover s Pilgrimage. Laugh and
come home fat. Neither do we think Sir T.
Browne quite the thing for you just at present.
Fletcher is as light as soda-water. Browne and
Burton are too strong potions for an invalid.
And don't thumb or dirt the books. Take care
of the bindings. Lay a leaf of silver paper under
'em, as you read them. And don't smoke to-
bacco over 'em, — the leaves will fall in and
burn or dirty their namesakes. If you find any
dusty atoms of the Indian weed crumbled up in
the Beaumont and Fletcher, they are mine. But
then, you know, so is the folio also. A pipe and
a comedy of Fletcher's the last thing of a night
is the best recipe for light dreams and to scatter
away nightmares. Probatum est. But do as you
like about the former. Only cut the Baker's.
You will come home else all crust ; Rankings
must chip you before you can appear in his
counting-house.

And my dear Peter Fin, Junr., do contrive to
see the sea at least once before you return. You '11
be ask'd about it in the Old Jewry. It will
appear singular not to have seen it. And rub up
your Muse, the family Muse, and send us a
rhyme or so. Don't waste your wit upon that
damn'd Dry Salter. I never knew but one Dry
Salter, who could relish those mellow effusions,
and he broke. You knew Tommy Hill, the
wettest of dry salters. Dry Salters, what a word
for this thirsty weather ! I must drink after it.

Here 's to thee, my dear Dibdin, and to our
having you again snug and well at Colebrooke.
But our nearest hopes are to hear again from
you shortly. An epistle only a quarter as agree-
able as your last, would be a treat.

Yours most truly, C. Lamb

note

[Dibdin, who was in delicate health, had gone to Hastings
to recruit, with a parcel of Lamb's books for company. He
seems to have been lodged above the oven at a baker's. This
letter contains Lamb's crowning description of Hollingdon
Rural Church. — E. V. Lucas.]

CCCCLXXXVIII. — TO JOHN B. DIBDIN

July 14, 1826.

Because you boast poetic Grandsire,

And rhyming kin, both Uncle and Sire,

Dost think that none but their Descendings

Can tickle folks with double endings ?

I had a Dad, that would for half a bet

Have put down thine thro' half the alphabet.

Thou, who would be Dan Prior the second,

For Dan Posterior must be reckon'd.

In faith, dear Tim, your rhymes are slovenly,

As a man may say, dough-baked and ovenly ;

Tedious and long as two long Acres,

And smell most vilely of the Baker's.

(I have been cursing every limb o' thee,

Because I could not hitch in Timothy.

Jack, Will, Tom, Dicjc 's, a serious evil,

But Tim, plain Tim's — the very devil.)

Thou most incorrigible scribbler,

Right Watering place and cockney dribbler,

What child, that barely understands A,

B, C, would ever dream that Stanza

Would tinkle into rhyme with " Plan, Sir " ?

Go, go, you are not worth an answer.

I had a Sire, that at plain Crambo

Had hit you o'er the pate a damn'd blow.

How now ? may I die game, and you die brass,

But I have stol'n a quip from Hudibras.

'T was thinking on that fine old Suttler, "j

That was in faith a second Butler; >

Had as queer rhymes as he, and subtler. )

He would have put you to 't this weather

For rattling syllables together ;

Rhym'd you to death, like " rats in Ireland,"

Except that he was born in High'r Land.

His chimes, not crampt like thine, and rung ill,

Had made Job split his sides on dunghill.

There was no limit to his merryings

At christ'nings, weddings, nay at buryings.

No undertaker would live near him,

Those grave practitioners did fear him ;

Mutes, at his merry mops, turned " vocal,"

And fellows, hired for silence, " spoke all."

No body could be laid in cavity,

Long as he lived, with proper gravity.

His mirth-fraught eye had but to glitter,

And every mourner round must titter.

The Parson, prating of Mount Hermon,

Stood still to laugh, in midst of sermon.

The final Sexton (smile he must for him)

Could hardly get to " dust to dust " for him.

He lost three pall-bearers their livelyhood,

Only with simp'ring at his lively mood :

Provided that they fresh and neat came,

All jests were fish that to his net came.

He 'd banter Apostolic castings,

As you jeer fishermen at Hastings.

When the fly bit, like me, he leapt-o'er-all,

And stood not much on what was scriptural.

P.S.

I had forgot, at Small Bohemia

(Enquire the way of your maid Euphemia)

Are sojourning, of all good fellows

The prince and princess, — the Novellas.

Pray seek 'em out, and give my love to 'em ;

You '11 find you '11 soon be hand and glove to 'em.

In prose, Little Bohemia, about a mile from
Hastings in the Hollington road, when you can
get so far. Dear Dib, I find relief in a word or
two of prose. In truth my rhymes come slow.
You have "routh of 'em." It gives us pleasure
to find you keep your good spirits. Your letter
did us good. Pray heaven you are got out at
last. Write quickly.

This letter will introduce you, if 'tis agree-
able. Take a donkey. 'Tis Novello the com-
poser and his wife, our very good friends.

C. L.

CCCCLXXXIX.— TO EDWARD COLERIDGE

July 19, 1826.

Dear Sir, — It was not till to-day that I
learned the extent of your kindness to my
friend's child. I never meant to ask a favour
of that magnitude. I begged a civility merely,
not an important benefit. But you have done it,
and S. T. C, who is about writing to you, will
tell you better than I can how I feel upon the
occasion. It is an alleviation to any uneasy sense
of obligation, which will sometimes be upper-

most, to reflect that you could not have served
a more worthy creature than I believe Samuel
Bloxam to be. That must be my poor com-
fort.

I remain, your faithful beadsman, in less hon-
est phrase, tho' less homely, your obliged humble
servant, Ch. Lamb

CCCCXC— TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

September 6, 1826.

My dear Wordsworth, — The bearer of this
is my young friend Moxon, a young lad with
a Yorkshire head, and a heart that would do
honour to a more Southern county : no offence
to Westmoreland. He is one of Longman's best
hands, and can give you the best account of the
Trade as 't is now going ; or stopping. For my
part, the failure of a bookseller is not the most
unpalatable accident of mortality, —

sad but not saddest
The desolation of a hostile city.

When Constable fell from heaven, and we all

hoped Baldwin was next, I tuned a slight stave

to the words in Macbeth (Davenant's) to be sung

by a chorus of authors, —

What should we do when Booksellers break?
We should rejoyce.

Moxon is but a tradesman in the bud yet, and
retains his virgin honesty ; Esto perpetua, for he
is a friendly serviceable fellow, and thinks no-

thing of lugging up a cargo of the newest novels
once or twice a week from the Row to Cole-
brooke to gratify my sister's passion for the new-
est things. He is her Bodley. He is author
besides of a poem which for a first attempt is
promising. It is made up of common images,
and yet contrives to read originally. You see the
writer felt all he pours forth, and has not palmed
upon you expressions which he did not believe
at the time to be more his own than adoptive.
Rogers has paid him some proper compliments,
with sound advice intermixed, upon a slight
introduction of him by me; for which I feel
obliged. Moxon has petition'd me by letter (for
he had not the confidence to ask it in London)
to introduce him to you during his holydays ;
pray pat him on the head, ask him a civil ques-
tion or two about his verses, and favour him with
your genuine autograph. He shall not be further
troublesome. I think I have not sent any one
upon a gaping mission to you a good while.

We are all well, and I have at last broke the
bonds of business a second time, never to put
'em on again. I pitch Colburn and his maga-
zine to the divil. I find I can live without the
necessity of writing, tho' last year I fretted my-
self to a fever with the hauntings of being
starved. Those vapours are flown. All the dif-
ference I find is that I have no pocket money:
that is, I must not pry upon an old book-stall,
and cull its contents as heretofore, but shoulders

of mutton, Whitbread's entire, and Booth's best,
abound as formerly.

I don't know whom or how many to send
our love to, your household is so frequently
divided, but a general health to all that may be
fixed or wandering stars, wherever. We read
with pleasure some success (I forget quite what)
of one of you at Oxford. Mrs. Monkhouse
(* * * was one of you) sent us a kind letter some
months back], and we had the pleasure to [see]
ler in tolerable spirits, looking well and kind as
in bygone days.

Do take pen, or put it into good-natured
hands Dorothean or Wordsworthian-female, or
Hutchinsonian, to inform us of your present
state, or possible proceedings. I am ashamed
that this breaking of the long ice should be a
letter of business. There is none circum praecordia
nostra I swear by the honesty of pedantry, that
wil I nil I pushes me upon scraps of Latin. We
are yours cordially,

Chas. and Mary Lamb

note

[The following is an abstract of what seems to be Lamb's
first letter to Edward Moxon, obviously written before this
date, but not out of place here. The letter seems to have ac-
companied the proof of an article on Lamb which he had
corrected and was returning to Moxon. I quote from
Sotheby's catalogue, May 13, 1903: "Were my own feel-
ings consulted I should print it verbatim, but I won't hoax
you, else I love a lye. My biography, parentage, place of
birth, is a strange mistake, part founded on some nonsense

I wrote about Elia, and was true of him, the real Elia, whose
name I took. * * * C. L. was born in Crown Office Row,
Inner Temple, in 1775. Admitted into Christ's Hospital,
1782, where he was contemporary with T. F. M. [Thomas
Fanshawe Middleton], afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, and
with S. T. C. ; with the last of these two eminent scholars
he has enjoyed an intimacy through life. On quitting this
foundation he became a junior clerk in the South Sea House
under his elder brother, who died accountant there some years
since. * * * I am not the author of the Opium Eater, &c." —
E. V. Lucas.]

CCCCXCI. — TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

September 9, 1826.

An answer is requested.
Dear D., — I have observed that a letter is
never more acceptable than when received upon
a rainy day ; especially a rainy Sunday ; which
moves me to send you somewhat, however short.
This will find you sitting after breakfast, which
you will have prolonged as far as you can with
consistency to the poor handmaid that has the
reversion of the tea leaves ; making two nibbles
of your last morsel of stale roll (you cannot have
hot new ones on the Sabbath), and reluctantly
coming to an end, because when that is done,
what can you do till dinner ? You cannot go to
the beach, for the rain is drowning the sea, turn-
ing rank Thetis fresh, taking the brine out of
Neptune's pickles, while mermaids sit upon rocks
with umbrellas, their ivory combs sheathed for
spoiling in the wet of waters foreign to them.

You cannot go to the library, for it 's shut. You
are not religious enough to go to church. O it
is worth while to cultivate piety to the gods, to
have something to fill the heart up on a wet Sun-
day ! You cannot cast accounts, for your ledger
is being eaten up with moths in the Ancient
Jewry. You cannot play at draughts, for there
is none to play with you, and besides there is not
a draught board in the house. You cannot go to
market, for it closed last night. You cannot look
into the shops, their backs are shut upon you.
You cannot read the Bible, for it is not good
reading for the sick and the hypochondriacal.
You cannot while away an hour with a friend,
for you have no friend round that Wrekin. You
cannot divert yourself with a stray acquaintance,
for you have picked none up. You cannot bear
the chiming of bells, for they invite you to a
banquet, where you are no visitant. You cannot
cheer yourself with the prospect of a to-morrow's
letter, for none come on Mondays. You cannot
count those endless vials on the mantelpiece with
any hope of making a variation in their numbers.
You have counted your spiders: your Bastile is
exhausted. You sit and deliberately curse your
hard exile from all familiar sights and sounds.
Old Ranking poking in his head unexpectedly
would just now be as good to you as Grimaldi.
Anything to deliver you from this intolerable
weight of ennui. You are too ill to shake it off:
not ill enough to submit to it, and to lie down

as a lamb under it. The Tyranny of Sickness is
nothing to the Cruelty of Convalescence: 'tis to
have Thirty Tyrants for one. That pattering rain
drops on your brain. You '11 be worse after din-
ner, for you must dine at one to-day, that Betty
may go to afternoon service. She insists upon
having her chopped hay. And then when she
goes out, who was something to you, something
to speak to — what an interminable afternoon
you '11 have to go thro'. You can't break your-
self from your locality: you cannot say "To-
morrow morning I set off for Banstead,by God; "
for you are book'd for Wednesday. Foreseeing
this, I thought a cheerful letter would come in
opportunely. If any of the little topics for mirth
I have thought upon should serve you in this utter
extinguishment of sunshine, to make you a little
merry, I shall have had my ends. I love to make
things comfortable. [Here is an erasure.] This,
which is scratch'd out, was the most material
thing I had to say, but on maturer thoughts I
defer it.

P. S. — We are just sitting down to dinner
with a pleasant party, Coleridge, Reynolds the
dramatist, and Sam Bloxam: to-morrow (that
is, to-day), Liston, and Wyat of the Wells, dine
with us. May this find you as jolly and freakish
as we mean to be.

C. Lamb

CCCCXCIL — TO BERNARD BARTON

September 26, 1826.

Dear B. B., — I don't know why I have delay'd
so long writing. 'T was a fault. The under-cur-
rent of excuse to my mind was that I had heard of
the vessel in which Mitford's jars were to come;
that it had been obliged to put into Batavia to
refit (which accounts for its delay), but was daily
expectated. Days are past, and it comes not, and
the mermaids may be drinking their tea out of
his china for aught I know ; but let 's hope not.
In the meantime I have paid ^28, &c, for the
freight and prime cost (which I a little expected
he would have settled in London). But do not
mention it. I was enabled to do it by a receipt
of ^30 from Colburn, with whom, however,
I have done. I should else have run short. For
I just make ends meet. We will wait the arrival
of the trinkets, and to ascertain their full expence,
and then bring in the bill. (Don't mention it,
for I daresay 'twas mere thoughtlessness).

I am sorry you and yours have any plagues
about dross matters. I have been sadly puzzled
at the defalcation of more than one third of my
income, out of which when entire I saved no-
thing. But cropping off wine, old books, &c,
and in short all that can be call'd pocket-money,
I hope to be able to go on at the cottage. Re-
member, I beg you not to say anything to Mit-
ford, for if he be honest it will vex him : if not,

which I as little expect as that you should be,
I have a hank still upon the jars.

Colburn had something of mine in last month,
which he has had in hand these seven months,
and had lost, or could n't find room for : I was
used to different treatment in the London, and
have forsworn periodicals.

I am going thro' a course of reading at the
Museum : the Garrick plays, out of part of
which I formed my Specimens : I have two
thousand to go thro' ; and in a few weeks have
despatch'd the tythe of 'em. It is a sort of office
to me ; hours, ten to four, the same. It does me
good. Man must have regular occupation, that
has been used to it. So A[nna] K [night] keeps
a school ! She teaches nothing wrong, I '11 an-
swer for 't. I have a Dutch print of a school-
mistress ; little old-fashioned Fleminglings, with
only one face among them. She a princess of
schoolmistress, wielding a rod for form more
than use ; the scene an old monastic chapel, with
a Madonna over her head, looking just as seri-
ous, as thoughtful, as pure, as gentle, as herself.
'T is a type of thy friend.

Will you pardon my neglect ? Mind, again I
say, don't shew this to M. ; let me wait a little
longer to know the event of his luxuries. (I am
sure he is a good fellow, tho' I made a serious
Yorkshire lad, who met him, stare when I said
he was a clergyman. He is a pleasant layman
spoiled.) Heaven send him his jars uncrack'd,

and me my . Yours with kindest wishes to

your daughter and friend, in which Mary joins,

C. L.

CCCCXCIIL — TO BERNARD BARTON

[No date.]

Dear B. B., — If you have a convenient con-
veyance, pray transmit this to your friend Mr.
Mitford. I have a prelibation of his china for
him. It is coming home by the James Scott from
Singapore, which I cannot learn is yet arrived.
I copy my friend's letter dated Canton, Decem-
ber ; he himself I find is in England, having
prevented his own letter :

Dollars
1 2 flower stands i o}4
42 " pots . \y2

1 o cases .

Chinese duties . 3^

Cost in China 27 dollars at 4/6 £6 1 6
Freight — Tons feet

1 2ij^at £16 per ton 22 14 4

28 15 10

There will be duties here to pay ; I do not
know what. My friend says he is afraid Mr. M.
will think them expensive. The articles them-
selves, he will see, at prime cost, are little or
nothing, but the freight is most heavy, and

would have been half as much more by a Com-
pany's ship. I shall keep my eye upon the arrival
of the "James Scott, and take measures accord-
ingly. Yours truly, Chs. Lamb

I want a particular direction to Mr. M., that
the jars, when they come, may be duly sent.

CCCCXCIV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

September, 1826.

I have had much trouble to find Field to-day.
No matter. He was packing up for out of town.
He has writ a handsomest letter, which you will
transmit to Murray with your proof-sheets.
Seal it. Yours, C. L.

Mrs. Hood will drink tea with us on Thurs-
day at half-past five at latest.

N. B. I have lost my Museum reading to-day,
— a day with Titus, — owing to your dam'd
bisness. I am the last to reproach anybody. I
scorn it. If you shall have the whole book ready
soon, it will be best for Murray to see.

CCCCXCV. — TO BERNARD BARTON

No date. Soon after preceding letter to Barton. 1826.

Dear B. B., — The Busy Bee, as Hood after
Dr. Watts apostrophises thee, and well dost thou
deserve it for thy labours in the Muses' gardens,

wandering over parterres of think-on-me's and
forget-me-nots, to a total impossibility of for-
getting thee, — thy letter was acceptable, thy
scruples may be dismissed, thou art rectus in Curia,
not a word more to be said, verbum sapienti and
so forth, the matter is decided with a white
stone, classically, mark me, and the apparitions
vanish'd which haunted me, only the cramp,
Caliban's distemper, clawing me in the calvish
part of my nature, makes me ever and anon roar
bullishly, squeak cowardishly, and limp cripple-
ishly. Do I write quakerly and simply ? 't is my
most Master Mathew-like intention to do it. See
Ben Jonson. I think you told me your acquaint-
ance with the drama was confin'd to Shakspeare
and Miss Bailly : some read only Milton and
Croly. The gap is as from an ananas to a turnip.

I have fighting in my head the plots, charac-
ters, situations, and sentiments of four hundred
old plays (bran new to me) which I have been
digesting at the Museum, and my appetite sharp-
ens to twice as many more, which I mean to
course over this winter. I can scarce avoid dia-
logue fashion in this letter. I soliloquise my
meditations, and habitually speak dramatic blank
verse without meaning it.

Do you see Mitford ? he will tell you some-
thing of my labours. Tell him I am sorry to have
mist seeing him, to have talk'd over those Old
Treasures. I am still more sorry for his missing
pots. But I shall be sure of the earliest intelli-

gence of the Lost Tribes. His Sacred Specimens
are a thankful addition to my shelves. Marry,
I could wish he had been more careful of corri-
genda. I have discover'd certain which have
slipt his errata. I put 'em in the next page, as
perhaps thou canst transmit them to him. For
what purpose but to grieve him (which yet I
should be sorry to do), but then it shews my
learning, and the excuse is complimentary, as it
implies their correction in a future edition. His
own things in the book are magnificent, and as
an old Christ's Hospitaller I was particularly
refresh'd with his eulogy on our Edward. Many
of the choice excerpta were new to me.

Old Christmas is a-coming, to the confusion
of Puritans, Muggletonians, Anabaptists, Quakers,
and that Unwassailing Crew. He cometh not
with his wonted gait, he is shrunk nine inches
in the girth, but is yet a lusty fellow. Hood's
book is mighty clever, and went off six hun-
dred copies the first day. Sioris Songs do not dis-
perse so quickly. The next leaf is for Rev. J. M.
In this Adieu thine briefly in a tall friendship,

C. Lamb

CCCCXCVI. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

January, 1827.

Dear Allsop, — Mary will take her chance of
an early lunch or dinner with you on Thursday :
she can't come on Wednesday. If I can, I will

fetch her home. But I am near killed with
Christmasing ; and, if incompetent, your kind-
ness will excuse me. I can scarce set foot to
ground for a cramp that I took me last night.
Yours, C. Lamb

CCCCXCVII. — TO HENRY C. ROBINSON

January 20, 1827.

Dear Robinson, — I called upon you this
morning, and found that you were gone to visit
a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand.
Poor Norris has been lying dying for now al-
most a week, such is the penalty we pay for hav-
ing enjoyed a strong constitution ! Whether he
knew me or not, I know not, or whether he saw
me through his poor glazed eyes ; but the group
I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the
bed, or about it, were assembled his wife and
two daughters, and poor deaf Richard, his son,
looking doubly stupified. There they were, and
seemed to have been sitting all the week. I could
only reach out a hand to Mrs. Norris. Speak-
ing was impossible in that mute chamber. By
this time I hope it is all over with him. In him
I have a loss the world cannot make up. He
was my friend and my father's friend all the life
I can remember. I seem to have made foolish
friendships ever since. Those are friendships
which outlive a second generation. Old as I am
waxing, in his eyes I was still the child he first

knew me. To the last he called me Charley. I
have none to call me Charley now. He was the
last link that bound me to the Temple. You are
but of yesterday. In him seem to have died the
old plainness of manners and singleness of heart.
Letters he knew nothing of, nor did his reading
extend beyond the pages of the Gentleman s Maga-
zine. Yet there was a pride of literature about
him from being amongst books (he was librarian),
and from some scraps of doubtful Latin which he
had picked up in his office of entering students,
that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry.
Can I forget the erudite look with which, when
he had been in vain trying to make out a black-
letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library,
he laid it down and told me that — "in those
old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of
very indifferent spelling;" and seemed to con-
sole himself in the reflection ! His jokes (for he
had his jokes) are now ended, but they were old
trusty perennials, staples that pleased after decks
repetita, and were always as good as new. One
song he had, which was reserved for the night
of Christmas-day, which we always spent in the
Temple. It was an old thing, and spoke of the
flat bottoms of our foes and the possibility of their
coming over in darkness, and alluded to threats
of an invasion many years blown over ; and when
he came to the part, —

We '11 still make 'em run, and we '11 still make 'em sweat,
In spite of the devil and Brussels Gazette !

his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an
impending event. And what is the Brussels Ga-
zette now ? I cry while I enumerate these trifles.
"How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?"
His poor good girls will now have to receive
their afflicted mother in an inaccessible hovel in
an obscure village in Herts, where they have
been long struggling to make a school without
effect; and poor deaf Richard — and the more
helpless for being so — is thrown on the wide
world.

My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in
calling on you, was to ask if you were enough
acquainted with any of the Benchers, to lay a
plain statement before them of the circumstances
of the family. I almost fear not, for you are of
another hall. But if you can oblige me and
my poor friend, who is now insensible to any
favours, pray exert yourself. You cannot say too
much good of poor Norris and his poor wife.
Yours ever, Charles Lamb

note

[This letter, describing the death of Randall Norris, Sub-
Treasurer and Librarian of the Inner Temple, was printed
with only very slight alterations in Hone's Table Book, 1827,
and again in the Last Essays of E/ia, 1833, under the title
" A Death-Bed." It was, however, taken out of the second
edition, and " Confessions of a Drunkard " substituted, in
deference to the wishes of Norris's family. Mrs. Norris
was a native of Widford, where she had known Mrs. Field,
Lamb's grandmother. With her son Richard, who was deaf
and peculiar, Mrs. Norris moved to Widford again, where the

daughters, Miss Betsy and Miss Jane, had opened a school
— Goddard House ; which they retained until a legacy re-
stored the family prosperity. Soon after that they both mar-
ried, each a farmer named Tween. They survived until quite
recently. Mrs. Coe, an old scholar at the Misses Norris's
school in the twenties, gave me, in 1902, some reminiscences
of those days, from which I quote a passage or so :

When he joined the Norrises' dinner-table he kept every one laughing.
Mr. Richard sat at one end, and some of the school children would be there
too. One day Mr. Lamb gave every one a fancy name all round the table,
and made a verse on each. " You are so-and-so," he said, " and you are
so-and-so," adding the rhyme. " What * s he saying ? What are you laugh-
ing at ? " Mr. Richard asked testily, for he was short-tempered. Miss
Betsy explained the joke to him, and Mr. Lamb, coming to his turn,
said — only he said it in verse — "Now, Dick, it's your turn. I shall
call you Gruborum ; because all you think of is your food and your
stomach." Mr. Richard pushed back his chair in a rage and stamped out
of the room. "Now I've done it," said Mr. Lamb : "I must go and
make friends with my old chum. Give me a large plate of pudding to
take to him." When he came back he said, "It's all right. I thought
the pudding would do it." Mr. Lamb and Mr. Richard never got on
very well, and Mr. Richard didn't like his teasing ways at all ; but Mr.
Lamb often went for long walks with him, because no one else would.
He did many kind things like that.

There used to be a half-holiday when Mr. Lamb came, partly because
he would force his way into the schoolroom and make seriousness impos-
sible. His head would suddenly appear at the door in the midst of les-
sons, with "Well, Betsy ! How do, Jane ?" " O, Mr. Lamb !" they
would say, and that was the end of work for that day. He was really
rather naughty with the children. One of his tricks was to teach them
a new kind of catechism (Mrs. Coe does not remember it, but we may
rest assured, I fear, that it was secular), and he made a great fuss with
Lizzie Hunt for her skill in saying the Lord's Prayer backwards, which
he had taught her. — E. V. Lucas.]

CCCCXCVIII. — TO HENRY C. ROBINSON

January 20, 1827.

Dear R., — N. is dead. I have writ as nearly
as I could to look like a letter meant for your eye
only. Will it do ?

Could you distantly hint (do as your own judg-

5°

ment suggests) that if his son could be got in as
clerk to the new subtreasurer, it would be all his
father wish'd ? But I leave that to you. I don't
want to put you upon anything disagreeable.
Yours thankfully, C. L.

CCCCXCIX. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

January 25, 1827.

My dear Allsop, — I cannot forbear thanking
you foryour kind interference with Taylor, whom
I do not expect to see in haste at Islington.

It is hardly weather to ask a dog up here, but
I need hardly say how happy we shall be to see
you. I cannot be out of evenings till John Frost
be routed. We came home from Newman Street
the other night late, and I was crampt all night.

Love to Mrs. Allsop. Yours truly, C. L.

D. — TO WILLIAM HONE

January 27, 1827.

Dear Sir, — It is not unknown to you that
about sixteen years since I published Specimens of
English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of
Shakspeare. For the scarcer plays I had recourse
to the collection bequeathed to the British Mu-
seum by Mr. Garrick. But my time was but
short; and my subsequent leisure has discovered
in it a treasure rich and exhaustless beyond what
I then imagined. In it is to be found almost every

production, in the shape of a play, that has ap-
peared in print since the time of the old mys-
teries and moralities to the days of Crown and
D'Urfey. Imagine the luxury to one like me
— who, above every other form of poetry, have
ever preferred the dramatic — of sitting in the
princely apartments, for such they are, of poor,
condemned Montagu House, — which, I predict,
will not soon be followed by a handsomer, — and
culling at will the flowers of some thousand
dramas ! It is like having the range of a noble-
man's library, with the librarian to your friend.
Nothing can exceed the courteousness and atten-
tions of the gentleman who has the chief direc-
tion of the reading-rooms here; and you have
scarce to ask for a volume before it is laid before
you. If the occasional extracts which I have been
tempted to bring away may find an appropriate
place in your Table Book, some of them are weekly
at your service. By those who remember the
Specimens these must be considered as mere after-
gleanings, supplementary to that work, only com-
prising a longer period. You must be content
with sometimes a scene, sometimes a song, a
speech, a passage, or a poetical image, as they
happen to strike me. I read without order of
time ; I am a poor hand at dates ; and, for any
biography of the dramatists, I must refer to
writers who are more skilful in such matters.
My business is with their poetry only.

Your well-wisher, C. Lamb

DI. — TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

January 29, 1827.

Dear Robinson, — If you have not seen Mr.
Gurney, leave him quite alone for the present, I
have seen Mr. Jekyll, who is as friendly as heart
can desire ; he entirely approves of my formula of
petition, and gave your very reasons for the pro-
priety of the "little village of Hertfordshire."
Now, Mr. G. might not approve of it, and then
we should clash. Also, Mr. J. wishes it to be pre-
sented next week, and Mr. G. might fix earlier,
which would be awkward. Mr. J. was so civil
to me that I think it would be better not for you to
show him that letter you intended. Nothing can in-
crease his zeal in the cause of poor Mr. Norris.
Mr. Gardiner will see you with this, and learn
from you all about it, and consult, if you have
seen Mr. G. and he has fixed a time, how to put
it off. Mr. J. is most friendly to the boy : I think
you had better not tease the treasurer any more
about him, as it may make him less friendly to
the petition. Yours ever, C. L.

DII. — TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

January, 1827.

Dear R., — Do not say anything to Mr. G.
about the day or petition, for Mr. Jekyll wishes
it to be next week, and thoroughly approves of
my formula, and Mr. G. might not, and then they

will clash. Only speak to him of Gardner's wish to
have the lad. Mr. Jekyll was excessive friendly.

C. L.

Dili.— TO THOMAS ALLSOP

February 2, 1827.

My dear friend, — I went to Highgate this
day. I gave to S. T. C. your letter which he
immediately answered, and to which Mrs. G.
insisted upon adding her own. They seem to
me all exceedingly to partake in your troubles.
Pray get over your reluctance to paying him
a visit, see and talk with him. Hear what he has
to say, connected closely with his own expecta-
tions, as to your desire. Something, I believe, is
doing for him. But hear him himself, look him
and your affairs in the face. Older men than you
have surmounted worse difficulties. I should have
written straight to you from Highgate, but we
have had a source of troubles this last week or two,
and yours added to it, have broke my spirits. I
could hardly drag to and from Highgate. If you
don't like to go, better appoint him your, my
house, or anywhere, but meet him. I am sure
there is great reason you should not shun him,
for I found him thinking on your perplexities
and wanting to see you.

Mary's and my best love to Mrs. Allsop,
Yours ever, C. Lamb

DIV.— TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE

February 2, 1827.

Dear Cowden, — Your books are as the gush-
ing of streams in a desert. By the way, you have
sent no autobiographies. Your letter seems to
imply you had. Nor do I want any. Cowden,
they are of the books which I give away. What
damn'd Unitarian skewer-soul'd things the gen-
eral biographies turn out.

Rank and Talent you shall have when Mrs.
Mary has done with 'em. Mary likes Mrs. Bedin-
Jield much. For me I read nothing but Astrea

— it has turn'd my brain — I go about with
a switch turn'd up at the end for a crook • and
Lambs being too old, the butcher tells me, my
cat follows me in a green ribband. Becky and
her cousin are getting pastoral dresses, and then
we shall all four go about Arcadizing. O cruel
Shepherdess ! Inconstant yet fair, and more in-
constant for being fair ! Her gold ringlets fell
in a disorder superior to order !

Come and join us. I am called the Black
Shepherd — you shall be Cowden with the Tuft.
Prosaically, we shall be glad to have you both

— or any two of you — drop in by surprise some
Saturday night.

This must go off. Loves to Vittoria.

C. L.

DV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

February 5, 1827.

For God's sake be more sparing of your po-
etry: your this week's number has an excess
of it. In haste,

C. L.

DVI. — TO B. R. HAYDON

March, 1827.

Dear Raffaele Haydon, — Did the maid tell
you I came to see your picture, not on Sunday but
the day before ? I think the face and bearing of
the Bucephalus-tamer very noble, his flesh too
effeminate or painty. The skin of the female's
back kneeling is much more carnous. I had small
time to pick out praise or blame, for two lord-like
bucks came in, upon whose strictures my presence
seemed to impose restraint : I plebeian'd off there-
fore.

I think I have hit on a subject for you, but
can't swear it was never executed, — I never
heard of its being, — "Chaucer beating a Fran-
ciscan Friar in Fleet Street." Think of the old
dresses, houses, &c. "It seemeth that both these
learned men (Gower and Chaucer) were of the
Inner Temple ; for not many years since, Master
Buckley did see a record in the same house
where Geoffry Chaucer was fined two shillings
for beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street."

Chaucer s Life by T. Speght, prefixed to the black
letter folio of Chaucer, 1598.
Yours in haste (salt fish waiting), C. Lamb

DVIL — TO WILLIAM HONE

March 20, 1827.

Damnable erratum (can't you notice it ?) in the
last line but two of the last Extract in No. 9, Gar-
rick Plays, —

Blushing forth golden hair and glorious red :

A sun-bright line spoil'd.
67. Blush for Blushing.

N. B. — The general number was excellent.
Also a few lines higher, —

Restrain'd Liberty attain'd is sweet

should have a full stop. 'T is the end of the old
man's speech. These little blemishes kill such
delicate things ; prose feeds on grosser punctual-
ities. You have now three numbers in hand ;
one I sent you yesterday. Of course I send no
more till Sunday week.

P.S. Omitted above, Dear Hone. C. L.

DVIII.— TO VINCENT NOVELLO

April, 1827.

Dear Sir, — I conjure you, in the name of all
the Sylvan Deities, and of the Muses, whom you

honour, and they reciprocally love and honour
you, rescue this old and passionate Ditty — the
very flower of an old, forgotten Pastoral, which,
had it been in all parts equal, the Faithful Shep-
herdess of Fletcher had been but a second name
in this sort of writing — rescue it from the pro-
fane hands of every common composer ; and in
one of your tranquillest moods, when you have
most leisure from those sad thoughts which some-
times unworthily beset you — yet a mood in it-
self not unallied to the better sort of melancholy
— laying by, for once, the lofty organ, with which
you shake the Temples, attune, as to the pipe of
Paris himself, to some milder and love-accord-
ing instrument, this pretty courtship between
Paris and his (then-not-as-yet-forsaken) QEnone.
Oblige me, and all more knowing judges of mu-
sic and of poesy by the adaptation of fit musical
numbers, which it only wants, to be the rarest
love dialogue in our language.

Your Implore, C. L.

DIX. — TO WILLIAM HONE

April, 1827.

Dear H., — Never come to our house and not
come in. I was quite vex'd.

Yours truly, C. L.

There is in Blackwood this month an article
most affecting indeed called Le Revenant, and

would do more towards abolishing capital pun-
ishments than 400,000 Romillies or Montagues.
I beg you read it and see if you can extract any
of it, — the 'Trial scene in particular.

DX. — TO THOMAS HOOD

May, 1827.

Dearest Hood, — Your news has spoil'd us
a merry meeting. Miss Kelly and we were com-
ing, but your letter elicited a flood of tears from
Mary, and I saw she was not fit for a party. God
bless you and the mother (or should be mother)
of your sweet girl that should have been. I have
won sexpence of Moxon by the sex of the dear
gone one.

Yours most truly and hers, C. L.

DXL — TO BERNARD BARTON

1827.

My dear B. B., — A gentleman I never saw
before brought me your welcome present —
imagine a scraping, fiddling, fidgeting, petit-
maitre of a dancing-school advancing into my
plain parlour with a coupee and a sidling bow,
and presenting the book as if he had been hand-
ing a glass of lemonade to a young miss —
imagine this, and contrast it with the serious
nature of the book presented ! Then task your
imagination, reversing this picture, to conceive

of quite an opposite messenger, a lean, straight-
locked, whey-faced Methodist, for such was he
in reality who brought it, the genius (it seems)
of the Wesleyan Magazine.

Certes, friend B., thy Widow's Tale is too
horrible, spite of the lenitives of religion, to
embody in verse : I hold prose to be the appro-
priate expositor of such atrocities ! No offence,
but it is a cordial that makes the heart sick. Still
thy skill in compounding it I do not deny. I
turn to what gave me less mingled pleasure. I
find mark'd with pencil these pages in thy pretty
book, and fear I have been penurious :

Page 52> 53. capital.

59, 6th stanza exquisite simile.
6i, nth stanza equally good.

108, 3d stanza, I long to see Van Balen.

1 1 1 , a downright good sonnet. Dixi.

153, lines at the bottom.
So you see, I read, hear, and mark, if I don't
learn ; in short this little volume is no discredit
to any of your former, and betrays none of the
senility you fear about. Apropos of Van Balen,
an artist who painted me lately had painted a
blackamoor praying, and not filling his canvas,
stuff 'd in his little girl aside of blacky, gaping
at him unmeaningly ; and then did n't know
what to call it. Now for a picture to be pro-
moted to the Exhibition (Suffolk Street) as His-
torical, a subject is requisite. What does me ? I
but christen it the Young Catechist and furbish'd

it with dialogue following, which dubb'd it an
historical painting. Nothing to a friend at need.

While this tawny Ethiop prayeth,

Painter, who is she that stayeth

By, with skin of whitest lustre ;

Sunny locks, a shining cluster ;

Saintlike seeming to direct him

To the Power that must protect him ?

Is she of the heav'nborn Three,

Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity ?

Or some cherub ?

They you mention
Far transcend my weak invention.
'T is a simple Christian child,
Missionary young and mild,
From her store of script'ral knowledge
(Bible-taught without a college)
Which by reading she could gather,
Teaches him to say Our Father
To the common Parent, who
Colour not respects nor hue.
White and black in him have part,
Who looks not to the skin, but heart.

When I 'd done it, the artist (who had clapt in
Miss merely as a fill-space) swore I exprest his
full meaning, and the damosel bridled up into
a missionary's vanity. I like verses to explain
pictures: seldom pictures to illustrate poems.
Your woodcut is a rueful lignum mortis. By the
by, is the widow likely to marry again ?

I am giving the fruit of my Old Play reading
at the Museum to Hone, who sets forth a por-
tion weekly in the Table Book. Do you see it ?
How is Mitford ?

I '11 just hint that the pitcher, the chord and
the bowl are a little too often repeated [passim) in
your book, and that on page seventeen last line
but four him is put for he, but the poor widow I
take it had small leisure for grammatical niceties.
Don't you see there 's He, myself, and him ; why
not both him? likewise imperviously is cruelly
spelt imperiously. These are trifles, and I honestly
like your book, and you for giving it, tho' I
really am ashamed of so many presents.

I can think of no news, therefore I will end
with mine and Mary's kindest remembrances to
you and yours, C. L.

DXII. — TO WILLIAM HONE

May, 1827.

Sir, — A correspondent in your last number
rather hastily asserts that there is no other au-
thority than Davenport's Tragedy for the poison-
ing of Matilda by King John. It oddly enough
happens, that in the same number appears an
extract from a play of Heywood's, of an older
date, in two parts, in which play the fact of such
poisoning, as well as her identity with Maid
Marian, are equally established. Michael Dray-
ton, also, hath a legend confirmatory (so far as
poetical authority can go) of the violent manner
of her death. But neither he nor Davenport
confounds her with Robin's mistress. Besides
the named authorities, old Fuller, I think, some-

where relates, as matter of chronicle-history,
that old Fitzwater (he is called Fitzwater both
in Hey wood and in Davenport), being banished
after his daughter's murder, — some years subse-
quently, King John, at a tournament in France,
being delighted with the valiant bearing of a
combatant in the lists, and enquiring his name,
was told it was his old servant, the banished
Fitzwater, who desired nothing more heartily
than to be reconciled to his liege ; and an
affecting reconciliation followed. In the com-
mon collection, called Robin Hood's Garland
(I have not seen Ritson's), no mention is made,
if I remember, of the nobility of Marian. Is
she not the daughter of old Squire Gamwell,
of Gamwell Hall ? Sorry that I cannot gratify
the curiosity of your "disembodied spirit" (who,
as such is, methinks, sufficiently " veiled " from
our notice) with more authentic testimonies, I
rest, Your humble Abstractor, C. L.

DXIII. — TO WILLIAM HONE

End of May, 1827.

Dear H., — In the forthcoming New Monthly
are to be verses of mine on a picture about angels.
Translate 'em to the Table-Book. I am off for
Enfield. Yours, C. L.

DXIV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

June, 1827.

Dear Hone, — I should like this in your next
book. We are at Enfield, where (when we have
solituded a while) we shall be glad to see you.
Yours, C. Lamb

DXV. — TO BERNARD BARTON

June 11, 1827.

Dear B. B., — One word more of the picture
verses, and that for good and all ; pray, with a
neat pen alter one line, —

His learning seems to lay small stress on —
to,—

His learning lays no mighty stress on —

to avoid the unseemly recurrence (ungrammat-
ical also) of "seems" in the next line, besides
the nonsense of "but" there, as it now stands.
And I request you, as a personal favour to me, to
erase the last line of all, which I should never
have written from myself. The fact is, it was
a silly joke of Hood's, who gave me the frame
(you judg'd rightly it was not its own), with the
remark that you would like it, because it was
b — d b — d, — and I lugg'd it in: but I shall be
quite hurt if it stands, because tho' you and yours
have too good sense to object to it, I would not
have a sentence of mine seen that to any foolish
ear might sound unrespectful to thee. Let it end

at " appalling ; " the joke is coarse and useless,
and hurts the tone of the rest. Take your best
" ivory-handled " and scrape it forth.

Your specimen of what you might have
written is hardly fair. Had it been a present to
me, I should have taken a more sentimental
tone ; but of a trifle from me it was my cue to
speak in an underish tone of commendation.
Prudent givers (what a word for such a nothing)
disparage their gifts ; 't is an art we have. So
you see you would n't have been so wrong,
taking a higher tone. But enough of nothing.

By the bye, I suspected M. of being the dis-
parager of the frame ; hence a certain line.

For the frame, 'tis as the room is where it
hangs. It hung up fronting my old cobwebby
folios and batter'd furniture (the fruit piece has
resum'd its place) and was much better than a
spick and span one. But if your room be very
neat and your other pictures bright with gilt, it
should be so too. I can't judge, not having
seen ; but my dingy study it suited.

Martin's Belshazzar (the picture) I have seen.
Its architectural effect is stupendous ; but the
human figures, the squalling contorted little
antics that are playing at being frighten' d, like
children at a sham ghost who half know it to
be a mask, are detestable. Then the letters are
nothing more than a transparency lighted up,
such as a Lord might order to be lit up on
a sudden at a Xmas gambol, to scare the ladies.

The type is as plain as Baskerville's — they should
have been dim, full of mystery, letters to the
mind rather than the eye.

Rembrandt has painted only Belshazzar and
a courtier or two (taking a part of the banquet
for the whole) not fribbled out a mob of fine
folks. Then everything is so distinct, to the very
necklaces, and that foolish little prophet. What
one point is there of interest ? The ideal of such
a subject is, that you the spectator should see
nothing but what at the time you would have
seen, the band — and the King — not to be at
leisure to make taylor-remarks on the dresses,
or Doctor Kitchener-like to examine the good
things at table.

Just such a confus'd piece is his Joshua, frit-
ter'd into a thousand fragments, little armies
here, little armies there : you should see only
the Sun and Joshua ; if I remember, he has not
left out that luminary entirely, but for Joshua,
I was ten minutes a-finding him out.

Still he is showy in all that is not the human
figure or the preternatural interest : but the first
are below a drawing-school girl's attainment,
and the last is a phantasmagoric trick, " Now
you shall see what you shall see, dare is Balshaz-
zar and dare is Daniel."

You have my thoughts of M. and so adieu,

C. Lamb

DXVI. — TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

June 26, 1827.

Dear H. C, — We are at Mrs. Leishman's,
Chase, Enfield. Why not come down by the
Green Lanes on Sunday ? Picquet all day. Pass
the church, pass the " Rising Sun," turn sharp
round the corner, and we are the sixth or
seventh house on the Chase: tall elms darken
the door. If you set eyes on M. Burney, bring
him. Yours truly, C. Lamb

DXVII. — TO WILLIAM HONE

June, 1827.

Dear Sir, — Somebody has fairly play'd a hoax
on you (I suspect that pleasant rogue M-x-n) in
sending the sonnet in my name inserted in your
last number. True it is, that I must own to the
verses being mine, but not written on the occa-
sion there pretended, for I have not yet had the
pleasure of seeing the lady in the part of
"Emmeline;" and I have understood that the
force of her acting in it is rather in the expres-
sion of new-born sight, than of the previous
want of it. The lines were really written upon
her performance in the Blind Boy, and appeared
in the Morning Chronicle years back. I suppose
our facetious friend thought that they would
serve again, like an old coat new turned.

Yours (and his nevertheless), C. Lamb
67

DXVIII. — TO WILLIAM HONE '

Early July, 1827.

Dear H., — This is Hood's, done from the
life, of Mary getting over a stile here. Mary,
out of a pleasant revenge, wants you to get it
engrav'd in Table Book to surprise H., who I
know will be amus'd with you so doing.

Append some observations about the awk-
wardness of country stiles about Edmonton, and
the difficulty of elderly ladies getting over 'em.

That is to say, if you think the sketch good
enough.

I take on myself the warranty.

Can you slip down here some day and go
a-Green-dragoning ? C. L.

If you do, send Hood the number, No. 2
Robert Street, Adelphi, and keep the sketch for
me.

DXIX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

July 17, 1827.

Dear M., — Thanks for your attentions of
every kind. Emma will not fail Mrs. Hood's
kind invitation, but her aunt is so queer a one
that we cannot let her go with a single gentle-
man singly to Vauxhall; she would withdraw

1 An autograph facsimile of this note, together with sketch, appears
in its chronological order in the back of Vol. I.

her from us altogether in a fright ; but if any
of the Hoods' family accompany you, then there
can be small objection.

I have been writing letters till too dark to see
the marks. I can just say we shall be happy to
see you any Sunday after the next: say, the Sun-
day after, and perhaps the Hoods will come too
and have a merry other day, before they go hence.
But next Sunday we expect as many as we can
well entertain.

With ours and Emma's acknowledgments,
Yours, C. L.

DXX. — TO P. G. PATMORE

Londres, Julie 19, 1827.

Dear P., — I am so poorly ! I have been to
a funeral, where I made a pun, to the consterna-
tion of the rest of the mourners. And we had
wine. I can't describe to you the howl which
the widow set up at proper intervals. Dash could,
for it was not unlike what he makes.

The letter I sent you was one directed to the
care of E. White, India House, for Mrs. Hazlitt.
Which Mrs. Hazlitt I don't yet know, but A.
has taken it to France on speculation. Really
it is embarrassing. There is Mrs. present H.,
Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H., and to which
of the three Mrs. Wiggins's it appertains, I don't
know. I wanted to open it, but it 's transporta-
tion.

I am sorry you are plagued about your book.
I would strongly recommend you to take for
one story Massinger's Old Law. It is exquisite.
I can think of no other.

Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and
stands up on his hind legs. He misses Beckey,
who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the
other day, and he couldn't eat his victuals after
it. Pray God his intellectuals be not slipping.

Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose
't is no use to ask you to come and partake of
'em ; else there 's a steam-vessel.

I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and
have got on tolerably ; but it will be refused, or
worse. I never had luck with anything my name
was put to.

Oh, I am so poorly ! I waked it at my cousin's
the bookbinder's, who is now with God ; or, if
he is not, it 's no fault of mine.

We hope the Frank wines do not disagree with
Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I like her.

Did you ever taste frogs ? Get them, if you
can. They are like little Lilliput rabbits, only
a thought nicer.

Christ, how sick I am ! — not of the world,
but of the widow's shrub. She 's sworn under
^6000, but I think she perjured herself. She
howls in E la, and I comfort her in B flat. You
understand music ?

" No shrimps ! " (That's in answer to Mary's
question about how the soles are to be done.)

7°

I am uncertain where this wandering letter may
reach you. What you mean by Poste Restante,
God knows. Do you mean I must pay the post-
age ? So I do to Dover.

We had a merry passage with the widow at
the Commons. She was howling — part howl-
ing and part giving directions to the proctor —
when crash ! down went my sister through a crazy
chair, and made the clerks grin, and I grinned,
and the widow tittered — and then I knew that she
was not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened
than hurt. She 'd make a good match for any-
body (by she, I mean the widow).

If he brings but a relict away.

He is happy, nor heard to complain. Shenstone

Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape
of his neck, which his wife wants him to have
cut off; but I think it rather an agreeable ex-
crescence — like his poetry — redundant. Hone
has hanged himself for debt. Godwin was taken
up for picking pockets. Moxon has fallen in love
with Emma, our nut-brown maid. Beckey takes
to bad courses. Her father was blown up in a
steam machine. The coroner found it insanity.
I should not like him to sit on my letter.

Do you observe my direction ? Is it Gallic ? —
classical ?

Do try and get some frogs. You must ask for
" grenouilles " (green-eels). They don't under-
stand " frogs," though it's a common phrase with
us.

If you go through Bulloign (Boulogne) en-
quire if old Godfrey is living, and how he got
home from the Crusades. He must be a very old
man now.

If there is anything new in politics or litera-
ture in France, keep it till I see you again, for
I'm in no hurry. Chatty-Briant is well I hope.

I think I have no more news ; only give both
our loves (" all three," says Dash) to Mrs. Pat-
more, and bid her get quite well, as I am at
present, bating qualms, and the grief incident to
losing a valuable relation. C. L.

DXXI. — TO MRS. DILLON

July 21, 1827.

I think it is not quite the etiquette for me
to answer my sister's letter, but she is no great
scribe, and I know will be glad to find it done
for her. We are both very thankful to you for
your thinking about Emma, whom for the last
seven weeks I have been teaching Latin, and she
is already qualified to impart the rudiments to
a child.

We shall have much pleasure in seeing Mr.
Dillon and you again, but I don't know when
that may be, as we find ourselves very comfort-
able at Enfield.

My sister joins in acknowledgments, and kind-
est respects to Mr. Dillon and yourself.

Your obliged, C. Lamb

DXXII. — TO MRS. PERCY B. SHELLEY

July 25, 1827.

Dear Mrs. Shelley, — At the risk of throwing
away some fine thoughts, I must write to say how
pleased we were with your very kind remember-
ing of us (who have unkindly run away from all
our friends) before you go. Perhaps you are gone,
and then my tropes are wasted. If any piece of
better fortune has lighted upon you than you ex-
pected, but less than we wish you, we are rejoiced.
We are here trying to like solitude, but have
scarce enough to justify the experiment. We get
some, however. The six days are our Sabbath ;
the seventh — why, Cockneys will come for a
little fresh air, and so — But by your month, or
October at furthest, we hope to see Islington :
I like a giant refreshed with the leaving off of
wine, and Mary, pining for Mr. Moxon's books
and Mr. Moxon's society. Then we shall meet.

I am busy with a farce in two acts, the inci-
dents tragi-comic. I can do the dialogue commy
for: but the damned plot — I believe I must
omit it altogether. The scenes come after one
another like geese, not marshalling like cranes or
a Hyde Park review. The story is as simple as
G[eorge] D[yer], and the language plain as his
spouse. The characters are three women to one
man ; which is one more than laid hold on him in
the " Evangely." I think that prophecy squinted
towards my drama.

I want some Howard Paine to sketch a skele-
ton of artfully succeeding scenes through a whole
play, as the courses are arranged in a cookery
book : I to find wit, passion, sentiment, char-
acter, and the like trifles : to lay in the dead
colours, — I 'd Titianesque 'em up: to mark the
channel in a cheek (smooth or furrowed, yours or
mine), and where tears should course I 'd draw
the waters down : to say where a joke should
come in or a pun be left out : to bring my personae
on and off like a Beau Nash ; and I 'd Franken-
stein them there : to bring three together on the
stage at once ; they are so shy with me that I
can get no more than two ; and there they stand
till it is the time, without being the season, to
withdraw them.

I am teaching Emma Latin to qualify her for
a superior governess-ship ; which we see no
prospect of her getting. 'T is like feeding a child
with chopped hay from a spoon. Sisyphus — his
labours were nothing to it.

Actives and passives jostle in her numscull,
till a deponent enters, like Chaos, more to em-
broil the fray. Her prepositions are suppositions ;
her conjunctions copulative have no connection
in them ; her concords disagree ; her interjections
are purely English "Ah!" and "Oh!" with a
yawn and a gape in the same tongue ; and she
herself is a lazy, block-headly supine. As I say to
her, ass in praesenti rarely makes a wise man in
futuro.

74'

But I daresay it was so with you when you
began Latin, and a good while after. Good-bye !
Mary's love. Yours truly, C. Lamb

DXXIII. — TO EDWARD WHITE

August i, 1827.

My dear White, — Never was man so puzzl'd
about mortal letter as I about that you sent. Be-
sides the two Mrs. Hazlitts, there was a third,
Mrs. John Hazlitt, who has a boy abroad, and
on that ground was a candidate, but my sagacity
snuff'd out the true Mrs. Wiggins, and Allsop
has by this time deposited it at its destination, at
Paris.

I could but admire the quirk by which you at-
tempt to saddle me with the postage. You come
into my lodgings, and expect me to pay your rent,
because if I had not quitted you would not have
been charged with it. When I threw off my post,
I resigned with it both emoluments and incum-
brances. You are welcome to all. Mrs. Hazlitt
the second might just as well charge Mrs. H. the
second with the postage. It is a perfect insult
upon my understanding. Besides, 't is mean in
a gentleman on the establishment and not to be
thought on. Well, I forgive you and heartily
commending you to mind your ledger, and keep
your eye on Mr. Chambers' balances, which you
understand better than these matters, subscribe
your friend, C. L.

DXXIV.— TO MRS. BASIL MONTAGU

Summer, 1827.

Dear Madam, — I return your list with my
name. I should be sorry that any respect should
be going on towards [Clarkson], and I be left out
of the conspiracy. Otherwise I frankly own that
to pillarize a man's good feelings in his lifetime
is not to my taste. Monuments to goodness, even
after death, are equivocal. I turnawayfrom How-
ard's, I scarce know why. Goodness blows no
trumpet, nor desires to have it blown. We should
be modest for a modest man — as he is for him-
self. The vanities of life — art, poetry, skill mili-
tary, are subjects for trophies; not the silent
thoughts arising in a good man's mind in lonely
places. Was I C[larkson], I should never be able

to walk or ride near again. Instead of bread,

we are giving him a stone. Instead of the local-
ity recalling the noblest moment of his existence,
it is a place at which his friends (that is, him-
self) blow to the world, "What a good man is
he ! " I sat down upon a hillock at Forty Hill
yesternight — a fine contemplative evening, —
with a thousand good speculations about man-
kind. How I yearned with cheap benevolence !
I shall go and inquire of the stone-cutter, that
cuts the tombstones here, what a stone with a
short inscription will cost ; just to say — " Here
C. Lamb loved his brethren of mankind." Ev-
erybody will come there to love. As I can't well

put my own name, I shall put about a subscrip-
tion :

s. d.

Mrs. . .50

Procter . . .26
G. Dyer . .10
Mr. Godwin . o o
Mrs. Godwin . o o
Mr. Irving . . a watch-chain.

Mr.

the proceeds of -

first edition, — a cap-
n s ital book, by the bye,
but not over saleable.

I scribble in haste from here, where we shall
be some time. Pray request Mr. M[ontagu] to
advance the guinea for me, which shall faith-
fully be forthcoming; and pardon me that I
don't see the proposal in quite the light that he
may. The kindness of his motives, and his power
of appreciating the noble passage, I thoroughly
agree in.

With most kind regards to him, I conclude,
Dear Madam, yours truly,

C. Lamb

NOTE

[The explanation of Lamb's joke about a watch-chain is to
be found in Carlyle's Reminiscences. Irving had put down as
his contribution to some subscription list, at a public meeting,
" an actual gold watch, which he said had just arrived to him

from his beloved brother lately dead in India." This rather
theatrical action had evidently amused Lamb as it had dis-
gusted Carlyle. — E. V. Lucas.]

DXXV. — TO SIR JOHN STODDART

August 9, 1827.

Dear Knight-old-acquaintance, — 'T is with
a violence to the pure imagination (vide the Ex-
cursion passim) that I can bring myself to believe
I am writing to Dr. Stoddart once again, at
Malta. But the deductions of severe reason war-
rant the proceeding. I write from Enfield, where
we are seriously weighing the advantages of
dulness over the over-excitement of too much
company, but have not yet come to a conclu-
sion. What is the news ? for we see no paper
here ; perhaps you can send us an old one from
Malta. Only, I heard a butcher in the market-
place whisper something about a change of min-
istry. I don't know who 's in or out, or care,
only as it might affect you. For domestic tidings,
I have only to tell, with extreme regret, that poor
Eliza Fenwick (that was) — Mrs. Rutherford —
is dead ; and that we have received a most heart-
broken letter from her mother — left with four
grandchildren, orphans of a living scoundrel lurk-
ing about the pothouses of Little Russell Street,
London: they and she — God help 'em ! — at
New York. I have just received Godwin's third
volume of the Republic, which only reaches to
the commencement of the Protectorate. I think

he means to spin it out to his life's thread. Have
you seen Fearn's Anti-Tooke? I am no judge of
such things — you are ; but I think it very clever
indeed. If I knew your bookseller, I 'd order it
for you at a venture : 't is two octavos, Longman
and Co. Or do you read now ? Tell it not in
the Admiralty Court, but my head aches hesterno
vino. I can scarce pump up words, much less
ideas, congruous to be sent so far. But your son
must have this by to-night's post. I am sorry to
say that he does not conduct himself so well as
we could wish. He absented himself four days
this week (this is Tuesday) from the Charter
House, and was found tippling at an obscure
public house at Barnet with a chorus singer of
the Coburg Theatre. Mr. Hine and I with diffi-
culty got him away ; but Doctor Raine, the
head-master, hushed it up with a slight imposi-
tion— viz: the translation of Gray's Elegy into
Greek elegiacs — which I partly did for him.
I write this with reluctance to offend the feel-
ings of a father. I might a' been one if * * * * *
had let me.

Manning is gone to Rome, Naples, &c, prob-
ably to touch at Sicily, Malta, Guernsey, &c;
but I don't know the map. Hazlitt is resident
at Paris, whence he pours his lampoons in safety
at his friends in England. He has his boy with
him.

I am teaching Emma Latin. By the time you
can answer this, she will be qualified to instruct

young ladies : she is a capital English reader: and
S. T. C. acknowledges that part of a passage in
Milton she read better than he, and part he read
best, her part being the shorter. But, seriously,

if Lady St (oblivious pen, that was about to

write Mrs. /) could hear of such a young person
wanted (she smatters of French, some Italian,
music of course), we 'd send our loves by her.
My congratulations and assurances of old esteem.

C. L.

DXXV1. — TO WILLIAM HONE

August 10, 1827.

My dear Hone, — We are both excessively
grieved at dear Matilda's illness, whom we have
ever regarded with the greater respect. Pray
God, your next news, which we shall expect
most anxiously, shall give hopes of her recov-
ery.

Mary keeps her health very well, and joins in
kind remembrances and best wishes.

A few more numbers (about seven) will
empty my Extract Book ; then we will consult
about the Specimens. By then, I hope you will
be able to talk about business. How you con-
tinue your book at all, and so well, in trying
circumstances, I know not. But don't let it stop.
Would to God I could help you ! — but we
have the house full of company, which we came
to avoid. — God bless you. C. L.

DXXVII.— TO BERNARD BARTON

August 10, 1827.

Dear B. B., — I have not been able to answer
you, for we have had, and are having (I just
snatch a moment), our poor quiet retreat, to
which we fled from society, full of company,
some staying with us, and this moment as I
write almost a heavy importation of two old
ladies has come in. Whither can I take wing
from the oppression of human faces ? Would
I were in a wilderness of apes, tossing cocoa-nuts
about, grinning and grinned at !

Mitford was hoaxing you surely about my
engraving ; 't is a little sixpenny thing, too like
by half, in which the draughtsman has done his
best to avoid flattery. There have been two
editions of it, which I think are all gone, as
they have vanish' d from the window where they
hung, a print-shop, corner of Great and Little
Queen Streets, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where any
London friend of yours may inquire for it ; for
I am (tho' you won't understand it) at Enfield
(Mrs. Leishman's, Chase). We have been here
near three months, and shall stay two or more,
if people will let us alone, but they persecute us
from village to village. So don't direct to Isling-
ton again, till further notice.

I am trying my hand at a drama, in two acts,
founded on Crabbe's Confidant, mutatis mutandis.

You like the Odyssey. Did you ever read my

Adventures of Ulysses, founded on Chapman's old
translation of it ? For children or men, Chapman
is divine, and my abridgment has not quite
emptied him of his divinity. When you come
to town I '11 show it you.

You have well described your old-fashioned
Grand-paternal Hall. Is it not odd that every
one's earliest recollections are of some such
place? I had my Blakesware (Blakesmoor in
the London). Nothing fills a child's mind like
a large old mansion [one or two words wafered
over] ; better if un-or-partially-occupied ; peo-
pled with the spirits of deceased members of the
County and Justices of the Quorum. Would
I were buried in the peopled solitude of one,
with my feelings at seven years old.

Those marble busts of the Emperors, they
seem'd as if they were to stand forever, as they
had stood from the living days of Rome, in that
old marble hall, and I to partake of their per-
manency ; Eternity was, while I thought not of
Time. But he thought of me, and they are
toppled down, and corn covers the spot of
the noble old dwelling and its princely gardens.
I feel like a grasshopper that chirping about
the grounds escaped his scythe only by my
littleness. Ev'n now he is whetting one of his
smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps.
Well!

DXXVIIL — TO BERNARD BARTON

August 28, 1827.

Dear B. B., — I am thankful to you for your
ready compliance with my wishes. Emma is
delighted with your verses, to which I have
appended this notice " The 6 th line refers to
the child of a dear friend of the author's, named
Emma," without which it must be obscure ; and
have sent it with four album poems of my own
(your daughter's with your heading, requesting
it a place next mine) to a Mr. Fraser, who is to
be editor of a more superb pocket-book than
has yet appeared by far ! the property of some
wealthy booksellers, but whom, or what its
name, I forgot to ask. It is actually to have in
it schoolboy exercises by his present Majesty and
the late Duke of York, so Lucy will come to
Court ; how she will be stared at ! Wordsworth
is named as a contributor. Frazer, whom I have
slightly seen, is editor of a forth-come or com-
ing Review of foreign books, and is intimately
connected with Lockhart, &c, so I take it that
this is a concern of Murray's. Walter Scott also
contributes mainly. I have stood off a long time
from these annuals, which are ostentatious trump-
ery, but could not withstand the request of Jame-
son, a particular friend of mine and Coleridge.

I shall hate myself in frippery, strutting along,
and vying finery with beaux and belles, —

with " Future Lord Byrons and sweet L. E. L.'s."
83

Your taste I see is less simple than mine, which
the difference of our persuasions has doubtless
effected. In fact, of late you have so frenchify'd
your style, larding it with hors de combats, and
au desopoirs, that o' my conscience the Foxian
blood is quite dried out of you, and the skipping
Monsieur spirit has been infused. Doth Lucy
go to balls ? I must remodel my lines, which I
write for her. I hope A. K. keeps to her Prim-
itives. If you have anything you'd like to send
further, I don't know Frazer's address, but I
sent mine thro' Mr. Jameson, 1 9 or 90 Cheyne
Street, Totnam Court road. I dare say an hon-
ourable place wou'd be given to them ; but I
have not heard from Frazer since I sent mine,
nor shall probably again, and therefore I do not
solicit it as from him.

Yesterday I sent off my tragi-comedy to
Mr. Kemble. Wish it luck. I made it all ('t is
blank verse, and I think, of the true old dra-
matic cut) or most of it, in the green lanes about
Enfield, where I am and mean to remain, in
spite of your peremptory doubts on that head.

Your refusal to lend your poetical sanction to
my Icon, and your reasons to Evans, are most
sensible. Maybe I may hit on a line or two of
my own jocular. Maybe not.

Do you never Londonize again ? I should like
to talk over old poetry with you, of which I
have much, and you I think little. Do your
Drummonds allow no holydays ? I would will-

ingly come and work for you a three weeks or
so, to let you loose. Would I could sell or give
you some of my leisure ! Positively, the best
thing a man can have to do is nothing, and next
to that perhaps — good works.

I am but poorlyish, and feel myself writing a
dull letter ; poorlyish from company, not gener-
ally, for I never was better, nor took more walks,

— fourteen miles a day on an average, with a
sporting dog — Dash — you would not know
the plain poet, any more than he doth recognize
James Nay lor trick' d out au deserpoy (how do
you spell it).

En passant, J'aime entendre da mon bon homme
sur surveillance de croix, ma pas V homme figuratif

— do you understand me ?

C. Lamb

I have left a place for a wafer, but can't find
it again.

DXXIX. — TO WILLIAM HONE

September 2, 1827.

Dear Hone, — By the verses in yesterday's
Table Book sign'd *, I judge you are going on
better ; but / want to be resolv'd. Allsop promised
to call on you, and let me know, but has not.
Pray attend to this ; and send me the number
before the present (pages 225 to 256), which
my newsman has neglected. Your book im-

proves every week. I have written here a thing
in two acts, and sent it to Covent Garden.

Yours, C. Lamb

DXXX. — TO P. G. PATMORE

September, 1827.

Dear Patmore, — Excuse my anxiety — but how
is Dash ? (I should have asked if Mrs. Patmore
kept her rules, and was improving — but Dash
came uppermost. The order of our thoughts
should be the order of our writing.) Goes he
muzzled, or aperto ore ? Are his intellects sound,
or does he wander a little in his conversation ?
You cannot be too careful to watch the first
symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical
snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with him ! All
the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the
overseers ; but I protest they seem to me very
rational and collected. But nothing is so de-
ceitful as mad people to those who are not used
to them. Try him with hot water. If he won't
lick it up, it is a sign he does not like it. Does
his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly ?
That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield.
Is his general deportment cheerful ? I mean when
he is pleased — for otherwise there is no judging.
You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the
children yet ? If he has, have them shot, and
keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydro-
phobia. They say all our army in India had it

at one time — but that was in Hyder- Ally's time.
Do you get paunch for him ? Take care the
sheep was sane. You might pull out his teeth (if
he would let you), and then you need not mind
if he were as mad as a Bedlamite. It would be
rather fun to see his odd ways. It might amuse
Mrs. Patmore and the children. They 'd have
more sense than he ! He 'd be like -a fool kept in
the family, to keep the household in good humour
with their own understanding. You might teach
him the mad dance set to the mad howl. Madge
Owl-et would be nothing to him. "My, how he
capers ! " [In the margin is written:] One of the
children speaks this.

[Three lines here are erased?^ What I scratch
out is a German quotation from Lessing on the
bite of rabid animals ; but, I remember, you don't
read German. But Mrs. Patmore may, so I wish
I had let it stand. The meaning in English is,
" Avoid to approach an animal suspected of mad-
ness, as you would avoid fire or a precipice,"
which I think is a sensible observation. The
Germans are certainly profounder than we.

If the slightest suspicion arises in your breast
that all is not right with him (Dash), muzzle
him, and lead him in a string (common pack-
thread will do ; he don't care for twist) to Hood's,
his quondam master, and he '11 take him in at any
time. You may mention your suspicion or not,
as you like, or as you think it may wound or not
Mr. H.'s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a

few follies in Dash, in consideration of his former
sense. Besides, Hood is deaf, and if you hinted
anything, ten to one he would not hear you. Be-
sides, you will have discharged your conscience,
and laid the child at the right door, as they say.

We are dawdling our time away very idly and
pleasantly, at a Mrs. Leishman's, Chace, Enfield,
where, if you come a-hunting, we can give you
cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a
tailor ; but that, you know, does not make her
one. I knew a jailor (which rhymes), but his
wife was a fine lady.

Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. Pat-

more's regimen. I send my love in a to

Dash. C. Lamb

[On the outside of the letter was written:}

Seriously, I wish you would call upon Hood
when you are that way. He 's a capital fellow.
I sent him a couple of poems — one ordered by
his wife, and written to order ; and 't is a week
since, and I 've not heard from him. I fear some-
thing is the matter.

Omitted within :

Our kindest remembrance to Mrs. P.

DXXXI. — TO JOHN BATES D1BDIN

September 5, 1827.

Dear Dib, — Emma Isola, who is with us, has
opened an album : bring some verses with you

for it on Saturday evening. Any fun will do. I
am teaching her Latin ; you may make some-
thing of that. Don't be modest. For in it you
shall appear, if I rummage out some of your old
pleasant letters for rhymes. But an original is
better.

Has your pa — the infantile word for father
— any scrap ? C. L.

We shall be most glad to see your sister or
sisters with you. Can't you contrive it ? Write
in that case.

DXXXII. — TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

September 13, 1827.

Dear "John, — Your verses are very pleasant,
and have been adopted into the splendid Emmatic
constellation, where they are not of the least mag-
nitude. She is delighted with their merit and
readiness. They are just the thing. The 14th
line is found. We advertised it. Hell is cooling
for want of company. We shall make it up along
with our kitchen fire to roast you into our new
house, where I hope you will find us in a few
Sundays. We have actually taken it, and a com-
pact thing it will be.

Kemble does not return till the month's end.
My heart sometimes is good, sometimes bad,
about it, as the day turns out wet or walky.

Emma has just died, choak'd with a gerund in

dum. On opening her we found a participle in
rus in the pericordium. The king never dies,
which may be the reason that it always reigns
here. We join in loves.

C. L., his orthograph

What a pen !

The umbrella is cum bak.

DXXXIII. — TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

September 18, 1827.

My dear, and now more so, "John, — How that
name smacks ! what an honest, full, English,
and yet withal holy and apostolic sound it bears,
above the methodistical priggish bishoppy name
of Timothy, under which I had obscured your
merits !

What I think of the paternal verses, you shall
read within, which I assure you is not pen praise
but heart praise. It is the gem of the Dibdin
Muses.

I have got all my books into my new house,
and their readers in a fortnight will follow, to
whose joint converse nobody shall be more
welcome than you, and any of yours. The house
is perfection to our use and comfort.

Milton is come. I wish Wordsworth were
here to meet him. The next importation is of
pots and saucepans, window curtains, crockery
and such base ware. The pleasure of moving,
when Becky moves for you. O the moving

Becky ! I hope you will come and warm the
house with the first.

From my temporary domicile, Enfield,

Eli a, that "is to go"

DXXXIV. — TO THOMAS HOOD

September 18, 1827.

Dear Hood, — If I have anything in my head,

I will send it to Mr. Watts. Strictly speaking

he should have had my album-verses, but a very

intimate friend importun'd me for the trifles, and

I believe I forgot Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the

time of his similar souvenir. Jamieson conveyed

the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble ; he will

not be in town before the 27th. Give our kind

loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we

have finally torn ourselves out right away from

Colebrooke, where I had no health, and are about

to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have

experienced good.

Lord, what good hours do we keep !
How quietly we sleep !

See the rest in the Complete Angler. We have
got our books into our new house. I am a dray-
horse if I was not asham'd of the indigested
dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the cart,
and blest Becky that came with 'em for her
having an unstufF'd brain with such rubbish.
We shall get in by Michael's mass. 'T was with
some pain we were evuls'd from Colebrook.

You may find some of our flesh sticking to the
door-posts. To change habitations is to die to
them, and in my time I have died seven deaths.
But I don't know whether every such change
does not bring with it a rejuvenescence. 'Tis an
enterprise, and shoves back the sense of death's
approximating, which, tho' not terrible to me,
is at all times particularly distasteful. My house-
deaths have generally been periodical, recurring
after seven years, but this last is premature by
half that time. Cut off in the flower of Cole-
brook. The Middletonian stream and all its
echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. A par-
vis jiunt minimi.

I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new man-
sion, lest she envy it, and hate us. But when we
are fairly in, I hope she will come and try it.
I heard she and you were made uncomfortable
by some unworthy-to-be-cared-for attacks, and
have tried to set up a feeble counteraction thro'
the Table Book of last Saturday. Has it not reach'd
you, that you are silent about it ? Our new domi-
cile is no manor-house, but new, and externally
not inviting, but furnish'd within with every
convenience. Capital new locks to every door,
capital grates in every room, with nothing to
pay for incoming; and the rent £10 less than
the Islington one. It was built a few years since
at ^noo expence, they tell me, and I perfectly
believe it. And I get it for j[^5 exclusive of
moderate taxes. We think ourselves most lucky.

It is not our intention to abandon Regent Street
and West End perambulations (monastic and ter-
rible thought!) but occasionally to breathe the
fresher air of the metropolis. We shall put up
a bedroom or two (all we want) for occasional
ex-rustication, where we shall visit, not be vis-
ited. Plays too we '11 see, — perhaps our own.
Urbani Sylvani and Sylvan Urbanuses in turns.
Courtiers for a spurt, then philosophers. Old
homely tell-truths and learn-truths in the virtu-
ous shades of Enfield, liars again and mocking
gibers in the coffee-houses and resorts of London.
What can a mortal desire more for his bi-parted
nature ?

O the curds — and — cream you shall eat with
us here !

O the turtle-soup and lobster-salads we shall
devour with you there !

O the old books we shall peruse here !

O the new nonsense we shall trifle over there !

O Sir T. Browne, here !

O Mr. Hood and Mr. Jerdan, there !
Thine, C(urbanus) L(syfoanus) (Eli A ambo)

Inclos'd are verses which Emma sat down to
write, her first, on the eve after your departure.
Of course they are only for Mrs. H.'s perusal.
They will shew at least, that one of our party is
not willing to cut old friends. What to call 'em
I don't know. Blank verse they are not, because
of the rhymes — rhymes they are not, because of

the blank verse. Heroics they are not, because
they are lyric — lyric they are not, because of the
heroic measure. They must be call'd Etnmaics.

DXXXV. — TO HENRY COLBURN

September 25, 1827.

Dear Sir, — I beg leave, in the warmest manner,
to recommend to your notice, Mr. Moxon, the
bearer of this, if by any chance yourself should
want a steady hand in your business, or know of
any publisher that may want such a one. He is
at present in the house of Messrs. Longman &
Co., where he has been established for more than
six years, and has the conduct of one of the four
departments of the country line. A difference
respecting salary, which he expected to be a little
raised on his last promotion, makes him wish to
try to better himself. I believe him to be a young
man of the highest integrity, and a thorough
man of business ; and should not have taken
the liberty of recommending him, if I had not
thought him capable of being highly useful.

I am, Sir, with great respect,
Your humble servant, Charles Lamb

DXXXVI. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

September 25, 1827.

Dear Allsop, — Your kindness pursues us ev-
erywhere. That 81.4.6. is a substantial proof,

I think ; I never should have ask'd for it. Pray
keep it, when you get it, till we see each other.
I have plenty of current cash ; thank you over
and over for your offer.

We came down on Monday with Miss James.
The first night I lay broad awake like an owl
till eight o'clock, then got a poor doze. Have
had something like sleep and a forgetting last
night. We go on tolerably in this deserted house.
It is melancholy, but I could not have gone into
a quite strange one.

Newspapers come to you here. Pray stop
them. Shall I send what have come ?

Give mine and Mary's kindest love to Mrs.
Allsop, with every good wish to Elizabeth and
Rob. This house is not what it was. May we
all meet chearful some day soon.

Yours gratefully and sincerely, C. Lamb

How long a letter have I written with my own
hand.

Jane says she has sent a cradle yesterday morn-
ing ; she does for us very well.

DXXXVII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

September 26, 1827.

Dear M., — Our pleasant meetings for some
time are suspended. My sister was taken very ill in
a few hours after you left us (I had suspected it), —
and I must wait eight or nine weeks in slow hope

of her recovery. It is her old complaint. You
will say as much to the Hoods, and to Mrs. Love-
kin, and Mrs. Hazlitt, with my kind love.

We are in the house, that is all. I hope one
day we shall both enjoy it, and see our friends
again. But till then I must be a solitary nurse.

I am trying Becky's sister to be with her, so
don't say anything to Miss James \wbo was Mary
Lamb's regular nurse\.

Yours truly, Ch. Lamb

Monday. Pray, send me the Table Book. I will
send your books soon.

DXXXVIII.— TO HENRY C. ROBINSON

October i, 1827.

Dear R., — I am settled for life I hope, at
Enfield. I have taken the prettiest, compactest
house I ever saw, near to Antony Robinson's, but
alas ! at the expence of poor Mary, who was taken
ill of her old complaint the night before we got
into it. So I must suspend the pleasure I expected
in the surprise you would have had in coming
down and finding us householders.

Farewell, till we can all meet comfortable.
Pray, apprise Martin Burney. Him I longed to
have seen with you, but our house is too small
to meet either of you without her knowledge.

God bless you. C. Lamb

DXXXIX. — TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

October 2, 1827.

My dear Dibdin, — It gives me great pain to
have to say that I cannot have the pleasure of
seeing you for some time. We are in our house,
but Mary has been seized with one of her peri-
odical disorders — a temporary derangement —
which commonly lasts for two months. You
shall have the first notice of her convalescence.
Can you not send your manuscript by the coach ?
directed to Chase Side, next to Mr. Westwood's
Insurance Office. I will take great care of it.
Yours most truly, C. Lamb

DXL. — TO BARRON FIELD

October 4, 1827.

I am not in humour to return a fit reply to
your pleasant letter. We are fairly housed at
Enfield, and an angel shall not persuade me to
wicked London again. We have now six sabbath-
days in a week for — none ! The change has
worked on my sister's mind, to make her ill ; and
I must wait a tedious time before we can hope to
enjoy this place in unison. Enjoy it, when she
recovers, I know we shall. I see no shadow, but
in her illness, for repenting the step !

For Mathews — I know my own utter unfitness
for such a task. I am no hand at describing cos-
tumes, a great requisite in an account of man-

nered pictures. I have not the slightest acquaint-
ance with pictorial language even. An imitator
of me, or rather pretender to be me, in his Re-
jected Articles, has made me minutely describe
the dresses of the poissardes at Calais ! — I could
as soon resolve Euclid. I have no eye for forms
and fashions. I substitute analysis, and get rid
of the phenomenon by slurring in for it its im-
pression. I am sure you must have observed
this defect, or peculiarity, in my writings ; else
the delight would be incalculable in doing such
a thing for Mathews, whom I greatly like — and
Mrs. Mathews, whom I almost greatlier like.
What a feast 't would be to be sitting at the pic-
tures painting 'em into words; but I could al-
most as soon make words into pictures. I speak
this deliberately, and not out of modesty. I pretty
well know what I can't do.

My sister's verses are homely, but just what
they should be ; I send them, not for the poetry,
but the good sense and good will of them. I was
beginning to transcribe ; but Emma is sadly jeal-
ous of its getting into more hands, and I won't
spoil it in her eyes by divulging it. Come to
Enfield, and read it. As my poor cousin, the book-
binder, now with God, told me, most sentiment-
ally, that having purchased a picture of fish at
a dead man's sale, his heart ached to see how the
widow grieved to part with it, being her dear
husband's favourite ; and he almost apologised
for his generosity by saying he could not help

telling the widow she was "welcome to come
and look at it" — e. g. at his house — "as often
as she pleased." There was the germ of gener-
osity in an uneducated mind. He had just reading
enough from the backs of books for the " nee
sink esse feros " — had he read inside, the same
impulse would have led him to give back the
two-guinea thing — with a request to see it, now
and then, at her house. We are parroted into
delicacy. Thus you have a tale for a sonnet.
Adieu! with (imagine both) our loves.

C. Lamb

DXLI. — TO H. DODWELL

October 7, 1827.

Let us meet if possible when you hobble to
town. Enfield Chase, nearly opposite to the first
chapel ; or better to define it, east side opposite
a white house in which a Mrs. Vaughan (in ill
health) still resides.

My dear Dodwell, — Your little pig found
his way to Enfield this morning without his
feet, or rather his little feet came first, and as
I guessed the rest of him soon followed. He
is quite a beauty. It was a pity to kill him,
or rather, as Rice would say, it would have been
a pity not to kill him in his state of innocence.
He might have lived to be corrupted by the
ways of the world, and for all his delicate

promise have turned out, like an old tea broker
you and I remember, a lump of fat rusty Bacon.
Bacon was a beast, my friend at Calne, Marsh,
used to say — or was it Bendry ? A rasher of the
latter still hangs up in Leadenhall. Your kind
letter has left a relish upon my taste ; it read
warm and short as to-morrow's crackling.

I am not quite so comfortable at home yet as
I should be else in the neatest, compactest house
I ever got — a perfect God-send ; but for some
weeks I must enjoy it alone. She always comes
round again. It is a house of a few years' stand-
ing, built (for its size with every convenience)
by an old humourist for himself, which he tired
of as soon as he got warm in it. Grates, locks,
a pump, convenience indescribable, and cheap as
if it had been old and craved repairs. For me,
who always take the first thing that offers, how
lucky that the best should first offer itself! My
books, my prints are up, and I seem (so like this
room I write in is to a room there) to have
come here transported in the night, like Gul-
liver in his flying house ; and to add to the
deception, the New River has come down from
Islington with me. 'Twas what I wished — to
move my house, and I have realised it. Only in-
stead of company seven nights in the week, I see
my friends on the first day of it, and enjoy six
real Sabbaths. The Museum is a loss, but I am
not so far but I can visit it occasionally; and
I have exhausted the plays there.

ioo

" Indisputably I shall allow no sage and onion
to be cramm'd into the throat of so tender
a suckling.

" Bread and milk with some odoriferous mint,
and the liveret minced.

" Come and tell me when he cries, that I
may catch his little eyes.

" And do it nice and crips." (That 's the
cook's word.) You '11 excuse me, I have been
only speaking to Becky about the dinner to-
morrow. After it, a glass of seldom-drunk wine
to my friend Dodwell, and, if he will give
a stranger leave, to Mrs. Dodwell: then to the
memory of the last, and of the last but one,
learned Dodwell, of whom, but not whom, I have
read so much. The next to the " Outward and
Homeward bound ships " — and, if the bottle
lasts, to the Chairman, Deputy-Chairman, the
Court of Directors, the Secretary, the Treasurer,
and Accomptant-General, of the East India
Company, with a blunt bumper at parting to

P . All I can do, I cannot make P

look like a G n, yet he is portly, majestic,

hath his nods, his condescensions, his variety of
behaviour to suit your Director, your Upper
Clerk, your Ryles, and your Winfields ; he
tempers mirth with gravity, gives no affront, and
expects to receive none, is honourable, man-
nered, of good bearing, looks like a man who,
accustomed to respect others, silently extorts
respect from them, has it as a sort of in course ;

IOI

without claiming it, finds it. What do I miss in
him, then, of the essentials of gentlemanhood ?
He is right sterling — but then, somehow, he

always has that d d large Goldsmith's Hall

mark staring upon him. Possibly he is too fat
for a gentleman — then I think of Charles Fox
in the Dropsy ; and the burly old Duke of Nor-
folk, a nobleman, every stun of him !

I am afraid now you and are gone,

there 's scarce an officer in the Civil Service
quite comes up to my notion of a gentleman.
D certainly does not, nor his friend B .

C bobs. K curtsies. W bows

like the son of a citizen ; F like a village

apothecary ; C like the Squire's younger

Brother ; R like a crocodile on his hind

legs ; H never bows at all — at least to me.

S spulters and stutters. W halters and

smatters. R is a coal-heaver. Wolf wants

my clothing. C simmers, but never boils

over. D is a butterfirkin, salt butter. C ,

a pepper-box, cayenne. For A , E ,

and O , I can answer that they have not the

slightest pretensions to anything but rusticity.
Marry, the remaining vowels had something of
civility about them. Can you make top or tail
of this nonsense, or tell where it begins ? I will
page it. How an error in the outset infects to
the end of life, or of a sheet of paper !

Cordially adieu. C. Lamb

102

DXLII. — TO WILLIAM HONE

October, 1827.

Dear H., — May I trouble your kindness (a
pretty phrase and new) to transmit for me the
accompanying farce (which I leave open for
your amusement) to Terry, with the enclosed, at
the Adelphi; or his own house, if it can be
there learned, and is not far distant, still better.
I have no messenger, and am crippled for going
so far. The letter must go with it. I return,
with the farce, three books. Pick out the cob-
bler. Yours, "every day," C. L.

DXLIII.— TO WILLIAM HONE

October, 1827.

Dear Hone, — Having occasion to write to
Clarke I put in a bit to you. I see no Extracts
in this Number. You should have three sets in
hand, one long one in particular from Atreus and
Thyestes, terribly fine. Don't spare 'em ; with
fragments, divided as you please, they '11 hold
out to Xmas. What I have to say is enjoined me
most seriously to say to you by Moxon. Their
country customers grieve at getting the Table
Book so late. It is indispensable it should appear
on Friday. Do it but once, and you '11 never
know the difference.

FABLE

A boy at my school, a cunning fox, for one
103

penny ensured himself a hot roll and butter every
morning for ever. Some favour'd ones were
allowed a roll and butter to their breakfasts.
He had none. But he bought one one morn-
ing. What did he do? He did not eat it, but
cutting it in two, sold each one of the halves to
a half-breakfasted Blue Boy for his whole roll
to-morrow. The next day he had a whole roll
to eat, and two halves to swap with other two
boys, who had eat their cake and were still
not satiated, for whole ones to-morrow. So on
ad infinitum. By one morning's abstinence he
feasted seven years after.

APPLICATION

Bring out the next Number on Friday, for
country correspondents' sake. It will be one piece
of exertion, and you will go right ever after, for
you will have just the time you had before, to
bring it out ever after by the Friday.

You don't know the difference in getting a
thing early. Your correspondents are your au-
thors. You don't know how an author frets to
know the world has got his contribution, when
he finds it not on his breakfast table.

Once in this case is ever without a grain of
trouble afterwards.

I won't like you or speak to you if you don't
try it once.

Yours, on that condition,

C. Lamb
104

DXLIV.— TO WILLIAM HONE

October, 1827.

Dear Hone, — I was most sensibly gratified
by receiving the Table Book on Friday evening
at Enfield !

Thank you. In haste. Don't spare the Ex-
tracts. They'll eke out till Christmas. How is
your daughter ? C. L.

DXLV. — TO THOMAS HOOD

1827.

Dear H., — Emma has a favour, besides a bed,
to ask of Mrs. Hood. Your parcel was gratify-
ing. We have all been pleased with Mrs. Leslie ;
I speak it most sincerely. There is much manly
sense with a feminine expression, which is my
definition of ladies' writing.

DXLVL — TO BERNARD BARTON

Late, 1827.

My dear B. B., — You will understand my
silence when I tell you that my sister, on the
very eve of entering into a new house we have
taken at Enfield, was surprised with an attack of
one of her sad long illnesses, which deprive me
of her society, tho' not of her domestication, for
eight or nine weeks together. I see her, but it
does her no good. But for this, we have the snug-

i°5

gest, most comfortable house, with everything
most compact and desirable. Colebrook is a wil-
derness. The books, prints, &c, are come here,
and the New River came down with us. The
familiar prints, the Bust, the Milton, seem scarce
to have changed their rooms. One of her last
observations was " how frightfully like this room
is to our room in Islington " — our up-stairs room,
she meant. How I hope you will come some
better day, and judge of it ! We have tried quiet
here for four months, and I will answer for the
comfort of it enduring.

On emptying my bookshelves I found an Ulysses,
which I will send to A. K. when I go to town,
for her acceptance — unless the book be out of
print. One likes to have one copy of everything
one does. I neglected to keep one of Poetry for
Children, the joint production of Mary and me,
and it is not to be had for love or money. It had
in the title-page " by the author of Mrs. Lester's
School." Know you any one that has it, and
would exchange it ?

Strolling to Waltham Cross the other day, I
hit off these lines. It is one of the crosses which
Edward I. caused to be built for his wife at every
town where her corpse rested between North-
amptonshire and London.

A stately cross each sad spot doth attest,
Whereat the corpse of Elinor did rest,
From Herdby fetch'd — her spouse so honour'd her —
To sleep with royal dust at Westminster.
1 06

And, if less pompous obsequies were thine,
Duke Brunswick's daughter, princely Caroline,
Grudge not, great ghost, nor count thy funeral losses :
Thou in thy lifetime hadst thy share of crosses.

My dear B. B., — My head akes with this
little excursion. Pray accept two sides for three
for once. And believe me, yours sadly,

C. L.

DXLVII. — TO BERNARD BARTON

December 4, 1827.

My dear B. B., — I have scarce spirits to write,
yet am harass'd with not writing. Nine weeks
are completed, and Mary does not get any better.
It is perfectly exhausting. Enfield and everything
is very gloomy. But for long experience, I should
fear her ever getting well.

I feel most thankful for the spinsterly atten-
tions of your sister. Thank the kind " knitter in
the sun."

What nonsense seems verse, when one is seri-
ously out of hope and spirits ! I mean that at
this time I have some nonsense to write, pain of
incivility. Would to the fifth heaven no cox-
combess had invented albums.

I have not had a Bijoux, nor the slightest no-
tice from Pickering about omitting four out of
five of my things. The best thing is never to hear
of such a thing as a bookseller again, or to think
there are publishers : second hand stationers and

107

old book-stalls for me. Authorship should be an
idea of the past.

Old kings, old bishops, are venerable. All
present is hollow.

I cannot make a letter. I have no straw, not
a pennyworth of chaff, only this may stop your
kind importunity to know about us.

Here is a comfortable house, but no tenants.
One does not make a household.

Do not think I am quite in despair, but in
addition to hope protracted, I have a stupifying
cold and obstructing headache, and the sun is
dead.

I will not fail to apprise you of the revival
of a beam.

Meantime accept this, rather than think I have
forgotten you all.

Best remembrances.

Yours and theirs truly, C. L.

DXLVIII. — TO LEIGH HUNT

December, 1827.

Dear H., — I am here almost in the eleventh
week of the longest illness my sister ever had,
and no symptoms of amendment. Some had
begun, but relapsed with a change of nurse. If
she ever gets well, you will like my house, and
I shall be happy to show you Enfield country.

As to my head, it is perfectly at your or
any one's service ; either Meyers' or Hazlitt's

108

[portrait], which last (done fifteen or twenty
years since) White, of the Accountant's office,
India House, has ; he lives in Kentish Town :
I forget where, but is to be found in Leadenhall
daily. Take your choice. I should be proud
to hang up as an alehouse-sign even ; or, rather,
I care not about my head or anything, but how
we are to get well again, for I am tired out.

God bless vou and yours from the worst ca-
lamity. Yours truly, C. L.

Kindest remembrances to Mrs. Hunt. H.'s
is in a queer dress. M.'s would be preferable
ad populum.

DXLIX. — TO WILLIAM HONE

December 15, 1827.

My dear Hone, — I read the sad accident with
a careless eye, the newspaper giving a wrong name
to the poor sufferer ; but learn' d the truth from
Clarke. God send him ease, and you comfort in
your thick misfortunes. I am in a sorry state.
'T is the eleventh week of the illness, and I can-
not get her well. To add to the calamity, Miss
James is obliged to leave us in a day or two.
We had an Enfield nurse for seven weeks, and
just as she seem'd mending, she was call'd away.
Miss J.'s coming seem'd to put her back, and
now she is going. I do not compare my suffer-
ings to yours, but you see the world is full of

109

troubles. I wish I could say a word to comfort
you. You must cling to all that is left. I fear to
ask you whether the Book is to be discontinued.
What a pity, when it must have delighted so
many ! Let me hear about you and it, and be-
lieve me with deepest fellow-feeling,

Your friend, C. Lamb

DL. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

Middle December, 1827.

My dear Allsop, — Thanks for the birds.
Your announcement puzzles me sadly, as no-
thing came. I send you back a word in your letter,
which I can positively make nothing of and
therefore return to you as useless. It means to
refer to the birds, but gives me no information.
They are at the fire, however.

My sister's illness is the most obstinate she
ever had. It will not go away, and I am afraid
Miss James will not be able to stay above a day
or two longer. I am desperate to think of it
sometimes. 'T is eleven weeks ! The day is sad
as my prospects. With kindest love to Mrs. A.
and the children, yours, C. L.

No Atlas this week. Poor Hone's good boy
Alfred has fractured his skull, another son is
returned " dead " from the Navy Office, and
his Book is going to be given up, not having
answered. What a world of troubles this is !

1 10

DLL — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

December 20, 1827.

My dear Allsop, — I have writ to say to you
that I hope to have a comfortable Xm as-day
with Mary, and I cannot bring myself to go from
home at present. Your kind offer, and the kind
consent of the young lady to come, we feel as
we should do ; pray accept all of you our kindest
thanks : at present I think a visitor (good and
excellent as we remember her to be) might a
little put us out of our way. Emma is with us,
and our small house just holds us, without
obliging Mary to sleep with Becky, &c.

We are going on extremely comfortably, and
shall soon be in capacity of seeing our friends.
Much weakness is left still. With thanks and
old remembrances, yours, C. L.

DLIL — TO EDWARD MOXON

December 22, 1827.

My dear Moxon, — I am at length able to
tell you that we are all doing well, and shall be
able soon to see our friends as usual. If you will
venture a winter walk to Enfield to-morrow week
(Sunday 30th) you will find us much as usual ;
we intend a delicious quiet Christmas day, dull
and friendless, for we have not spirits for festiv-
ities. Pray communicate the good news to the
Hoods, and say I hope he is better. I should

be thankful for any of the books you mention,
but I am so apprehensive of their miscarriage by
the stage, — at all events I want none just now.

Pray call and see Mrs. Lovekin, I heard she
was ill ; say we shall be glad to see them some
fine day after a week or so.

May I beg you to call upon Miss James, and
say that we are quite well, and that Mary hopes
she will excuse her writing herself yet ; she
knows that it is rather troublesome to her to
write. We have received her letter. Farewell,
till we meet. Yours truly, C. Lamb

DLIII. — TO BERNARD BARTON

End of 1827.

My dear B., — We are all pretty well again
and comfortable, and I take a first opportunity
of sending the Adventures of Ulysses, hoping that
among us — Homer, Chapman, and Co. — we
shall afford you some pleasure. I fear it is out of
print, if not A. K. will accept it, with wishes it
were bigger ; if another copy is not to be had,
it reverts to me and my heirs for ever. With it
I send a trumpery book ; to which, without my
knowledge, the editor of the Bijoux has contrib-
uted Lucy's verses : I am asham'd to ask her
acceptance of the trash accompanying it. Adieu
to albums — for a great while, I said when I
came here, and had not been fixed two days but
my landlord's daughter (not at the pothouse)

1 12

requested me to write in her female friend's and

in her own ; if I go to , thou art there also,

O all pervading album! All over the Leeward
Islands, in Newfoundland, and the Back Settle-
ments, I understand there is no other reading.
They haunt me. I die of Albo-phobia !

DLIV. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

January 9, 1828.

Dear Allsop, — I have been very poorly and
nervous lately, but am recovering sleep, &c. I do
not invite or make engagements for particular
days ; but I need not say how pleasant your drop-
ping in any Sunday morning would be. Perhaps
Jameson would accompany you. Pray beg him
to keep an accurate record of the warning I sent
by him to old Pan, for I dread lest he should at
the twelve months' end deny the warning. The
house is his daughter's, but we took it through
him, and have paid the rent to his receipts for
his daughter's. Consult J. if he thinks the warn-
ing sufficient. I am very nervous, or have been,
about the house ; lost my sleep, and expected to
be ill ; but slumbered gloriously last night, golden
slumbers. I shall not relapse. You fright me
with your inserted slips in the most welcome
Atlas. They begin to charge double for it, and
call it two sheets. How can I confute them
by opening it, when a note of yours might slip
out, and we get in a hobble ? When you write,

"■3

write real letters. Mary's best love and mine
to Mrs. A. Yours ever, C. Lamb

DLV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

January, 1828.

Dear Moxon, — I have to thank you for de-
spatching so much business for me. I am uneasy
respecting the enclosed receipts which you sent
me and are dated January, 1 827. Pray get them
chang'd by Mr. Henshall to 1828. I have been
in a very nervous way since I saw you. Pray
excuse me to the Hoods for not answering his
very pleasant letter. I am very poorly. The
Keepsake I hope is return'd. I sent it back by
Mrs. Hazlitt on Thursday. 'T was blotted out-
side when it came. The rest I think are mine.

My heart bleeds about poor Hone, that such
an agreeable book, and a Book there seem'd no
reason should not go on for ever, should be given
up, and a thing substituted which in its nature
cannot last. Don't send me any more Companions,
for it only vexes me about the Table Book. This
is not weather to hope to see anybody to-day,
but, without any particular invitations, pray con-
sider that we are at any time most glad to see
you. You (with Hunt's Lord Byron or Hazlitt's
Napoleon in your hand) or you simply with your
switch, &c. The night was damnable and the
morning is not too bless-able. If you get my
dates changed, I will not trouble you with busi-

114

ness for some time. Best of all remembrances to
the Hoods, with a malicious congratulation on
their friend Rice's advancement.

Yours truly, C. Lamb

DLVI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

February 18, 1828.

Dear M., — I had rather thought to have seen
you yesterday, or I should have written to thank
you for your attentions in the book way, &c.
Hone's address is 22 Belvidere Place, Southwark.
'T is near the obelisk. I can only say we shall
be most glad to see you, when weather suits, and
that it will be a joyful surprisal to see the Hoods.
I should write to them, but am poorly and nervous.
Emma is very proud of her Valentine. Mary does
not immediately want books, having a damn'd
consignment of novels in MS. from Malta; which
I wish the Mediterranean had in its guts.

Believe me, yours truly, C. L.

DLVII. — TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE

February 25, 1828.

My dear Clarke, — You have been accumu-
lating on me such a heap of pleasant obligations
that I feel uneasy in writing as to a benefactor.
Your smaller contributions, the little weekly rills,
are refreshments in the desart, but your large
books were feasts. I hope Mrs. Hazlitt, to whom

I encharged it, has taken Hunt's Lord B. to the
Novellos. His picture of Literary Lordship is
as pleasant as a disagreeable subject can be made,
his own poor man's Education at dear Christ's
is as good and hearty as the subject. Hazlitt's
speculative episodes are capital ; I skip the Bat-
tles. But how did I deserve to have the Book ?

The Companion has too much of Madam Pasta.
Theatricals have ceased to be popular attractions.
His walk home after the Play is as good as the
best of the old Indicators. The watchmen are
emboxed in a niche of fame, save the skaiting
one that must be still fugitive. I wish I could
send a scrap for good will. But I have been
most seriously unwell and nervous a long long
time. I have scarce mustered courage to begin
this short note, but conscience duns me.

I had a pleasant letter from your sister, greatly
over-acknowledging my poor sonnet. I think
I should have replied to it, but tell her I think
so. Alas for sonnetting, 't is as the nerves are ; all
the summer I was dawdling among green lanes,
and verses came as thick as fancies. I am sunk
winterly below prose and zero.

But I trust the vital principle is only as under
snow. That I shall yet laugh again.

I suppose the great change of place affects me,
but I could not have lived in town, I could not
bear company.

I see Novello flourishes in the Del Capo line,
and dedications are not forgotten. I read the

116

Atlas. When I pitched on the Dedication I
looked for the Broom of " Cowden knows " to
be harmonized, but 't was summat of Rossini's.

I want to hear about Hone : does he stand
above water? how is his son? I have delay'd
writing to him, till it seems impossible. Break
the ice for me.

The wet ground here is intolerable, the sky
above clear and delusive, but underfoot quag-
mires from night showers, and I am cold-footed
and moisture-abhorring as a cat; nevertheless I
yesterday tramped to Waltham Cross ; perhaps
the poor bit of exertion necessary to scribble
this was owing to that unusual bracing.

If I get out, I shall get stout, and then some-
thing will out — I mean for the Companion —
you see I rhyme insensibly.

Traditions are rife here of one Clarke a school-
master, and a runaway pickle named Holmes,
but much obscurity hangs over it. Is it possible
they can be any relations ?

'T is worth the research, when you can find a
sunny day, with ground firm, &c. Master Sexton
is intelligent, and for half-a-crown he '11 pick
you up a father.

In truth we shall be most glad to see any of
the Novellian circle, middle of the week such
as can come, or Sunday, as can't. But spring will
burgeon out quickly, and then we '11 talk more.

You 'd like to see the improvements on the
Chase, the new Cross in the market-place, the

117

chandler's shop from whence the rods were
fetch'd. They are raised a farthing since the
spread of education. But perhaps you don't care
to be reminded of the Holofernes' days, and
nothing remains of the old laudable profession,
but the clear, firm, impossible-to-be-mistaken
schoolmaster text hand with which is subscribed
the ever-welcome name of Chas. Cowden C.
Let me crowd in both our loves to all. C. L.

Let me never be forgotten to include in my
remembrances my good friend and whilom cor-
respondent Master Stephen.

How, especially, is Victoria ?

I try to remember all I used to meet at Shack-
lewell. The little household, cake-producing,
wine-bringing-out Emma — the old servant, that
didn't stay, and ought to have staid, and was
always very dirty and friendly, and Miss H., the
counter-tenor with a fine voice, whose sister
married Thurtell. They all live in my mind's
eye, and Mr. N.'s and Holmes's walks with us
halfback after supper. Troiafuit!

DLVIII. — TO CHARLES C. CLARKE

Dear C, — I shall do very well. The sunshine
is medicinal, as you will find when you venture
hither some fine day. Enfield is beautiful.

Yours truly, C. L.

118

DLIX. — TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

February 26, 1828.

My dear Robinson, — It will be a very painful
thing to us indeed, if you give up coming to see
us, as we fear, on account of the nearness of the
poor lady you inquire after. It is true that on
the occasion she mentions, which was on her re-
turn from last seeing her daughter, she was very
heated and feverish, but there seems to be a great
amendment in her since, and she has within a day
or two passed a quiet evening with us. At the
same time I dare not advise anything one way or
another respecting her daughter coming to live
with her. I entirely disclaim the least opinion
about it. If we named anything before her, it
was erroneously, on the notion that she was the
obstacle to the plan which had been suggested of
placing her daughter in a private family, which
seem' d your wish. But I have quite done with the
subject. If we can be of any amusement to the
poor lady, without self disturbance, we will. But
come and see us after Circuit, as if she were not.
You have no more affectionate friends than

C. and M. Lamb

DLX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

March 19, 1828.

My dear M., — It is my firm determination to
have nothing to do with Forget-me-Nots — pray

119

excuse me as civilly as you can to Mr. Hurst.
I will take care to refuse any other applications.
The things which Pickering has, if to be had
again, I have promised absolutely, you know, to
poor Hood, from whom I had a melancholy epis-
tle yesterday ; besides that, Emma has decided ob-
jections to her own and her friend's album verses
being published ; but if she gets over that, they
are decidedly Hood's.

Till we meet, farewell. Loves to Dash.

C. L.

DLXI. — TO THE REV. EDWARD IRVING

April 3, 1828.

Dear Sir, — I take advantage from the kind-
ness which I have experienced from you in a
slight acquaintance to introduce to you my very
respected friend Mr. Hone, who is of opinion that
your interference in a point which he will men-
tion to you may prove of essential benefit to him
in some present difficulties. I should not take
this liberty if I did not feel that you are a person
not to be prejudiced by an obnoxious name. All
that I know of him obliges me to respect him,
and to request your kindness for him, if you can
serve him.

With feelings of kindest respect, I am, dear
Sir, yours truly,

Chas. Lamb

120

DLXIL — TO BERNARD BARTON

April 21, 1828.

Dear B. B., — You must excuse my silence.
I have been in very poor health and spirits, and
cannot write letters. I only write to assure you,
as you wish'd, of my existence. All that which
Mitford tells you of H.'s book is rhodomontade,
only H. has written unguardedly about me, and
nothing makes a man more foolish than his own
foolish panegyric. But I am pretty well cased
to flattery, or its contrary. Neither affects me
a turnip's worth. Do you see the author of May
you Like it ? Do you write to him ? Will you
give my present plea to him of ill health for not
acknowledging a pretty book with a pretty front-
ispiece he sent me. He is most esteem' d by me.
As for subscribing to books, in plain truth I am
a man of reduced income, and don't allow my-
self twelve shillings a-year to buy old books with,
which must be my excuse. I am truly sorry
for Murray's demur, but I wash my hands of
all booksellers, and hope to know them no more.
I am sick and poorly and must leave off, with
our joint kind remembrances to your daughter
and friend A. K. C. L.

DLXIII.— TO THOMAS ALLSOP

May 1, 1828.

Dear A., — I am better. Mary quite well. We
121

expected to see you before. I can't write long let-
ters. So a friendly love to you all. Yours ever,

C. L.
This sunshine is healing.

DLXIV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

May 2, 1828.

Dear H., — Valter Vilson dines with us to-
morrow. Veil ! How I should like to see Hone !

C. Lamb

DLXV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

May 3, 1828.

Dear M., — My friend Patmore, author of the
Months, a very pretty publication, — of sundry
Essays in the London, New Monthly, &c, wants to
dispose of a volume or two of Tales. Perhaps
they might chance to suit Hurst ; but be that as
it may, he will call upon you, under favour of my
recommendation ; and as he is returning to France,
where he lives, if you can do anything for him
in the treaty line, to save him dancing over the
Channel every week, I am sure you will. I said
I 'd never trouble you again ; but how vain are
the resolves of mortal man ! P. is a very hearty,
friendly fellow, and was poor John Scott's sec-
ond, as I will be yours when you want one.
May you never be mine !

Yours truly, C. L.

122

DLXVL — TO WALTER WILSON

May 17, 1828.

Dear Walter, — The sight of your old name
again was like a resurrection. It had passed away
into the dimness of a dead friend. We shall be
most joyful to see you here next week, — if I
understand you right, — for your note dated the
10th arrived only yesterday, Friday the 1 6th.
Suppose I name Thursday next. If that don't suit,
write to say so. A morning coach comes from
the Bell or Bell and Crown by Leather Lane,
Holborn, and sets you down at our house on
the Chase Side, next door to Mr. Westwood's,
whom all the coachmen know.

I have four more notes to write, so dispatch
this with again assuring you how happy we shall
be to see you, and to discuss Defoe and old mat-
ters. Yours truly,

C. Lamb

DLXVII. — TO THOMAS N. TALFOURD

May 20, 1828.

My dear Talfourd, — We propose being with
you on Wednesday not unearly, Mary to take
a bed with you, and I with Crabbe, if, as I under-
stand, he be of the party. Yours ever,

Ch. Lamb

123

DLXVIII.— TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

May, 1828.

Dear Wordsworth, — We had meant to have
tried to see Mrs. Wordsworth and Dora next
Wednesday, but we are intercepted by a violent
toothache which Mary has got by getting up
next morning after parting with you, to be with
my going off at half-past eight Holborn. We
are poor travellers, and moreover we have com-
pany (damn 'em), good people, Mr. Hone and
an old crony not seen for twenty years, coming
here on Tuesday, one stays night with us, and
Mary doubts my power to get up time enough,
and comfort enough, to be so far as you are.
Will you name a day in the same or coming
week that we can come to you in the morning,
for it would plague us not to see the other two
of you, whom we cannot individualize from
you, before you go ? It is bad enough not to see
your sister Dorothy.

God bless you sincerely, C. Lamb

DLXIX. — TO THE REV. HENRY F. CARY

June 10, 1828.

Dear Sir, — I long to see Wordsworth once
more before he goes hence, but it would be at
the expence of health and comfort my infirm-
ities cannot afford. Once only I have been at
a dinner party, to meet him, for a whole year

124

past, and I do not know that I am not the worse
for it now. There is a necessity for my drinking

too much (don't show this to the bishop of ,

your friend) at and after dinner ; then I require
spirits at night to allay the crudity of the weaker
Bacchus ; and in the morning I cool my parched
stomach with a fiery libation. Then I am aground
in town, and call upon my London friends, and
get new wets of ale, porter, &c. ; then ride home,
drinking where the coach stops, as duly as Edward
set up his Waltham Crosses. This, or near it,
was the process of my experiment of dining at
Talfourd's to meet Wordsworth, and I am not
well now. Now let me beg that we may meet
here with assured safety to both sides. Darley and
Procter come here on Sunday morning ; pray
arrange to come along with them. Here I can
be tolerably moderate. In town, the very air of
town turns my head and is intoxication enough,
if intoxication knew a limit. I am a poor country
mouse, and your cates disturb me. Tell me you
will come. We have a bed, and a half or three
quarters bed, at all your services ; and the adjoin-
ing inn has many. If engaged on Sunday, tell me
when you will come ; a Saturday will suit as well.
I would that Wordsworth would come too. Pray
believe that 't is my health only, which brought
me here, that frightens me from the wicked town.
Mary joins in kind remembrances to Mrs. Cary
and yourself. Yours truly,

C. Lamb

DLXX. — TO B. R. HAYDON

August, 1828.

Dear Haydon, — I have been tardy in telling
you that your " Chairing the Member " gave
me great pleasure ; 't is true broad Hogarthian
fun, the High Sheriff capital. Considering, too,
that you had the materials imposed upon you,
and that you did not select them from the rude
world as H. did, I hope to see many more such
from your hand. If the former picture went
beyond this I have had a loss, and the King a
bargain. I longed to rub the back of my hand
across the hearty canvas that two senses might
be gratified. Perhaps the subject is a little dis-
cordantly placed opposite to another act of
Chairing, where the huzzas were Hosannahs, —
but I was pleased to see so many of my old ac-
quaintances brought together notwithstanding.

Believe me, yours truly, C. Lamb

DLXXI. — TO JOHN RICKMAN

September II, 1828.

Dear Rickman, — We are just come home
from a London visit and are mortified to learn
that we missed you on Saturday. The same ab-
sence cannot recur before the 29th, or feast of
St. Michael, on which day I pay my quarterly
respects to the India Directors. If you can make
another day between, you are sure of finding us.

126

The nuts are very acceptable, Mary being a
grievous offender that way ; but to think of
bringing apples to the proprietor of a whole tree,
almost an orchard, and who actually has an apple
chamber redolent, was a solecism. Yours ever,

C. Lamb

Do you ever light upon G. D. now ? Could
you bring him ?

DLXXII. — TO LOUISA HOLCROFT

October 2, 1828.

Mary Lamb has written her last letter in this
world. Do not imagine that her individual sub-
stance has perished ! 'T is extant yet and sleek,
but her epistolary part is dead before her, and
has left me writing legatee. Could not you have
slipt down for a day or two this Michaelmas
vacation ? 'T would have been worth while to
have seen the difference on our green. On the
28th 't was whitened over with those pretty birds
that look like snow in summer, and cackle like
ice breaking up : the fatal 29th arrove (is that
English ?), and their place knew them no more.
Here and there a solitary duck survives to remind
one of the superior race which had been extin-
guished — swans to them.

You remember I asked a large party of them
into our grounds to meet you. Of all that
pleasant party, your dear self excepted, not one
remains with a whole throat.

127

You send loves to Mrs. Morgan — who or
what is she, or what dream was it that any such
person is here ? You add, too, that she is grown
plump — is that a reason why love should be
sent her ? I understand neither the logic nor
affection implied in that passage.

I have nearly lost my arithmetic since you
went, but count upon renewing it some day with
you. Enfield is dull, but London is turbulent.
We have disqualified ourselves for a town life by
migrating here, but cannot (for our Cockney
souls) get up a rural taste, so we hang suburb-
ian.

I could not bring myself to face Mr. Kenny
in Brunswick Square (time and next occasion
may take off the terror). I thought it would
look so like coming to be repaid for any little
hospitalities which I might have had in my
power to show him while he staid at Enfield,
which were no more than one gentleman ought
to do to another — marry, 't is well if he thought
'em so much.

And how are all the little orphans committed
to your trust ? Mind their morals first. I would
not give twopence for all the learning you can
put into them in comparison with that. Do they
lay three in a bed ? Do you see them properly
lain and tidy before you go to bed yourself of
a night — I mean before you lie yourself down
to sleep ?

Mary tells me to say that Mrs. Collier knows
128

we shall be happy to see her any day without
ceremony.

And to have you again when you have va-
cation, for you were not very troublesome —
indeed, we are more hospitable by nature than
some folks would guess from our practice. With
best loves to Mrs. Kenny, twins and no twins,
Yours truly, C. and M. Lamb

DLXXIII. — TO JOHN RICKMAN

[The following is an English version, given by E. V. Lu-
cas, of a letter, written in Latin, from Charles Lamb to John
Rickman :]

Postmark, Oct. 3, 1828.

I have been thinking of sending some kind of an answer in
Latin to your very elaborate letter, but something has arisen
every day to hinder me. To begin with, our awkward friend
M. B. has been with us for a while, and every day and all day
we have had such a lecture, you know how he stutters, on legal
(mind, nothing but legal) notices, that I have been afraid the
Latin I want to write might prove rather barbaro-forensic than
Ciceronian. He is swallowed up, body and soul, in law ; he
eats, drinks, plays (at the card-table) Law, nothing but Law.
He acts Ignoramus in the play so thoroughly, that you would
swear that in the inmost marrow of his head (is not this the
proper anatomical term ? ) there have housed themselves not
devils but pettifoggers, to bemuddle with their noisy chatter
his own and his friends' wits. He brought here, 't was all his
luggage, a book, Fearne on Contingent Remainders. This book
he has read so hard, and taken such infinite pains to under-
stand, that the reader's brain has few or no Remainders to
continge. Enough, however, of M. B. and his luggage. To
come back to your claims upon me. Your return journey,
with notes, I read again and again, nor have I done with
them yet. You always make something fresh out of a hack-

129

neyed theme. Our milestones, you say, bristle with blunders,
but I must shortly explain why I cannot comply with your
directions herein.

Suppose I were to consult the local magnates about a matter
of this kind. Ha ! says one of our waywardens or parish over-
seers,— What business is this of yours? Do you want to drop
the lodger and come out as a householder ? — Now you must
know that I took this house of mine at Enfield, by an obvious
domiciliary fiction, in my sister's name, to avoid the bother
and trouble of parish and vestry-meetings, and to escape finding
myself one day an overseer or big-wig of some sort. What then
would be my reply to the above question ?

Leisure I have secured : but of dignity, not a tittle. Besides,
to tell you the truth, the aforesaid irregularities are, to my
thinking, most entertaining, and in fact very touching indeed.
Here am I, quit of worldly affairs of every kind ; for if super-
annuation does not mean that, what does it mean ? The world
then, being, as the saying is, beyond my ken, and being myself
entirely removed from any accurate distinctions of space or
time, these mistakes in road-measure do not seriously offend
me. For in the infinite space of the heavens above (which in
this contracted sphere of mine I desire to imitate so far as may
be) what need is there of milestones ? Local distance has to
do with mortal affairs. In my walks abroad, limited though
they must be, I am quite at my own disposal, and on that
account I have a good word for our Enfield clocks too. Their
hands generally point without any servile reference to this sun
of our world, in his /^-empyrean position. They strike too
just as it happens, according to their own sweet wills, — one
— two — three — anything they like, and thus to me, a more
fortunate Whittington, they pleasantly announce, that Time,
so far as I am concerned, is no more. Here you have my
reasons for not attending in this matter to the requests of a
busy subsolar such as you are.

Furthermore, when I reach the milestone that counts from
the Hicks Hall that stands now, I own at once the aulic
dignity, and, were I a gaol-bird, I should shake in my shoes.
When I reach the next which counts from the site of the old
hall, my thoughts turn to the fallen grandeur of the pile, and

130

I reflect upon the perishable condition of the most imposing
of human structures. Thus I banish from my soul all pride
and arrogance, and with such meditations purify my heart
from day to day. A wayfarer such as I am, may learn from
Vincent Bourne, in words terser and neater than any of mine,
the advantages of milestones properly arranged. The lines are
at the end of a little poem of his, called Milestones — (Do you
remember it or shall I write it all out ? )

How well the Milestones' use doth this express,
Which make the miles (seem) more and way seem less.

What do you mean by this — I am borrowing hand and
style from this youngster of mine — your son, I take it. The
style looks, nay on careful inspection by these old eyes, is
most clearly your very own, and the writing too. Either R's
or the Devil's. I will defer your explanation till our next
meeting — may it be soon.

My Latin failing me, as you may infer from erasures above,
there is only this to add. Farewell, and be sure to give
Mrs. Rickman my kind remembrances. C. Lamb

DLXXIV.— TO BERNARD BARTON

October n, 1828.

A splendid edition of Bui. an's Pilgrim — why,
the thought is enough to turn one's moral stom-
ach. His cockle hat and staff transformed to a
smart cock'd beaver and a jemmy cane, his amice
gray to the last Regent Street cut, and his pain-
ful palmer's pace to the modern swagger. Stop
thy friend's sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be
done for B.but to reprint the old cuts in as homely
but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair,
and the pilgrims there — the silly soothness in
his setting-out countenance — the Christian

l3l

idiocy (in a good sense) of his admiration of the
shepherds on the Delectable Mountains — the
lions so truly allegorical and remote from any
similitude to Pidcock's. The great head (the au-
thor's) capacious of dreams and similitudes dream-
ing in the dungeon. Perhaps you don't know my
edition, what I had when a child : if you do, can
you bear new designs from — Martin, enamel'd
into copper or silver plate by — Heath, accom-
panied with verses from Mrs. Hemans's pen, O
how unlike his own ! —

Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy ?

VVouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly ?

Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation ?

Or else be drowned in thy contemplation ?

Dost thou love picking meat ? or wouldst thou see

A man i' th' clouds, and hear him speak to thee ?

Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep ?

Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep ?

Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm,

And find thyself again without a charm ?

Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowst not what,

And yet know whether thou art blest or not

By reading the same lines ? O then come hither,

And lay my book, thy head and heart together.

John Bunyan

Shew me such poetry in any of the fifteen forth-
coming combinations of show and emptiness,
yclept annuals. Let me whisper in your ear that
wholesome sacramental bread is not more nu-
tritious than papistical wafer stuff, than these
(to head and heart) exceed the visual frippery of
Mitford's Salamander God, baking himself up

132

to the work of creation in a solar oven, not
yet by the terms of the context itself existing.
Blake's ravings made genteel. So there 's verses
for thy verses ; and now let me tell you that
the sight of your hand gladden'd me. I have
been daily trying to write to you, but paralysed.
You have spur'd me on this tiny effort, and at
intervals I hope to hear from and talk to you.
But my spirits have been in a deprest way for
a long long time, and they are things which
must be to you of faith, for who can explain
depression ?

Yes, I am hooked into the Gem, but only for
some lines written on a dead infant of the edit-
or's, which being as it were his property, I could
not refuse their appearing, but I hate the paper,
the type, the gloss, the dandy plates, the names
of contributors poked up into your eyes in first
page, and whistled thro' all the covers of maga-
zines, the barefaced sort of emulation, the un-
modest candidateship, brought into so little space
— in those old Londons a signature was lost in the
wood of matter — the paper coarse (till latterly,
which spoil' d them) — in short I detest to appear
in an Annual.

What a fertile genius (and a quiet good soul
withal) is Hood. He has fifty things in hand,
farces to supply the Adelphi for the season, a
comedy for one of the great theatres, just ready,
a whole entertainment by himself for Mathews
and Yates to figure in, a meditated Comic Annual

r33

for next year, to be nearly done by himself.
You 'd like him very much. Wordsworth I see
has a good many pieces announced in one of
'em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed him-
self like a bribe haunch among 'em. Of all the
poets, Cary has had the good sense to keep quite
clear of 'em, with clergy-gentle-manly right
notions. Don't think I set up for being proud
in this point, I like a bit of flattery tickling my
vanity as well as any one. But these pompous
masquerades without masks (naked names or
faces) I hate. So there 's a bit of my mind. Be-
sides they infallibly cheat you, I mean the book-
sellers. If I get but a copy, I only expect it from
Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately
been here. He, too, is deep among the Prophets
— the Year-servers — the mob of Gentlemen
annuals. But they '11 cheat him, I know.

And now, dear B. B., the sun shining out
merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday
having wash'd their own faces clean with their
own rain, tempts me to wander up Winchmore
Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of
Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time
when you can get a few days up to the great
town. Believe me it would give both of us great
pleasure to show you all three (we can lodge
you) our pleasant farms and villages.

We both join in kindest loves to you and
yours. Ch. Lamb, redivivus

*34

DLXXV.— TO CHARLES C. CLARKE

October, 1828.

Dear Clarke, — We did expect to see you with
Victoria and the Novellos before this, and do not
quite understand why we have not. Mrs. N. and
V. [Vincent] promised us after the York expe-
dition; a day being named before, which fail'd.
'T is not too late. The autumn leaves drop gold,
and Enfield is beautifuller — to a common eye
— than when you lurked at the Greyhound.
Benedicks are close, but how I so totally missed
you at that time, going for my morning cup of
ale duly, is a mystery. 'T was stealing a match
before one's face in earnest. But certainly we
had not a dream of your appropinquity. I in-
stantly prepared an Epithalamium, in the form
of a Sonata — which I was sending to Novello
to compose — but Mary forbid it me, as too
light for the occasion — as if the subject required
anything heavy — so in a tiff with her I sent no
congratulation at all. Tho' I promise you the
wedding was very pleasant news to me indeed.
Let your reply name a day this next week, when
you will come as many as a coach will hold;
such a day as we had at Dulwich. My very kind-
est love and Mary's to Victoria and the Novellos.
The enclosed is from a friend nameless, but high-
ish in office, and a man whose accuracy of state-
ment may be relied on with implicit confidence.
He wants the expose to appear in a newspaper as

*35

the " greatest piece of legal and Parliamentary
villainy he ever remembered," and he has had
experience in both ; and thinks it would answer
afterwards in a cheap pamphlet printed at Lam-
beth in 8° sheet, as 1 6,000 families in that parish
are interested. I know not whether the present
Examiner keeps up the character of exposing
abuses, for I scarce see a paper now. If so, you
may ascertain Mr. Hunt of the strictest truth of
the statement, at the peril of my head. But if
this won't do, transmit it me back, I beg, per
coach, or better, bring it with you.

Yours unaltered, C. Lamb

DLXXVI. — TO VINCENT NOVELLO

November 6, 1828.

My dear Novello, — I am afraid I shall ap-
pear rather tardy in offering my congratulations,
however sincere, upon your daughter's marriage.
The truth is, I had put together a little Serenata
upon the occasion, but was prevented from send-
ing it by my sister, to whose judgment I am apt
to defer too much in these kind of things ; so
that, now I have her consent, the offering, I am
afraid, will have lost the grace of seasonableness.
Such as it is, I send it. She thinks it a little too
old-fashioned in the manner, too much like what
they wrote a century back. But I cannot write
in the modern style, if I try ever so hard. I have
attended to the proper divisions for the music,

136

and you will have little difficulty in composing
it. If I may advise, make Pepusch your model,
or Blow. It will be necessary to have a good
second voice, as the stress of the melody lies
there :

SERENATA, FOR TWO VOICES

On the Marriage of Charles Cow den Clarke, Esqre., to Victoria, eldest
daughter of Vincent Novello, Esqre.

Duetto
Wake th' harmonious voice and string,
Love and Hymen's triumph sing,
Sounds with secret charms combining,
In melodious union joining,
Best the wondrous joys can tell,
That in hearts united dwell.

Recitative
First To young Victoria's happy fame
Voice. Well may the Arts a trophy raise,
Music grows sweeter in her praise,
And, own'd by her, with rapture speaks her name.
To touch the brave Cowdenio's heart,

The Graces all in her conspire ;
Love arms her with his surest dart,
Apollo with his lyre.

Air
The list'ning Muses all around her

Think 'tis Phoebus' strain they hear;
And Cupid, drawing near to wound her,

Drops his bow, and stands to hear.

Recitative
Second While crowds of rivals with despair
Voice. Silent admire, or vainly court the Fair,
Behold the happy conquest of her eyes,
A Hero is the glorious prize !

J37

In courts, in camps, thro' distant realms renown'd,
Cowdenio comes ! — Victoria, see,

He comes with British honour crown'd,
Love leads his eager steps to thee.

Air
In tender sighs he silence breaks,

The Fair his flame approves,
Consenting blushes warm her cheeks,

She smiles, she yields, she loves.

Recitative

First Voice. Now Hymen at the altar stands,

And while he joins their faithful hands,
Behold ! by ardent vows brought down,
Immortal concord, heavenly bright,
Array'd in robes of purest light,
Descends, th' auspicious rites to crown.
Her golden harp the goddess brings ;
Its magic sound
Commands a sudden silence all around,
And strains prophetic thus attune the strings.

Duetto
First Voice. The Swain his Nymph possessing,
Second Voice. The Nymph her swain caressing,
First and Shall still improve the blessing,
Second. For ever kind and true.

Both. While rolling years are flying,

Love, Hymen's lamp supplying,
With fuel never dying,
Shall still the flame renew.

To so great a master as yourself I have no need
to suggest that the peculiar tone of the composi-
tion demands sprightliness, occasionally checked
by tenderness, as in the second air, —
She smiles, — she yields, — she loves.
I38

Again, you need not be told that each fifth line
of the two first recitatives requires a crescendo.
And your exquisite taste will prevent your falling
into the error of Purcell, who at a passage similar
to that in my first air, —

Drops his bow, and stands to hear,

directed the first violin thus, —

Here the first violin must drop his bow.

But, besides the absurdity of disarming his prin-
cipal performer of so necessary an adjunct to his
instrument, in such an emphatic part of the com-
position too, which must have had a droll effect
at the time, all such minutiae of adaptation are
at this time of day very properly exploded, and
Jackson of Exeter very fairly ranks them under
the head of puns.

Should you succeed in the setting of it, we
propose having it performed (we have one very
tolerable second voice here, and Mr. Holmes,
I daresay, would supply the minor parts) at the
Greyhound. But it must be a secret to the
young couple till we can get the band in readiness.

Believe me, dear Novello, yours truly,

C. Lamb

DLXXVIL — TO LAMAN BLANCHARD

November 9, 1828.

Sir, — I beg to return my acknowledgments
for the present of your elegant volume, which

x39

I should have esteemed, without the bribe of the
name prefixed to it. I have been much pleased
with it throughout, but am most taken with the
peculiar delicacy of some of the sonnets. I shall
put them up among my poetical treasures.

Your obliged servant, C. Lamb

DLXXVIII. — TO THOMAS HOOD

Late autumn, 1828.

Dear Lamb, — You are an impudent varlet ;
but I will keep your secret. We dine at Ayrton's
on Thursday, and shall try to find Sarah and her
two spare beds for that night only. Miss M. and
her tragedy may be dished : so may not you and
your rib. Health attend you.

Yours, T. Hood, Esq^

Miss Bridget Hood sends love.
DLXXIX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

December, 1828.

Dear M., — As I see no blood-marks on the
Green Lanes Road, I conclude you got in safe
skins home. Have you thought of inquiring
Miss Wilson's change of abode ? Of the two
copies of my drama I want one sent to Words-
worth, together with a complete copy of Hone's
Table Book, for which I shall be your debtor till
we meet. Perhaps Longman will take charge

140

of this parcel. The other is for Coleridge at
Mr. Gilman's, Grove, Highgate, which may be
sent, or, if you have a curiosity to see him, you
will make an errand with it to him, and tell
him we mean very soon to come and see him,
if the Gilmans can give or get us a bed. I am
ashamed to be so troublesome. Pray let Hood
see the Eclectic Review — a rogue ! The second
parts of the Blackwood you may make waste paper
of. Yours truly, C. L.

DLXXX.— TO BERNARD BARTON

December 5, 1828.

Dear B. B., — I am ashamed to receive so
many nice books from you, and to have none to
send you in return. You are always sending me
some fruits or wholesome pot-herbs, and mine
is the garden of the sluggard, nothing but weeds
or scarce they. Nevertheless if I knew how to
transmit it, I would send you Blackwood' s of this
month, which contains a little drama, to have
your opinion of it, and how far I have improved,
or otherwise, upon its prototype. Thank you for
your kind sonnet. It does me good to see the
Dedication to a Christian Bishop. I am for a
Comprehension, as Divines call it, but so as that
the Church shall go a good deal more than half-
way over to the Silent Meeting-house. I have
ever said that the Quakers are the only Professors
of Christianity as I read it in the Evangiles ; I

141

say Professors — marry, as to practice, with their
gaudy hot types and poetical vanities, they are
much at one with the sinful.

Martin's frontispiece is a very fine thing, let
C. L. say what he please to the contrary. Of the
poems, I like them as a volume better than any
one of the preceding ; particularly, Power and
Gentleness; The Present ; Lady Russell — with the
exception that I do not like the noble act of
Curtius, true or false, one of the grand founda-
tions of old Roman patriotism, to be sacrificed
to Lady R.'s taking notes on her husband's trial.
If a thing is good, why invidiously bring it into
light with something better ? There are too few
heroic things in this world to admit of our mar-
shalling them in anxious etiquettes of precedence.
Would you make a poem on the Story of Ruth
(pretty story !) and then say, Aye, but how much
better is the story of Joseph and his Brethren !
To go on, the Stanzas to " Chalon " want the
name of Clarkson in the body of them ; it is left
to inference. The Battle of Gibeon is spirited
again — but you sacrifice it in last stanza to the
Song at Bethlehem. Is it quite orthodox to do so ?
The first was good, you suppose, for that dis-
pensation. Why set the word against the word ?
It puzzles a weak Christian. So Watts's Psalms
are an implied censure on David's. But as long
as the Bible is supposed to be an equally divine
emanation with the Testament, so long it will
stagger weaklings to have them set in opposition.

142

Godiva is delicately touch' d. I have always
thought it a beautiful story characteristic of old
English times. But I could not help amusing
myself with the thought — if Martin had chosen
this subject for a frontispiece, there would have
been in some dark corner a white lady, white as
the Walker on the waves — riding upon some
mystical quadruped — and high above would
have risen " tower above tower a massy structure
high" the Tenterden steeples of Coventry, till
the poor Cross would scarce have known itself
among the clouds, and far above them all, the
distant Clint hills peering over chimney pots,
piled up, Ossa-on-Olympus fashion, till the ad-
miring spectator (admirer of a noble deed) might
have gone look for the lady, as you must hunt
for the other in the lobster. But M. should be
made royal architect. What palaces he would
pile ! — but then what parliamentary grants to
make them good ! ne'ertheless I like the frontis-
piece.

The "Elephant" is pleasant; and I am glad
you are getting into a wider scope of subjects.
There may be too much, not religion, but too
many good words into a book, till it becomes, as
Shakespeare says of religion, a rhapsody of words.
I will just name that you have brought in the
Song to the Shepherds in four or five if not six
places. Now this is not good economy. The
Enoch is fine ; and here I can sacrifice Elijah
to it, because 'tis illustrative only, and not dis-

paraging of the latter prophet's departure. I like
this best in the book. Lastly, I much like the
Heron, 't is exquisite : know you Lord Thurlow's
sonnet to a bird of that sort on Lacken water ?
If not, 'tis indispensable I send it you, with
my Blackwood, if you tell me how best to send
them. Fludyer is pleasant. You are getting gay
and Hood-ish. What is the Enigma ? money —
if not, I fairly confess I am foiled — and sphynx
must [here are words crossed through] four times
I 've tried to write eat — eat me — and the blot-
ting pen turns it into cat me. And now I will
take my leave with saying I esteem thy verses,
like thy present, honour thy frontispicer, and
right-reverence thy Patron and Dedicatee, and
am, dear B. B., yours heartily, C. L.

Our joint kindest loves to A. K. and your
daughter.

DLXXXI. — TO LOUISA HOLCROFT

December 5, 1828.

Dear Miss H., — Mary, who never writes, bids
me thank you for the handkerchief. I do not
understand such work, but if I apprehend her
rightly, she would have preferred blonde to
white sarcenet for the trimming ; but she did
not wish me to tell you so. I only hint it for
the next. We are sorry for the mess of illness
you are involved in. Are you stout enough to

144

be the general nurse ? Who told you we should
not be glad to see you on Sundays and all ? Tho'
we devote that day to its proper duties, as you
know, yet you are come of a religious stock, and
to you it is not irksome to join in our simple
forms, where the heart is all. Your little protegee
is well, and as yet honest, but she has no one to
give her caps now.

Thus far I had written last night. You will
see by my altered scrawl that I am not so well
this morning. I got up with a fevered skin, and
spots are come out all over me. Pray God, it
is not the measles. You did not let any of the
children touch the seal with their little measly
hands, did you ? You should be careful when
contagion is in the house. Pray God, your letter
may not have conveyed the disorder. Our poor
postman looks flushed since. What a thing it
would be to introduce a disease into a whole
village ! Yet so simple a thing as a letter has
been known to convey a malady. I look at your
note. I see it is wafered, not sealed. That makes
it more likely. Wafers are flour, and I 've known
a serious illness to be communicated in a piece
of plum-cake. I never had the measles. How
my head throbs ! You cannot be too cautious,
dear Louisa, what you do under such cir-
cum

I am a little better than when I broke off at
the last word. Your good sense will point out
to you that the deficient syllables should be

145

"stances." Circumstances. If I am incoherent,

impute it to alarm. I will walk in the air

I am not much refreshed. The air seemed
hot and muggy. Somehow I feel quite irritable

— there is no word in English — a la variole —
we have no phrase to answer it — smallpoxical
comes the nearest. Maybe 't was worse than the
measles what Charles has. I will send for Mr.
Asbury.

I have seen the apothecary. He pronounces
my complaint to be, as I feared, of the variola
kind, but gives me hopes I shall not be much
marked. I hope we shall get well together. But
at my time of life it is attended with more
hazards. Whatever becomes of me, I shall leave
the world without a harsh thought of you. It
was only a girlish imprudence. I am quite faint.
Two pimples more come out within this last
minute. Mary is crying. She looks red. So
does Becky. I must go to bed.

Yours in constant pain. C. L.

You will see by my will, if it comes to that

— I bear you no ill w . Oh!

DLXXXII. — TO CHARLES C. CLARKE

December, 1828.

My dear three C.'s, — The way from Southgate
to Colney Hatch thro' the unfrequentedest black-
berry paths that ever concealed their coy bunches

146

from a truant citizen, we have accidentally fallen
upon — the giant tree by Cheshunt we have
missed, but keep your chart to go by, unless you
will be our conduct — • at present I am disabled
from further flights than just to skirt round Clay
Hill, with a peep at the fine back woods, by
strained tendons, got by skipping a skipping-rope
at 5 3 — heu mihi non sum qualis. But do you know,
now you come to talk of walks, a ramble of four
hours or so — there and back — to the willow
and lavender plantations at the south corner of
Northaw Church by a well dedicated to Saint
Claridge, with the clumps of finest moss rising
hillock fashion, which I counted to the number
of two hundred and sixty, and are called " Clar-
idge's covers " — the tradition being that that
saint entertained so many angels or hermits
there, upon occasion of blessing the waters? The
legends have set down the fruits spread upon that
occasion, and in the Black Book of St. Albans
some are named which are not supposed to have
been introduced into this island till a century
later. But waiving the miracle, a sweeter spot is
not in ten counties round ; you are knee-deep
in clover, that is to say, if you are not above
a middling man's height ; from this paradise,
making a day of it, you go to see the ruins of an
old convent at March Hall, where some of the
painted glass is yet whole and fresh.

If you do not know this, you do not know
the capabilities of this country ; you may be said

to be a stranger to Enfield. I found it out one
morning in October, and so delighted was I that
I did not get home before dark, well a-paid.

I shall long to show you the clump meadows,
as they are called ; we might do that, without
reaching March Hall. When the days are longer,
we might take both, and come home by Forest
Cross, so skirt over Pennington and the cheerful
little village of Churchley to Forty Hill.

But these are dreams till summer ; meanwhile
we should be most glad to see you for a lesser
excursion — say, Sunday next, you and another,
or if more, best on a weekday with a notice, but
o' Sundays, as far as a leg of mutton goes, most
welcome. We can squeeze out a bed. Edmon-
ton coaches run every hour, and my pen has run
out its quarter. Heartily farewell.

DLXXXIII.— TO T. N. TALFOURD

End of 1828.

Dear Talfourd, — You could not have told
me of a more friendly thing than you have been
doing. I am proud of my namesake. I shall take
care never to do any dirty action, pick pockets,
or anyhow get myself hanged, for fear of reflect-
ing ignominy upon your young Chrisom. I have
now a motive to be good. I shall not omnis
moriar ; — my name borne down the black gulf
of oblivion.

I shall survive in eleven letters, five more than
148

Caesar. Possibly I shall come to be knighted, or
more ! Sir C. L. Talfourd, Bart. !

Yet hath it an authorish twang with it, which
will wear out my name for poetry. Give him a
smile from me till I see him.

If you do not drop down before, some day in
the week after next I will come and take one
night's lodging with you, if convenient, before
you go hence. You shall name it. We are in
town to-morrow speciali gratia, but by no ar-
rangement can get up near you.

Believe us both, with greatest regards, yours
and Mrs. Talfourd's,

Charles Lamb-Philo-Talfourd

I come as near it as I can.

DLXXXIV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

About 1828.

Dear Moxon, — Much thanks for the books.
Hood is excellent. Mr. Westwood, who wishes
to consult you about his son, will acquaint you
with our change of life. Mary's very bad spirits
drove me upon it, and it seems to answer admir-
ably.

We shall be happy to see you at our table and
hole ; say, the Sunday after next.

Yours very truly, C. L.

149

DLXXXV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

[No date.]

Dear H., — I don't know by your letter
whether you are resident at Newington Green,
nor at what number. So I discharge this, as a
surer shot, at Russell Court. Your almanack is
funny ; it only disappointed me as being not an
almanack. What a one you might make ! em-
bracing a real calendar, with astrological ridicule,
predictions like Tom Brown's " for every day in
the week." The only information I receive from
this is that New Year's Day happened this year
on the first of January. I do not see the days
even set down on which I ought to go to church,
the Dominical Letter : fie ! I will only add that
Enfield is still here, with its accustomed shoul-
ders of mutton, fine Geneva tipple, &c.

So hoping some time for a fine day's walk
with you, I rest, C. L.

Mary's love to both of you.

DLXXXVL — TO GEORGE DYER

January, 1829.

Dear Dyer, — My very good friend, and
Charles Clarke's father-in-law, Vincent Novello,
wishes to shake hands with you. Make him
play you a tune. He is a damn'd fine musician,
and, what is better, a good man and true. He

150

will tell you how glad we should be to have
Mrs. Dyer and you here for a few days. Our
young friend, Miss Isola, has been here holy-
daymaking, but leaves us to-morrow.

Yours ever, Ch. Lamb

DLXXXVII. — TO B. W. PROCTER

January 19, 1829.

My dear Procter, — I am ashamed to have
not taken the drift of your pleasant letter, which
I find to have been pure invention. But jokes
are not suspected in Boeotian Enfield. We are
plain people ; and our talk is of corn, and cattle,
and Waltham markets. Besides, I was a little
out of sorts when I received it. The fact is, I am
involved in a case which has fretted me to
death ; and I have no reliance, except on you,
to extricate me. I am sure you will give me
your best legal advice, having no professional
friend besides but Robinson and Talfourd, with
neither of whom at present I am on the best
terms.

My brother's widow left a will, made during
the lifetime of my brother, in which I am
named sole executor, by which she bequeaths
forty acres of arable property, which it seems
she held under Covert Baron, unknown to my
brother, to the heirs of the body of Elizabeth
Dowden, her married daughter by a first hus-
band, in fee-simple, recoverable by fine — in-

vested property, mind ; for there is the difficulty
— subject to leet and quitrent ; in short, worded
in the most guarded terms, to shut out the
property from Isaac Dowden, the husband. In-
telligence has just come of the death of this
person in India, where he made a will, entailing
this property (which seem'd entangled enough
already) to the heirs of his body, that should
not be born of his wife ; for it seems by the law
in India, natural children can recover. They
have put the cause into Exchequer process, here
removed by Certiorari from the native Courts ;
and the question is, whether I should, as execu-
tor, try the cause here, or again re-remove it
to the Supreme Sessions at Bangalore (which
I understand I can, or plead a hearing before
the Privy Council here). As it involves all the
little property of Elizabeth Dowden, I am anxious
to take the fittest steps, and what may be least
expensive. Pray assist me, for the case is so
embarrassed, that it deprives me of sleep and
appetite. M. Burney thinks there is a case like
it in Chapt. 170, sect. 5, in Fearne's Contingent
Remainders. Pray read it over with him dispas-
sionately, and let me have the result. The com-
plexity lies in the questionable power of the
husband to alienate in usum enfeoffments whereof
he was only collaterally seized, &c.

I had another favour to beg, which is the
beggarliest of beggings.

A few lines of verse for a young friend's album
152

(six will be enough). M. Burney will tell you
who she is I want 'em for. A girl of gold. Six

lines — make 'em eight — signed Barry C .

They need not be very good, as I chiefly want
'em as a foil to mine. But I shall be seriously
obliged by any refuse scrap. We are in the last
ages of the world, when St. Paul prophesied
that women should be " headstrong, lovers of
their own wills, having albums." I fled hither to
escape the albumean persecution, and had not
been in my new house twenty-four hours, when
the daughter of the next house came in with
a friend's album to beg a contribution, and
the following day intimated she had one of her
own. Two more have sprung up since. If
I take the wings of the morning and fly unto
the uttermost parts of the earth, there will
albums be. New Holland has albums. But the
age is to be complied with. M. B. will tell
you the sort of girl I request the ten lines for.
Somewhat of a pensive cast, what you admire.
The lines may come before the law question, as
that cannot be determined before Hilary Term,
and I wish your deliberate judgment on that.
The other may be flimsy and superficial. And
if you have not burnt your returned letter, pray
re-send it to me, as a monumental token of my
stupidity. 'T was a little unthinking of you to
touch upon a sore subject. Why, by dabbling in
those accursed albums, I have become a byword
of infamy all over the kingdom. I have sicken'd

153

decent women for asking me to write in albums.
There be "dark jests" abroad, Master Cornwall;
and some riddles may live to be clear'd up. And
't is not every saddle is put on the right steed ;
and forgeries and false Gospels are not peculiar
to the age following the Apostles. And some
tubs don't stand on their right bottoms. Which
is all I wish to say in these ticklish times — and
so your servant, Chs. Lamb

note

[At the end of the first paragraph the words "/'« usum
enfeoffments whereof he was only collaterally seized, &c," are
in another hand. Lamb wrote beneath them : " The above is
some of M. Burney's memoranda which he has left me, and
you may cut out and give him." — E. V. Lucas.]

DLXXXVIII. — TO B. W. PROCTER

January 22, 1829.

Don't trouble yourself about the verses. Take
'em coolly as they come. Any day between this
and midsummer will do. Ten lines the extreme.
There is no mystery in my incognita. She has
often seen you, though you may not have ob-
served a silent brown girl, who for the last
twelve years has run wild about our house in
her Christmas holidays. She is Italian by name
and extraction. Ten lines about the blue sky of
her country will do, as it's her foible to be
proud of it. But they must not be over-courtly
or lady-fied, as she is with a lady who says to

154

her " go and she goeth ; come and she cometh."
Item, I have made her a tolerable Latinist. The
verses should be moral too, as for a clergyman's
family. She is called Emma Isola.

I approve heartily of your turning your four
volumes into a lesser compass. 'Twill Sybillise
the gold left. I shall, I think, be in town in
a few weeks, when I will assuredly see you. I will
put in here loves to Mrs. Procter and the Anti-
Capulets, because Mary tells me I omitted them
in my last. I like to see my friends here. I have
put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield
practitioner — a plain man, who seems perfectly
to understand it, and gives me hopes of a favour-
able result.

Rumour tells us that Miss Holcroft is mar-
ried ; though the varlet has not had the grace
to make any communication to us on the
subject. Who is Badman, or Bed'em ? Have
I seen him at Montacute's ? I hear he is a great
chymist. I am sometimes chymical myself.
A thought strikes me with horror. Pray heaven
he may not have done it for the sake of trying
chymical experiments upon her, — young female
subjects are so scarce ! Louisa would make a
capital shot. An't you glad about Burke's case?
We may set off the Scotch murders against the
Scotch novels — Hare, the Great Un-hanged.

Martin Burney is richly worth your knowing.
He is on the top scale of my friendship ladder,
on which an angel or two is still climbing, and

l55

some, alas ! descending. I am out of the literary
world at present. Pray, is there anything new
from the admired pen of the author of the
Pleasures of Hope? Has Mrs. He-mans (double
masculine) done anything pretty lately ? Why
sleeps the lyre of Hervey, and of Alaric Watts ?
Is the muse of L. E. L. silent ? Did you see
a sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last ? Curious
construction! Elaborata facilitas ! And now I'll
tell. 'Twas written for the Gem; but the ed-
itors declined it, on the plea that it would shock
all mothers ; so they published the Widow instead.
I am born out of time. I have no conjecture
about what the present world calls delicacy. I
thought Rosamund Gray was a pretty modest
thing. Hessey assures me that the world would
not bear it. I have lived to grow into an inde-
cent character. When my sonnet was rejected,
I exclaimed, " Damn the age ; I will write for
antiquity!" Erratum in sonnet: Last line but
something, for tender, read tend. The Scotch do
not know our law terms; but I find some remains
of honest, plain, old writing lurking there still.
They were not so mealy-mouthed as to refuse
my verses. Maybe, 't is their oatmeal.

Blackwood sent me jCio for the drama.
Somebody cheated me out of it next day ; and
my new pair of breeches, just sent home, crack-
ing at first putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath,
" All tailors are cheats, and all men are tailors."
Then I was better. [Balance of letter lost.]

156

DLXXXIX. — TO B. W. PROCTER

1829.

And now, Procter, I will tell you a story.
Hierocles, the Sicilian Tyrant, who lived in the
thirtieth Olympiad, just seven hundred and sixty
years ante a.d., by the Gregorian Computation,
having won the Prize in a Race of Mules, be-
sought the Poet Simonides, with the incentive
moreover of a donative of 1 200 Sesterces, which
might be about ^12.7.3^ of our money, to
write him an Olympic Hymn in praise of the
mules. But Simonides, declining to vulgarise his
Muse with the mention of any such mongrels,
the Tyrant (which signifies in the Greek of that
age only king) rounds him in the ear that he
shall have 8000 sesterces if he will touch up his
beasts handsomely. Whereupon Simonides —
the " tender Simonides," as antiquity delights to
phrase him — began to relent, and stringing his
golden lyre begins a lofty ode to the cattle with —

Hail ! daughters of the swift-winged steed.

Sinking, you see, one part of their genealogy.
Now for the application. What I told you, dear
Procter, about my young friend was nothing but
the exact truth. But I sunk the circumstance
that her mother was a negro, or half-caste —
which convinces me, what I always thought, that
something of the tender genius of Simonides lives
again in my strains. Mary corrects me, and will

157

have it that the lady's mother was a Hindostanee
half-caste, and no negress, but was I to send you
wool-gathering over the vast plains watered by
the Ganges, or the more bewildering wilds of
Timbuctoo, to search for images ? '

DXC — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

January 28, 1829.

Dear Allsop, — Old Star is setting. Take him
and cut him into Little Stars. Nevertheless the
extinction of the greater light is not by the lesser
light (Stella, or Mrs. Star) apprehended so nigh,
but that she will be thankful if you can let young
Scintillation (Master Star) twinkle down by the
coach on Sunday, to catch the last glimmer of
the decaying parental light. No news is good
news ; so we conclude Mrs. A. and little a are
doing well. Our kindest loves, C. L.

DXCI. — TO B. W. PROCTER

January 29, 1829.

When Miss Ouldcroft (who is now Mrs. Bed-
dam, and Bed — damn'd to her !) was at Enfield,
which she was in summer-time, and owed her
health to its sun and genial influences, she visited
(with young lady-like impertinence) a poor

p In this extract Lamb, who was himself always writing verses for
his young friends' albums, wanted Procter to do likewise for Emma
Isola, in whose veins was a tinge of blood darker than European. —
Alfred Ainger.]

158

man's cottage that had a pretty baby (O the
yearnling !), and gave it fine caps and sweet-
meats. On a day, broke into the parlour our
two maids uproarious. " O ma'am, who do you
think Miss Ouldcroft (they pronounce it Hol-
croft) has been working a cap for ?" " A child,"
answered Mary, in true Shandean female sim-
plicity. " It 's the man's child as was taken up
for sheep-stealing." Miss Ouldcroft was stag-
gered, and would have cut the connection ; but
by main force I made her go and take her leave
of her protegee (which I only spell with a g be-
cause I can't make a pretty y). I thought, if she
went no more, the Abactor or Abactor's wife
(vide Ainsworth) would suppose she had heard
something ; and I have delicacy for a sheep-
stealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mut-
ton-pie at the baker's (his first, last, and only
hope of mutton-pie), which he never came to
eat, and thence inferred his guilt.

Per occasionem cuius I framed the sonnet ; ob-
serve its elaborate construction. I was four days
about it.

THE GYPSY'S MALISON

Suck, baby, suck, mother's love grows by giving,

Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting;
Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living

Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
Kiss, baby, kiss, mother's lips shine by kisses,

Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings;
Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses

Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings.

lS9

Hang, baby, hang, mother's love loves such forces,
Choke the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging ;

Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses
Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging.

So sang a wither'd sibyl energetical,

And bann'd the ungiving door with lips prophetical.

Barry, study that sonnet. It is curiously and per-
versely elaborate. 'T is a choking subject, and
therefore the reader is directed to the structure
of it. See you? and was this a fourteener to be
rejected by a trumpery annual? forsooth, 't would
shock all mothers ; and may all mothers, who
would so be shocked, bed dom'd ! as if mothers
were such sort of logicians as to infer the future
hanging of their child from the theoretical hang-
ibility (or capacity of being hanged, if the judge
pleases) of every infant born with a neck on.
Oh B. C, my whole heart is faint, and my whole
head is sick (how is it?) at this damned, cant-
ing, unmasculine unbxwdy (I had almost said)
age ! Don't show this to your child's mother or
I shall be Orpheusized, scattered into Hebras.
Damn the King, lords, commons, and specially
(as I said on Muswell Hill on a Sunday when
I could get no beer a quarter before one) all
bishops, priests, and curates. Vale.

DXCIL — TO B. W. PROCTER

Early 1829.

The comings in of an incipient conveyancer
160

are not adequate to the receipt of three two-
penny-post non-paids in a week. Therefore, after
this, I condemn my stub to long and deep silence,
or shall awaken it to write to lords. Lest those
raptures in this honeymoon of my correspond-
ence, which you avow for the gentle person of
my Nuncio, after passing through certain natural
grades, as Love, Love and Water, Love with the
chill off, then subsiding to that point which the
heroic suitor of his wedded dame, the noble-
spirited Lord Randolph in the play, declares to
be the ambition of his passion, a reciprocation
of " complacent kindness," — should suddenly
plump down (scarce staying to bait at the mid
point of indifference, so hungry it is for distaste)
to a loathing and blank aversion, to the render-
ing probable such counter expressions as this, —
" Damn that infernal twopenny postman" (words
which make the not yet glutted inamorato " lift
up his hands and wonder who can use them").
While, then, you are not ruined, let me assure
thee, O thou above the painter, and next only
under Giraldus Cambrensis, the most immortal
and worthy to be immortal Barry, thy most
ingenious and golden cadences do take my fancy
mightily. They are at this identical moment
under the snip and the paste of the fairest hands
(bating chilblains) in Cambridge, soon to be
transplanted to Suffolk, to the envy of half of the
young ladies in Bury.

But tell me, and tell me truly, gentle swain,
161

is that Isola Bella a true spot in geographical
denomination, or a floating Delos in thy brain ?
Lurks that fair island in verity in the bosom of
Lake Maggiore, or some other with less poetic
name, which thou hast Cornwallized for the
occasion ? And what if Maggiore itself be but a
coinage of adaptation ? Of this, pray resolve me
immediately, for my albumess will be catechised
on this subject ; and how can I prompt her ?
Lake Leman, I know, and Lemon Lake (in a
punch bowl) I have swum in, though those
lymphs be long since dry. But Maggiore may be
in the moon. Unsphinx this riddle for me, for
my shelves have no gazetteer. And mayest thou
never murder thy father-in-law in the Trivia of
Lincoln's Inn New Square Passage, where Searl
Street and the Street of Portugal embrace, nor
afterwards make absurd proposals to the Widow
M. But I know you abhor any such notions.
Nevertheless so did O-Edipus (as Admiral Bur-
ney used to call him, splitting the diphthong in
spite or ignorance) for that matter. C. L.

DXCIII. — TO B. W. PROCTER

February 2, 1829.

Facundissime Poeta ! quanquam istiusmodi
epitheta oratoribus potius quam poetis attinere
facile scio — tamen, facundissime!

Commoratur nobiscum iamdiu, in agro En-
feldiense, scilicet, leguleius futurus, illustrissimus

162

Martinus Burneius, otium agens, negotia nomi-
nalia, et officinam clientum vacuam, paululum
fugiens. Orat, implorat te — nempe, Martinus —
ut si (quod Dii faciant) forte fortuna, absente
ipso, advenerit tardus cliens, eum certiorem feceris
per literas hue missas. Intelligisne? an me An-
glice et barbarice ad te hominem perdoctum
scribere oportet ?

Si status de franco tenemento datur avo, et in
eodem facto si mediate vel immediate datur
haeredibus vel haeredibus corporis dicti avi, postrema
haec verba sunt Limitationis, non Perquisitionis.

Dixi. Carlagnulus

note

[Mr. Stephen Gwynn has made the following translation :

Most eloquent Poet : though I know well such epithet befits orators
rather than poets — and yet, most eloquent !

There has been staying with us this while past at our country seat of
Enfield, to wit, the future attorney, the illustrious Martin Burney, taking
his leisure, flying for a space from his nominal occupations, and his office
empty of clients. He — that is, Martin — begs and entreats of you that
if (heaven send it so !) by some stroke of fortune, in his absence there
should arrive a belated client, you would inform him by letter here. Do
you understand ? or must I write in barbarous English to a scholar like
you ?

If an estate in freehold is given to an ancestor, and if in the same deed
directly or indirectly the gift is made to the heir or heirs of the body of
the said ancestor, these last words have the force of Limitation not of
Purchase.

I have spoken. Charles Lamb. ]

DXCIV.— TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

February 27, 1829.

Dear R., — Expectation was alert on the receit
163

of your strange-shaped present, while yet undis-
closed from its fuse envelope. Some said, 'tis
a viol da Gamba, others pronounced it a fiddle. I
myself hoped it a liquer case pregnant with eau
de vie and such odd nectar. When midwifed
into daylight, the gossips were at loss to pro-
nounce upon its species. Most took it for a
marrow spoon, an apple scoop, a banker's guinea
shovel. At length its true scope appeared, its
drift — to save the backbone of my sister stoop-
ing to scuttles. A philanthropic intent, borrowed
no doubt from some of the colliers. You save
people's backs one way, and break 'em again by
loads of obligation. The spectacles are delicate
and Vulcanian. No lighter texture than their
steel did the cuckoldy blacksmith frame to catch
Mrs. Vulcan and the Captain in. For ungalled
forehead, as for back unbursten, you have Mary's
thanks. Marry, for my own peculium of obliga-
tion, 't was supererogatory. A second part of
Pamela was enough in conscience. Two Pa-
melas in a house is too much without two Mr.
B.'s to reward 'em.

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial
perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stock-
ings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love : I,
great good liking. Bid us a personal farewell
before you see the Vatican.

Chas. Lamb

164

DXCV. — TO SAMUEL ROGERS

March 22, 1829.

My dear Sir, — I have but lately learned, by
letter from Mr. Moxon, the death of your bro-
ther. For the little I had seen of him, I greatly
respected him. I do not even know how recent
your loss may have been, and hope that I do
not unseasonably present you with a few lines
suggested to me this morning by the thought
of him. I beg to be most kindly remembered
to your remaining brother, and to Miss Rogers.
Yours truly, Charles Lamb

Rogers, of all the men that I have known

But slightly, who have died, your brother's loss

Touched me most sensibly. There came across

My mind an image of the cordial tone

Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest

I more than once have sate ; and grieve to think,

That of that threefold cord one precious link

By Death's rude hand is sever'd from the rest.

Of our old gentry he appear'd a stem;

A magistrate who, while the evil-doer

He kept in terror, could respect the poor,

And not for every trifle harass them —

As some, divine and laic, too oft do.

This man's a private loss and public too.

DXCVL — TO BERNARD BARTON

March 25, 1829.

Dear B. B., — I send you by desire Darley's
very poetical poem. You will like, I think, the

165

novel headings of each scene. Scenical direc-
tions in verse are novelties. With it I send a few
duplicates, which are therefore no value to me,
and may amuse an idle hour. Read Christmas,
'tis the production of a young author, who reads
all your writings. A good word from you about
his little book would be as balm to him. It has
no pretensions, and makes none. But parts are
pretty. In Field 's Appendix turn to a poem called
the Kangaroo. It is in the best way of our old
poets, if I mistake not. I have just come from
town, where I have been to get my bit of quar-
terly pension. And have brought home, from
stalls in Barbican, the old Pilgrim's Progress with
the prints — Vanity Fair, &c. — now scarce.
Four shillings. Cheap. And also one of whom
I have oft heard and had dreams, but never saw
in the flesh — that is, in sheepskin — the whole
theologic works of —

Thomas Aquinas !

My arms aked with lugging it a mile to the
stage, but the burden was a pleasure, such as old
Anchises was to the shoulders of ./Eneas — or
the Lady to the Lover in old romance, who hav-
ing to carry her to the top of a high mountain
— the price of obtaining her — clamber'd with
her to the top, and fell dead with fatigue.

O the glorious old Schoolmen !

There must be something in him. Such great
names imply greatness. Who hath seen Michael

1 66

Angelo's things — of us that never pilgrimaged
to Rome — and yet which of us disbelieves his
greatness. How I will revel in his cobwebs and
subtleties, till my brain spins !

N. B. I have writ in the old Hamlet, offer it
to Mitford in my name, if he have not seen it.
'T is woefully below our editions of it. But keep
it, if you like. (What is M. to me?)

I do not mean this to go for a letter, only to ap-
prize y ou, that the parcel is booked for you this 2 5
March, 1829, from the Four Swans Bishopsgate.

With both our loves to Lucy and A. K.

Yours ever, C. L.

DXCVII. — TO MISS SARAH JAMES

April, 1829.

We have just got your letter. I think Mother
Reynolds will go on quietly, Mrs. Scrimpshaw
having kittened. The name of the late Laureat
was Henry James Pye, and when his first Birth-
day Ode came out, which was very poor, some-
body being asked his opinion of it, said, —

And when the Pye was open'd

The birds began to sing,
And was not this a dainty dish

To set before the King !

Pye was brother to old Major Pye, and father
to Mrs. Arnold, and uncle to a General Pye, all
friends of Miss Kelly. Pye succeeded Thos.
Warton, Warton succeeded Wm. Whitehead,

167

Whitehead succeeded Colley Cibber, Cibber
succeeded Eusden, Eusden succeeded Thos.
Shadwell, Shadwell succeeded Dryden, Dryden
succeeded Davenant, Davenant God knows
whom. There never was a Rogers a Poet Lau-
reat ; there is an old living poet of that name,
a banker as you know, author of the Pleasures
of Memory, where Moxon goes to breakfast in
a fine house in the Green Park, but he was never
Laureat. Southey is the present one, and for
anything I know or care, Moxon may succeed
him. We have a copy of Xmas for you, so you
may give your own to Mary as soon as you
please. We think you need not have exhibited
your mountain shyness before M. B. He is
neither shy himself, nor patronizes it in others.
So with many thanks, good-bye. Emma comes
on Thursday. C. L.

The Poet Laureat, whom Davenant suc-
ceeded was Rare Ben Jonson, who I believe
was the first regular Laureat with the appoint-
ment of ^ioo a year and a Butt of Sack or
Canary — so add that to my little list. — C. L.

DXCVIII. — TO HENRY C. ROBINSON

April 10, 1829.

Dear Robinson, — We are afraid you will slip
from us from England without again seeing us.
It would be charity to come and see me. I have

168

these three days been laid up with strong rheu-
matic pains, in loins, back, shoulders. I shriek
sometimes from the violence of them. I get scarce
any sleep, and the consequence is, I am restless,
and want to change sides as I lie, and I cannot
turn without resting on my hands, and so turning
all my body all at once like a log with a lever.
While this rainy weather lasts, I have no hope
of alleviation. I have tried flannels and embro-
cation in vain. Just at the hip-joint the pangs
sometimes are so excruciating that I cry out. It
is as violent as the cramp, and far more continu-
ous. I am ashamed to whine about these com-
plaints to you, who can ill enter into them. But
indeed they are sharp. You go about, in rain or
fine at all hours without discommodity. I envy
you your immunity at a time of life not much
removed from my own. But you owe your ex-
emption to temperance, which it is too late for
me to pursue. I in my life time have had my
good things. Hence my frame is brittle — yours
strong as brass. I never knew any ailment you
had. You can go out at night in all weathers,
sit up all hours. Well, I don't want to moralise.
I only wish to say that if you are enclined to a
game at Doubly Dumby, I would try and bolster
up myself in a chair for a rubber or so. My days
are tedious, but less so and less painful than my
nights. May you never know the pain and diffi-
culty I have in writing so much. Mary, who is
most kind, joins in the wish. C. Lamb

169

DXCIX. — TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

April 17, 1829.

I do confess to mischief. It was the subtlest
diabolical piece of malice heart of man has con-
trived. I have no more rheumatism than that
poker. Never was freer from all pains and aches.
Every joint sound, to the tip of the ear from the
extremity of the lesser toe. The report of thy
torments was blown circuitously here from
Bury. I could not resist the jeer. I conceived
you writhing, when you should just receive my
congratulations. How mad you'd be! Well,
it is not in my method to inflict pangs. I leave
that to heaven. But in the existing pangs of a
friend, I have a share. His disquietude crowns
my exemption. I imagine you howling, and
pace across the room, shooting out my free arms,
legs, &c. [here Lamb makes four slanting marks
resembling shorthand], this way and that way,
with an assurance of not kindling a spark of pain
from them. I deny that Nature meant us to
sympathise with agonies. Those face-contortions,
retortions, distortions, have the merriness of
antics. Nature meant them for farce — not so
pleasant to the actor indeed, but Grimaldi cries
when we laugh, and 'tis but one that suffers to
make thousands rejoyce.

You say that shampooing is ineffectual. But
per se it is good, to show the introvolutions,
extravolutions, of which the animal frame is

170

capable. To show what the creature is recept-
ible of, short of dissolution.

You are worst of nights, a'nt you ?

'T will be as good as a sermon to you to lie
abed all this night, and meditate the subject of
the day. 'T is Good Friday. How appropriate !

Think when but your little finger pains you,
what ****** endured to whitewash you and
the rest of us.

Nobody will be the more justified for your
endurance. You won't save the soul of a mouse.
'T is a pure selfish pleasure.

You never was rack'd, was you ? I should like
an authentic map of those feelings.

You seem to have the flying gout.

You can scarcely scrue a smile out of your
face — can you ? I sit at immunity, and sneer
ad libitum.

'T is now the time for you to make good reso-
lutions. I may go on breaking 'em, for anything
the worse I find myself.

Your doctor seems to keep you on the long
cure. Precipitate healings are never good.

Don't come while you are so bad. I shan't
be able to attend to your throes and the dumbee
at once.

I should like to know how slowly the pain
goes off. But don't write, unless the motion will
be likely to make your sensibility more exquisite.

Your affectionate and truly healthy friend,

C. Lamb
171

Mary thought a letter from me might amuse
you in your torment.

DC — TO GEORGE DYER

April 29, 1829.

Dear Dyer, — As well as a bad pen can do it,
I must thank you for your friendly attention to
the wishes of our young friend Emma, who was
packing up for Bury when your sonnet arrived,
and was too hurried to express her sense of its
merits. I know she will treasure up that and
your second communication among her choicest
rarities, as from her grandfather's friend, whom
not having seen, she loves to hear talked of; the
second letter shall be sent after her, with our first
parcel to Suffolk, where she is, to us, alas ! dead
and Bury'd : we sorely miss her. Should you at
any hour think of four or six lines to send her,
addressed to herself simply, naming her grand-
sire, and to wish she may pass through life as
much respected, with your own "G. Dyer" at
the end, she would feel rich indeed, for the
nature of an album asks for verses that have not
been in print before; but this quite at your con-
venience : and to be less trouble to yourself, four
lines would be sufficient. Enfield is come out in
summer beauty. Come when you will, and we
will give you a bed; Emma has left hers, you
know. I remain, my dear Dyer, your affectionate
friend, Charles Lamb

172

DCL — TO THOMAS HOOD

May, 1829.

Dear Hood, — We will look out for you on
Wednesday, be sure, tho' we have not eyes like
Emma, who, when I made her sit with her back
to the window to keep her to her Latin, literally
saw round backwards every one that past, and,
O, [that] she were here to jump up and shriek
out, " There are the Hoods ! " We have had two
pretty letters from her, which I long to show
you — together with Enfield in her May beauty.

Loves to Jane.

\ Here follow rough caricatures of Charles and his
sister, and\ " I can't draw no better."

DCIL — TO EDWARD MOXON

Calamy is good reading. Mary is always thank-
ful for books in her way. I won't trouble you
for any in my way yet, having enough to read.
Young Hazlitt lives, at least his father does, at 3
or 36 [36 I have it down, with the 6 scratch' d
out] Bouverie Street, Fleet Street. If not to be
found, his mother's address is, Mrs. Hazlitt, Mrs.
Tomlinson's, Potters Bar. At one or other he
must be heard of.

We shall expect you with the full moon.
Meantime, our thanks. C. L.

We go on very quietly, &c.
173

DCIII. — TO WALTER WILSON

May 28, 1829.

Dear W., — Introduce this, or omit it, as you
like. I think I wrote better about it in a letter
to you from India House. If you have that, per-
haps out of the two I could patch up a better
thing, if you 'd return both. But I am very
poorly, and have been harassed with an illness of
my sister's.

The Ode was printed in the New Times nearly
the end of 1825, and I have only omitted some
silly lines. Call it a corrected copy.

Yours ever, C. Lamb

Put my name to either or both, as you like.

DCIV. — TO BERNARD BARTON

June 3, 1829.

Dear B. B., — I am very much grieved in-
deed for the indisposition of poor Lucy. Your
letter found me in domestic troubles. My sister
is again taken ill, and I am obliged to remove
her out of the house for many weeks, I fear,
before I can hope to have her again. I have
been very desolate indeed. My loneliness is a
little abated by our young friend Emma having
just come here for her holydays, and a school-
fellow of hers that was, with her. Still the
house is not the same, tho' she is the same.

*74

Mary had been pleasing herself with the pro-
spect of seeing her at this time ; and with all
their company, the house feels at times a fright-
ful solitude. May you and I in no very long
time have a more cheerful theme to write about,
and congratulate upon a daughter's and a sister's
perfect recovery. Do not be long without tell-
ing me how Lucy goes on. I have a right to
call her by her quaker-name, you know.

Emma knows that I am writing to you, and
begs to be remembered to you with thankful-
ness for your ready contribution. Her album is
filling apace. But of her contributors one, al-
most the flower of it, a most amiable young
man and late acquaintance of mine, has been
carried off by consumption, on return from one
of the Azores islands, to which he went with
hopes of mastering the disease, came back im-
proved, went back to a most close and confined
counting house, and relapsed. His name was
Dibdin, grandson of the songster.

You will be glad to hear that Emma, tho'
unknown to you, has given the highest satis-
faction in her little place of governante in a
clergyman's family, which you may believe by
the parson and his lady drinking poor Mary's
health on her birthday, tho' they never saw her,
merely because she was a friend of Emma's, and
the vicar also sent me a brace of partridges.

To get out of home themes, have you seen
Southey's Dialogues? His lake descriptions, and

17S

the account of his library at Keswick, are very
fine. But he needed not have called up the
Ghost of More to hold the conversations with,
which might as well have pass'd between A and
B, or Caius and Lucius. It is making too free
with a defunct Chancellor and Martyr.

I feel as if I had nothing farther to write about
— O ! I forget the prettiest letter I ever read,
that I have received from Pleasures of Memory
Rogers, in acknowledgment of a sonnet I sent
him on the Loss of his Brother. It is too long
to transcribe, but I hope to shew it you some
day, as I hope some time again to see you, when
all of us are well. Only it ends thus : " We
were nearly of an age (he was the elder). He
was the only person in the world in whose eyes
I always appeared young."

I will now take my leave with assuring you
that I am most interested in hoping to hear
favourable accounts from you.

With kindest regards to A. K. and you,

Yours truly, C. L.

DCV. — TO WILLIAM AYRTON

June 10, 1829.

My dear Ayrton, — It grieves me that I can-
not join you. Besides that I have two young
friends in the house, I expect a London visitor
on Thursday. I hope to see H. C. R. here before
he goes, and you before we all go.

176

God bless you. Health to the Party. Love to
Mrs. A. C. Lamb

DCVI. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

1829.

Dear Allsop, — I will find out your Bijoux some
day. At present, I am sorry to say, we have
neither of us very good spirits ; and I cannot
look to any pleasant expeditions.

You speak of your trial as a known thing, but
I am quite in the dark about it ; but wish you
a safe issue most heartily.

Our loves to Mrs. Allsop and children.

C. L.

DCVII.— TO WILLIAM HAZLITT, JUNIOR

June, 1829.

My dear Wm., — I am very uncomfortable,
and when Emma leaves me, I shall wish to be
quite alone ; therefore pray tell your mother I re-
gret that I cannot see her here this time, but hope
to see her when times are better with me. The
young ladies are very pleasant, but my spirits have
much ado to keep pace with theirs. I decidedly
wish to be alone, or I know of none I should
rather see than your mother. Make my best ex-
cuse. Emma will explain to you the state of my
wretched spirits. Yours,

C. Lamb
177

DCVIII. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

At midsummer or soon after (I will let you
know the previous day), I will take a day with
you in the purlieus of my old haunts. No of-
fence has been taken, any more than meant. My
house is full at present, but empty of its chief
pride. She is dead to me for many months. But
when I see you, then I will say, Come and
see me. With undiminished friendship to you
both, Your faithful but queer,

C. L.

How you frighted me ! Never write again,
" Coleridge is dead," at the end of a line, and
tamely come in with — " to his friends" at the
beginning of another. Love is quicker, and fear
from love, than the transition ocular from line
to line.

DCIX. — TO BERNARD BARTON

Enfield Chase Side, Saturday, 25 July a.d. 1829 — n a.m.

There — a fuller, plumper, juiceier date never
dropt from Idumean palm. Am I in the dateive
case now ? if not, a fig for dates, which is more
than a date is worth. I never stood much affected
to these limitary specialties. Least of all since the
date of my superannuation.

What have I with Time to do ?
Slaves of desks, 't was meant for you.

178

Dear B. B., — Your handwriting has conveyed
much pleasure to me in report of Lucy's restora-
tion. Would I could send you as good news of
my poor Lucy ! But some wearisome weeks I
must remain lonely yet. I have had the loneliest
time near ten weeks, broken by a short apparition
of Emma for her holydays, whose departure only
deepen' d the returning solitude, and by ten days
I have past in town. But town, with all my
native hankering after it, is not what it was. The
streets, the shops are left, but all old friends
are gone. And in London I was frightfully con-
vinced of this as I past houses and places —
empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost
about anybody. The bodies I cared for are in
graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so
long and flourish'd so steadily, are crumbled
away. When I took leave of our adopted young
friend at Charing Cross, 'twas heavy unfeeling
rain, and I had nowhere to go. Home have I
none, and not a sympathising house to turn to in
the great city. Never did the waters of the heaven
pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten
days at a sort of a friend's house, but it was large
and straggling — one of the individuals of my old
long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant com-
panions — that have tumbled to pieces into dust
and other things — and I got home on Thurs-
day, convinced that I was better to get home to
my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in
my corner. Less than a month I hope will bring

179

home Mary. She is at Fulham, looking better
in her health than ever, but sadly rambling, and
scarce showing any pleasure in seeing me, or cu-
riosity when I should come again. But the old
feelings will come back again, and we shall drown
old sorrows over a game at picquet again. But
't is a tedious cut out of a life of sixty-four, to
lose twelve or thirteen weeks every year or two.
And to make me more alone, our ill-temper'd
maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home
piece of furniture, a record of better days ; the
young thing that has succeeded her is good and
attentive, but she is nothing — and I have no one
here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and
quarreling have something of familiarity and a
community of interest — they imply acquaint-
ance — they are of resentment, which is of the
family of dearness. I can neither scold nor quarrel
at this insignificant implement of household ser-
vices ; she is less than a cat, and just better than
a deal dresser. What I can do, and do overdo, is
to walk, but deadly long are the days — these
summer all-day days, with but a half hour's can-
dlelight and no firelight. I do not write, tell
your kind inquisitive Eliza, and can hardly read.
In the ensuing Blackwood will be an old rejected
farce of mine, which may be new to you, if you
see that same dull medley. What things are all
the magazines now ! I contrive studiously not to
see them. The popular New Monthly is perfect
trash.

180

Poor Hessey, I suppose you see, has failed.
Hunt and Clarke too. Your Vulgar Truths will
be a good name ; and I think your prose must
please — me at least — but 'tis useless to write
poetry with no purchasers. 'T is cold work
authorship without something to puff one into
fashion. Could you not write something on
Quakerism — for Quakers to read — but nomi-
nally addrest to Non-Quakers ? explaining your
dogmas — waiting on the Spirit — by the ana-
logy of human calmness and patient waiting on
the judgment ? I scarcely know what I mean,
but to make Non-Quakers reconciled to your doc-
trines, by shewing something like them in mere
human operations — but I hardly understand my-
self, so let it pass for nothing.

I pity you for over-work, but I assure you
no-work is worse. The mind preys on itself,
the most unwholesome food. I brag'd formerly
that I could not have too much time. I have
a surfeit. With few years to come, the days
are wearisome. But weariness is not eternal.
Something will shine out to take the load off,
that flags me, which is at present intolerable.
I have killed an hour or two in this poor scrawl.
I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would
kill him inch-meal just now. But the snake is
vital. Well, I shall write merrier anon. "T is
the present copy of my countenance I send —
and to complain is a little to alleviate. May you
enjoy yourself as far as the wicked world will let

181

you — and think that you are not quite alone,
as I am. Health to Lucia and to Anna and kind
remembrances. Yours forlorn, C. L.

DCX. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

Late July, 1829.

My dear Allsop, — I thank you for thinking
of my recreation. But I am best here, I feel I
am. I have tried town lately, but came back
worse. Here I must wait till my loneliness has
its natural cure. Besides that, though I am not
very sanguine, yet I live in hopes of better news
from Fulham, and cannot be out of the way.
'T is ten weeks to-morrow. I saw Mary a week
since, she was in excellent bodily health, but
otherwise far from well. But a week or so may
give a turn. Love to Mrs. A. and children, and
fair weather accompany you. C. L.

DCXI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

September 22, 1829.

Dear Moxon, — If you can oblige me with
the Garrick Papers or Anne of Geierstein, I shall
be thankful. I am almost fearful whether my
sister will be able to enjoy any reading at present;
for since her coming home, after twelve weeks,
she has had an unusual relapse into the saddest
low spirits that ever poor creature had, and has
been some weeks under medical care. She is

182

unable to see any yet. When she is better I shall
be very glad to talk over your ramble with you.
Have you done any sonnets? can you send me
any to overlook ? I am almost in despair ; Mary's
case seems so hopeless. Believe me yours,

C. L.

I do not want Mrs. Jameson or Lady Morgan.

DCXII. — TO JAMES GILLMAN

October 26, 1829.

Dear Gillman, — Allsop brought me your kind
message yesterday. How can I account for having
not visited Highgate this long time? Change of
place seemed to have changed me. How grieved
I was to hear in what indifferent health Cole-
ridge has been, and I not to know of it ! A little
school divinity, well applied, may be healing. I
send him honest Tom of Aquin ; that was always
an obscure great idea to me : I never thought or
dreamed to see him in the flesh, but t' other day
I rescued him from a stall in Barbican, and
brought him off in triumph. He comes to greet
Coleridge's acceptance, for his shoe-latchets I am
unworthy to unloose. Yet there are pretty pro's
and con's, and such unsatisfactory learning in
him. Commend me to the question of etiquette

— "utrum annunciatio debuerit fieri per angelum"

— Quaest. 30, Articulus 2. I protest, till now
I had thought Gabriel a fellow of some mark

183

and livelihood, not a simple esquire, as I find
him.

Well, do not break your lay brains, nor I nei-
ther, with these curious nothings. They are nuts
to our dear friend, whom hoping to see at your
first friendly hint that it will be convenient, I
end with begging our very kindest loves to Mrs.
Gillman. We have had a sorry house of it here.
Our spirits have been reduced till we were at
hope's end what to do — obliged to quit this
house, and afraid to engage another, till in ex-
tremity I took the desperate resolve of kicking
house and all down, like Bunyan's pack; and
here we are in a new life at board and lodging,
with an honest couple our neighbours. We have
ridded ourselves of the cares of dirty acres ; and
the change, though of less than a week, has had
the most beneficial effects on Mary already. She
looks two years and a half younger for it. But we
have had sore trials.

God send us one happy meeting!

Yours faithfully, C. Lamb

DCXIII. — TO VINCENT NOVELLO

November 10, 1829.

Dear Fugue-ist, or bear'st thou rather Contra-
puntist?— We expect you four (as many as the
table will hold without squeeging) [squeezing]
at Mrs. Westwood's table d'hote on Thursday.
You will find the White House shut up, and us

184

moved under the wing of the Phoenix, which
gives us friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry,
we have none, but cleanly accomodings at the
Crown and Horseshoe.

Yours harmonically, C. L.

DCXIV. — TO WALTER WILSON

November 15, 1829.

My dear Wilson, — I have not opened a packet
of unknown contents for many years, that gave
me so much pleasure as when I disclosed your
three volumes. I have given them a careful peru-
sal, and they have taken their degree of classical
books upon my shelves. De Foe was always my
darling; but what darkness was I in as to far
the larger part of his writings ! I have now an
epitome of them all. I think the way in which
you have done the Life the most judicious you
could have pitched upon. You have made him
tell his own story, and your comments are in keep-
ing with the tale. Why, I never heard of such
a work as the Review. Strange that in my stall-
hunting days I never so much as lit upon an odd
volume of it. This circumstance looks as if they
were never of any great circulation. But I may
have met with 'em, and not knowing the prize,
overpast 'em. I was almost a stranger to the
whole history of Dissenters in those reigns, and
picked my way through that strange book the
Consolidator at random. How affecting are some

185

of his personal appeals ! what a machine of pro-
jects he set on foot! and following writers have
picked his pocket of the patents. I do not under-
stand whereabouts in Roxana he himself left off.
I always thought the complete-tourist-sort of
description of the town she passes through on her
last embarkation miserably unseasonable and out
of place. I knew not they were spurious. En-
lighten me as to where the apocryphal matter
commences. I, by accident, can correct one A.
D., Family Instructor, vol. ii, 171 8; you say his
first volume had then reached the fourth edition;
now I have a fifth, printed for Eman. Matthews,
171 7. So have I plucked one rotten date, or
rather picked it up where it had inadvertently
fallen, from your flourishing date tree, the Palm
of Engaddi. I may take it for my pains. I think
yours a book which every public library must
have, and every English scholar should have. I
am sure it has enriched my meagre stock of the
author's works. I seem to be twice as opulent.
Mary is by my side just finishing the second vol-
ume. It must have interest to divert her away so
long from her modern novels. Colburn will be
quite jealous.

I was a little disappointed at my Ode to the
Treadmill not finding a place ; but it came out
of time. The two papers of mine will puzzle
the reader, being so akin. Odd that, never keep-
ing a scrap of my own letters, with some fifteen
years' interval I should nearly have said the

186

same things. But I shall always feel happy in
having my name go down anyhow with De
Foe's, and that of his historiographer. I pro-
mise myself, if not immortality, yet diuternity of
being read in consequence. We have both had
much illness this year ; and feeling infirmities
and fretfulness grow upon us, we have cast off
the cares of housekeeping, sold off our goods,
and commenced boarding and lodging with a
very comfortable old couple next door to where
you found us. We use a sort of common table.
' Nevertheless, we have reserved a private one for
an old friend ; and when Mrs. Wilson and you
revisit Babylon, we shall pray you to make it
yours for a season. Our very kindest remem-
brances to you both.

From your old friend and fellow-journalist,
now in two instances, C. Lamb

Hazlitt is going to make your book a basis
for a review of De Foe's Novels in the Edinbro' .
I wish I had health and spirits to do it. Hone
I have not seen, but I doubt not he will be
much pleased with your performance. I very
much hope you will give us an account of Dun-
ton, &c. But what I should more like to see
would be a Life and Times of Bunyan. Wish-
ing health to you and long life to your healthy
book, again I subscribe me,

Yours in verity, C. L.

187

DCXV. — TO JAMES GILLMAN

November 29, 1829.

Pray trust me with the Church History , as well
as the Worthies. A moon shall restore both.
Also give me back " Him of Aquinum." In re-
turn you have the light of my countenance. Adieu.

P. S. A sister also of mine comes with it.
A son of Nimshi drives her. Their driving will
have been furious, impassioned. Pray God they
have not toppled over the tunnel ! I promise you
I fear their steed, bred out of the wind with-
out father, semi-Melchisedecish, hot, phaetontic.
From my country lodgings at Enfield.

C. L.

DCXVI. — TO JAMES GILLMAN

November 30, 1829.

Dear G., — The excursionists reached home,
and the good town of Enfield a little after four,
without slip or dislocation. Little has transpired
concerning the events of the back-journey, save
that on passing the house of 'Squire Mellish, situ-
ate a stone-bow's cast from the hamlet, Father
Westwood, with a good-natured wonderment, ex-
claimed, " I cannot think what is gone of Mr.
Mellish's rooks. I fancy they have taken flight
somewhere ; but I have missed them two or three
years past." All this while, according to his fel-
low-traveller's report, the rookery was darken-

188

ing the air above with undiminished population,
and deafening all ears but his with their cawings.
But Nature has been gently withdrawing such
phenomena from the notice of Thomas West-
wood's senses, from the time he began to miss
the rooks. T. Westwood has passed a retired life
in this hamlet of thirty or forty years, living upon
the minimum which is consistent with gentility,
yet a star among the minor gentry, receiving the
bows of the trades-people and courtesies of the
alms-women daily. Children venerate him not
less for his external show of gentry, than they
wonder at him for a gentle rising endorsation of
the person, not amounting to a hump, or if a
hump, innocuous as the hump of the buffalo, and
coronative of as mild qualities. 'T is a throne on
which patience seems to sit — the proud perch
of a self-respecting humility, stooping with con-
descension. Thereupon the cares of life have
sate, and rid him easily. For he has thrid the
angustiae domus with dexterity. Life opened upon
him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a
rider or traveller for a wholesale house, in which
capacity he tells of many hair-breadth escapes that
befell him ; one especially, how he rode a mad
horse into the town of Devizes ; how horse and
rider arrived in a foam, to the utter consterna-
tion of the expostulating hostlers, innkeepers,
&c. It seems it was sultry weather, piping hot ;
the steed tormented into frenzy with gadflies,
long past being roadworthy ; but safety and the

189

interest of the house he rode for were incompat-
ible things ; a fall in serge cloth was expected ;
and a mad entrance they made of it. Whether
the exploit was purely voluntary, or partially ; or
whether a certain personal defiguration in the
man part of this extraordinary centaur (non-assist-
ive to partition of natures) might not enforce the
conjunction, I stand not to inquire. I look not
with 'skew eyes into the deeds of heroes.

The hosier that was burnt with his shop, in
Field-lane, on Tuesday night, shall have past to
heaven for me like a Marian Martyr, provided
always that he consecrated the fortuitous incre-
mation with a short ejaculation in the exit, as
much as if he had taken his state degrees of mar-
tyrdom in formd in the market vicinage. There
is adoptive as well as acquisitive sacrifice. Be the
animus what it might, the fact is indisputable,
that this composition was seen flying all abroad,
and mine host of Daintry may yet remember its
passing through his town, if his scores are not
more faithful than his memory. After this ex-
ploit (enough for one man), Thomas Westwood
seems to have subsided into a less hazardous oc-
cupation ; and in the twenty-fifth year of his age
we find him a haberdasher in Bow Lane : yet
still retentive of his early riding (though leaving
it to rawer stomachs), and Christmasly at night
sithence to this last, and shall to his latest Christ-
mas, hath he, doth he, and shall he, tell after
supper the story of the insane steed and the de-

190

sperate rider. Save for Bedlam or Luke's no eye
could have guessed that melting day what house
he rid for. But he reposes on his bridles, and
after the ups and downs (metaphoric only) of a
life behind the counter — hard riding sometimes,
I fear, for poor T. W. — with the scrapings to-
gether of the shop, and one anecdote, he hath
finally settled at Enfield ; by hard economising,
gardening, building for himself, hath reared a
mansion, married a daughter, qualified a son for
a counting-house, gotten the respect of high and
low, served for self or substitute the greater par-
ish offices : hath a special voice at vestries ; and,
domiciliating us, hath reflected a portion of his
house-keeping respectability upon your humble
servants. We are greater, being his lodgers, than
when we were substantial renters. His name is
a passport to take off the sneers of the native
Enfielders against obnoxious foreigners. We
are endenizened. Thus much of T. Westwood
have I thought fit to acquaint you, that you may
see the exemplary reliance upon Providence with
which I entrusted so dear a charge as my own
sister to the guidance of a man that rode the
mad horse into Devizes. To come from his
heroic character, all the amiable qualities of do-
mestic life concentre in this tamed Bellerophon.
He is excellent over a glass of grog ; just as
pleasant without it; laughs when he hears a joke,
and when (which is much oftener) he hears it not;
sings glorious old sea-songs on festival nights ;

191

and but upon a slight acquaintance of two years,
Coleridge,1 is as dear a deaf old man to us, as old
Norris, rest his soul ! was after fifty. To him and
his scanty literature (what there is of it, sound}
have we flown from the metropolis and its cursed
annualists, reviewers, authors, and the whole
muddy ink press of that stagnant pool.

Now, Gillman again, you do not know the
treasure of the Fullers. I calculate on having
massy reading till Christmas. All I want here is
books of the true sort, not those things in boards
that moderns mistake for books — what they
club for at book-clubs.

I did not mean to cheat you with a blank side ;
but my eye smarts, for which I am taking med-
icine, and abstain, this day at least, from any
aliments but milk-porridge, the innocent taste
of which I am anxious to renew after a half-
century's disacquaintance. If a blot fall here
like a tear, it is not pathos, but an angry eye.

Farewell, while my specilla are sound.

Yours and yours, C. Lamb

DCXVII. — TO BERNARD BARTON

December 8, 1829.

My dear B. B., — You are very good to have
been uneasy about us, and I have the satisfaction
to tell you that we are both in better health and

1 Possibly Lamb forgot here, and thought he was writing to Cole-
ridge. — Ed.

192

spirits than we have been for a year or two past ;
I may say, than we have been since we have been
at Enfield. The cause may not appear quite ade-
quate, when I tell you that a course of ill-health
and spirits brought us to the determination of
giving up our house here, and we are boarding
and lodging with a worthy old couple, long in-
habitants of Enfield, where everything is done for
us without our trouble, further than a reason-
able weekly payment. We should have done so
before, but it is not easy to flesh and blood to
give up an ancient establishment, to discard
old Penates, and from house-keepers to turn
house-sharers. (N. B. We are not in the work-
house.) Diocletian in his garden found more
repose than on the imperial seat of Rome, and
the nob of Charles the Fifth aked seldomer under
a monk's cowl than under the diadem. With
such shadows of assimilation we countenance our
degradation. With such a load of dignify'd cares
just removed from our shoulders, we can the
more understand and pity the accession to yours,
by the advancement to an assigneeship. I will
tell you honestly, B. B., that it has been long my
deliberate judgment that all bankrupts, of what
denomination civil or religious whatever, ought
to be hang'd. The pity of mankind has for ages
run in a wrong channel, and has been diverted
from poor creditors (how many I have known
sufferers ! Hazlitt has just been defrauded of
j£ioo by his bookseller - friend's breaking) to

J93

scoundrel debtors. I know all the topics, that
distress may come upon an honest man without
his fault ; that the failure of one that he trusted
was his calamity, &c, &c. Then let both be
hang'd. O how careful it would make traders !
These are my deliberate thoughts after many
years' experience in matters of trade.

What a world of trouble it would save you,
if Friend ***** had been immediately hang'd,
without benefit of clergy, which (being a Quaker
I presume) he could not reasonably insist upon.
Why, after slaving twelve months in your assign-
business, you will be enabled to declare seven
pence in the pound in all human probability.
B. B., he should be hanged. Trade will never
re-flourish in this land till such a law is estab-
lished. I write big not to save ink but eyes, mine
having been troubled with reading thro' three
folios of old Fuller in almost as few days, and I
went to bed last night in agony, and am writing
with a vial of eye-water before me, alternately
dipping in vial and inkstand. This may enflame
my zeal against bankrupts — but it was my specu-
lation when I could see better. Half the world's
misery (Eden else) is owing to want of money,
and all that want is owing to bankrupts. I de-
clare I would, if the state wanted practitioners,
turn hangman myself, and should have great
pleasure in hanging the first after my salutary
law should be establish'd.

I have seen no annuals and wish to see none.
194

I like your fun upon them, and was quite pleased
with Bowles's sonnet. Hood is or was at Brigh-
ton, but a note, prose or rhime, to him, Robert
Street, Adelphi, I am sure would extract a copy
of his, which also I have not seen. Wishing you
and yours all health, I conclude while these frail
glasses are to me — eyes. C. L.

DCXVIII. — TO BASIL MONTAGUE

Dear M., — I have received the enclosed from
Miss James. Her sister, Mrs. Trueman, is a most
worthy person. I know all their history. They
are four daughters of them, daughters of a Welch
clergyman of the greatest respectability, who dy-
ing, the family were obliged to look about them,
and by some fatality they all became nurses at
Mr. Warburton's, Hoxton. Mrs. Parsons, one of
them, is patronized by Dr. Tuthill, who can speak
to her character. I can safely speak to Miss James's
for fifteen years or more. Trueman has been
a keeper at Warburton's. Himself and wife are
willing to undertake the entire charge at ^200
a year. I think you hardly pay less now. They
propose to take a cottage near the Regent's Park,
to which by the omnibuses you can have short and
easy access at any hour. I will call upon you to-
morrow morning at office. Pray, think upon it
in the meanwhile. I really think it desirable.
Yours ever,

C. Lamb
195

DCXIX. — TO JAMES S. KNOWLES

Dear Kn, — I will not see London again with-
out seeing your pleasant play. In meanwhile,
pray send three or four orders to a lady who can't
afford to pay, Miss James, No. i Grove Road,
Lisson Grove, Paddington, a day or two before ;
and come and see us some evening, with my hith-
erto uncorrupted and honest bookseller, Moxon.

C. Lamb

LETTER DCXX

[/« two parts]
I. — CHARLES LAMB TO WM. WORDSWORTH

January 22, 1830.

And is it a year since we parted from you at
the steps of Edmonton stage ? There are not now
the years that there used to be. The tale of the
dwindled age of men, reported of successional
mankind, is true of the same man only. We do
not live a year in a year now. 'T is a punctum starts.
The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring
cheers not, nor winter heightens our gloom, au-
tumn hath foregone its moralities ; they are hey-
pass re-pass [as] in a show-box. Yet as far as last
year occurs back, for they scarce shew a reflex
now, they make no memory as heretofore —
't was sufficiently gloomy. Let the sullen no-
thing pass.

196

Suffice it that after sad spirits prolonged thro'
many of its months, as it called them, we have
cast our skins, have taken a farewell of the pomp-
ous, troublesome trifle call'd housekeeping, and
are settled down into poor boarders and lodgers
at next door with an old couple, the Baucis and
Baucida of dull Enfield. Here we have nothing
to do with our victuals but to eat them, with the
garden but to see it grow, with the tax-gatherer
but to hear him knock, with the maid but to
hear her scolded. Scot and lot, butcher, baker,
are things unknown to us save as spectators of the
pageant. We are fed we know not how, quiet-
ists, confiding ravens. We have the otium pro
dignitate, a respectable insignificance. Yet in the
self-condemned obliviousness, in the stagnation,
some molesting yearnings of life, not quite kill'd,
rise, prompting me that there was a London,
and that I was of that old Jerusalem. In dreams
I am in Fleetmarket, but I wake and cry to sleep
again. I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this de-
testable Paraclete. What have I gained by health ?
intolerable dulness. What by early hours and mod-
erate meals ? — a total blank. O never let the
lying poets be believed, who 'tice men from the
chearful haunts of streets — or think they mean
it not of a country village. In the ruins of Pal-
myra I could gird myself up to solitude, or muse
to the snorings of the Seven Sleepers, but to have
a little teasing image of a town about one, coun-
try folks that do not look like country folks,

197

shops two yards square, half a dozen apples and
two penn'orth of overlook'd gingerbread for the
lofty fruiterers of Oxford Street — and, for the
immortal book and print stalls, a circulating
library that stands still, where the shew-picture
is a last year's valentine, and whither the fame
of the last ten Scotch novels has not yet travell'd
(marry, they just begin to be conscious of the
Redgauntlet), to have a new plaster' d flat church,
and to be wishing that it was but a cathedral.
The very blackguards here are degenerate. The
topping gentry, stock-brokers. The passengers
too many to ensure your quiet, or let you go
about whistling, or gaping — too few to be the
fine indifferent pageants of Fleet Street.

Confining, room-keeping thickest winter is
yet more bearable here than the gaudy months.
Among one's books at one's fire by candle one
is soothed into an oblivion that one is not in the
country, but with the light the green fields re-
turn, till I gaze, and in a calenture can plunge
myself into Saint Giles's. O let no native Lon-
doner imagine that health, and rest, and inno-
cent occupation, interchange of converse sweet,
and recreative study, can make the country any-
thing better than altogether odious and detest-
able. A garden was the primitive prison till man
with Promethean felicity and boldness luckily
sinn'd himself out of it. Thence follow'd Baby-
lon, Nineveh, Venice, London, haberdashers,
goldsmiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, epigrams,

198

puns — these all came in on the town part, and
the thither side of innocence. Man found out
inventions.

From my den I return you condolence for
your decaying sight, not for anything there is to
see in the country, but for the miss of the pleas-
ure of reading a London newspaper. The poets
are as well to listen to, anything high may, nay
must, be read out — you read it to yourself with
an imaginary auditor — but the light paragraphs
must be glid over by the proper eye, mouthing
mumbles their gossamery substance. 'T is these
trifles I should mourn in fading sight. A news-
paper is the single gleam of comfort I receive
here, it comes from rich Cathay with tidings of
mankind. Yet I could not attend to it read out
by the most beloved voice. But your eyes do
not get worse, I gather. O for the collyrium of
Tobias inclosed in a whiting's liver to send you
with no apocryphal good wishes ! The last long
time I heard from you, you had knock'd your
head against something. Do not do so. For
your head (I do not flatter) is not a nob, or the
top of a brass nail, or the end of a ninepin —
unless a Vulcanian hammer could fairly batter
a Recluse out of it, then would I bid the smirch' d
god knock and knock lustily, the two-handed
skinker.

What a nice long letter Dorothy has written !
Mary must squeeze out a line propria manu, but
indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly nervous

199

to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will
please you all to hear that, tho' I fret like a lion
in a net, her present health and spirits are better
than they have been for some time past : she is
absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell
her, since we have adopted this boarding plan.
Our providers are an honest pair, dame Westwood
and her husband — he, when the light of pro-
sperity shined on them, a moderately thriving
haberdasher within Bow Bells, retired since with
something under a competence, writes himself
parcel gentleman, hath borne parish offices, sings
fine old sea songs at threescore and ten, sighs
only now and then when he thinks that he has
a son on his hands about fifteen, whom he finds
a difficulty in getting out into the world, and
then checks a sigh with muttering, as I once
heard him prettily, not meaning to be heard, " I
have married my daughter, however," — takes
the weather as it comes, outsides it to town in
severest season, and o' winter nights tells old
stories not tending to literature, how comfort-
able to author-rid folks ! and has one anecdote,
upon which and about forty pounds a year he
seems to have retired in green old age. It was
how he was a rider in his youth, travelling for
shops, and once (not to baulk his employer's
bargain) on a sweltering day in August, rode
foaming into Dunstable upon a mad horse to the
dismay and expostulary wonderment of inn-
keepers, ostlers, &c, who declared they would

200

not have bestrid the beast to win the Darby.
Understand the creature gall'd to death and de-
speration by gadflies, cormorants winged, worse
than beset Inachus' daughter. This he tells, this
he brindles and burnishes on a' winter's eves;
'tis his star of set glory, his rejuvenescence to
descant upon. Far from me be it {dii avertani}
to look a gift story in the mouth, or cruelly to
surmise (as those who doubt the plunge of Cur-
tius) that the inseparate conjuncture of man and
beast, the centaur-phenomenon that stagger'd
all Dunstable, might have been the effect of un-
romantic necessity, that the horse-part carried
the reasoning, willy-nilly, that needs must when
such a devil drove, that certain spiral configura-
tions in the frame of Thomas Westwood un-
friendly to alighting, made the alliance more
forcible than voluntary. Let him enjoy his fame
for me, nor let me hint a whisper that shall dis-
mount Bellerophon. Put case he was an invol-
untary martyr, yet if in the fiery conflict he
buckled the soul of a constant haberdasher to
him, and adopted his flames, let accident and
he share the glory ! You would all like Thomas
Westwood.

How weak is painting to describe a man !
201

Say that he stands four feet and a nail high by
his own yard measure, which like the sceptre of
Agamemnon shall never sprout again, still you
have no adequate idea, nor when I tell you that
his dear hump, which I have favour' d in the pic-
ture, seems to me of the buffalo — indicative and
repository of mild qualities, a budget of kind-
nesses, still you have not the man. Knew you old
Norris of the Temple, sixty years ours and our
father's friend ; he was not more natural to us
than this old W., the acquaintance of scarce more
weeks. Under his roof now ought I to take my
rest, but that back-looking ambition tells me I
mightyet be a Londoner. Well, if we ever do move,
we have encumbrances the less to impede us : all
our furniture has faded under the auctioneer's
hammer, going for nothing like the tarnish'd
frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a spoon
or two left to bless us. Clothed we came into
Enfield, and naked we must go out of it. I would
live in London shirtless, bookless. Henry Crabb
is at Rome, advices to that effect have reach'd
Bury. But by solemn legacy he bequeath'd at
parting (whether he should live or die) a turkey
of Suffolk to be sent every succeeding Xmas to
us and divers other friends. What a genuine old
bachelor's action ! I fear he will find the air of
Italy too classic. His station is in the Hartz for-
est, his soul is be-Goetbed. Miss Kelly we never
see ; Talfourd not this half-year ; the latter flour-
ishes, but the exact number of his children, God

202

forgive me, I have utterly forgotten, we single
people are often out in our count there. Shall
I say two ? One darling I know they have lost
within a twelvemonth, but scarce known to me
by sight, and that was a second child lost. We
see scarce anybody. We have just now Emma
with us for her holydays : you remember her play-
ing at brag with Mr. Quillinan at poor Monk-
house's ! She is grown an agreeable young wo-
man ; she sees what I write, so you may understand
me with limitations. She was our inmate for a
twelvemonth, grew natural to us, and then they
told us it was best for her to go out as a govern-
ess, and so she went out, and we were only two
of us, and our pleasant house-mate is changed
to an occasional visitor. If they want my sister to
go out (as they call it) there will be only one
of us. Heaven keep us all from this acceding to
unity !

Can I cram loves enough to you all in this lit-
tle O ? Excuse particularizing. C. L.

II. — MARY LAMB TO MISS WORDSWORTH

My dear Miss Wordsworth, — Charles has left
me space to fill up with my own poor scribble,
which I must do as well as I can, being quite
out of practice ; and after he has been reading
his queer letter out to us I can hardly put down
in a plain style all I had to tell you ; how pleas-
ant your handwriting was to me. He has lumped

203

you all together in one rude remembrance at the
end ; but I beg to send my love individually and
by name to Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, to Miss
Hutchinson, whom we often talk of, and think
of as being with you always, to the dutiful good
daughter and patient amanuensis Dora, and even
to Johanna, whom we have not seen, if she will
accept it. Charles has told you of my long ill-
ness and our present settlement, which I assure
you is very quiet and comfortable to me, and to
him too, if he would own it.

I am very sorry we shall not see John, but I
never go to town, nor my brother but at his
quarterly visits at the India House; and when
he does, he finds it melancholy, so many of our
old friends being dead or dispersed, and the very
streets, he says, altering every day.

Many thanks for your letter and the nice news
in it, which I should have replied to more at
large than I see he has done. I am sure it de-
served it. He has not said a word about your
intentions for Rome, which I sincerely wish you
health one day to accomplish. In that case we
may meet by the way. We are so glad to hear
dear little William is doing well. If you knew
how happy your letters made us you would write
I know more frequently. Pray think of this.
How chearfully should we pay the postage every
week. Your affectionate,

Mary Lamb

204

DCXXI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

February 21, 1 8 30.

Dear M., — I came to town last week, but
could not stretch so far as you. A letter has just
come from Mrs. Williams to say that Emma is
so poorly that she must have long holydays here.
It has agitated us so much, and we shall expect
her so hourly, that you shall excuse me to
Wordsworth for not coming up ; we are both
nervous and poorly. Your punctual newspapers
are our bit of comfort. Adieu, till better times.

C. Lamb

Ryle comes on Sunday week. Can you come
with him? See him.

DCXXII.— TO BERNARD BARTON

February 25, 1830.

Dear B. B., — To reply to you by return of
post, I must gobble up my dinner, and dispatch
this in propria persona to the office, to be in in
time. So take it from me hastily, that you are
perfectly welcome to furnish A. C. with the scrap,
which I had almost forgotten writing. The more
my character comes to be known, the less my
veracity will come to be suspected. Time every
day clears up some suspected narrative of Herodo-
tus, Bruce, and others of us great travellers.
Why, that Joseph Paice was as real a person as

201;

Joseph Hume, and a great deal pleasanter. A
careful observer of life, Bernard, has no need to
invent. Nature romances it for him. Dinner
plates rattle, and I positively shall incur indiges-
tion by carrying it half concocted to the Post
House. Let me congratulate you on the spring
coming in, and do you in return condole with
me for the winter going out. When the old one
goes, seldom comes a better. I dread the pro-
spect of summer, with his all day long days. No
need of his assistance to make country places
dull. With fire and candle-light, I can dream
myself in Holborn. With lightsome skies shin-
ing in to bedtime, I cannot. This Meseck, and
these tents of Kedar — I would dwell in the skirts
of Jericho rather, and think every blast of the
coming-in mail a ram's horn. Give me old Lon-
don at fire and plague times, rather than these
tepid gales, healthy country air, and purposeless
exercise. Leg of mutton absolutely on the table.
Take our hasty loves and short farewell.

C. L.

DCXXIII. — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

February 26, 1830.

Dear Madam, — May God bless you for your
attention to our poor Emma ! I am so shaken
with your sad news I can scarce write. She is
too ill to be removed at present ; but we can only
say that if she is spared, when that can be prac-

206

ticable, we have always a home for her. Speak
to her of it, when she is capable of understanding,
and let me conjure you to let us know, from day
to day, the state she is in. But one line is all we
crave. Nothing we can do for her, that shall not
be done. We shall be in the terriblest suspense.
We had no notion she was going to be ill. A line
from anybody in your house will much oblige us.
I feel for the situation this trouble places you in.
Can I go to her aunt, or do anything ? I do
not know what to offer. We are in great distress.
Pray relieve us, if you can, by somehow letting
us know. I will fetch her here, or anything.
Your kindness can never be forgot. Pray excuse
my abruptness. I hardly know what I write.
And take our warmest thanks. Hoping to hear
something, I remain, dear Madam,

Yours most faithfully, C. Lamb

Our grateful respects to Mr. Williams.

DCXXIV. — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

March i, 1830.

Dear Madam, — We cannot thank you enough.
Your two words " much better " were so consid-
erate and good. The good news affected my sister
to an agony of tears ; but they have relieved us
from such a weight. We were ready to expect the
worst, and were hardly able to bear the good
hearing. You speak so kindly of her, too, and

207

think she may be able to resume her duties. We
were prepared, as far as our humble means would
have enabled us, to have taken her from all duties.
But far better for the dear girl it is that she should
have a prospect of being useful.

I am sure you will pardon my writing again ;
for my heart is so full that it was impossible to
refrain. Many thanks for your offer to write
again, should any change take place. I dare not
yet be quite out of fear, the alteration has been
so sudden. But I will hope you will have a respite
from the trouble of writing again. I know no
expression to convey a sense of your kindness.
We were in such a state expecting the post. I
had almost resolved to come as near you as Bury;
but my sister's health does not permit my absence
on melancholy occasions. But O, how happy will
she be to part with me, when I shall hear the
agreeable news that I may come and fetch her.
She shall be as quiet as possible. No restorative
means shall be wanting to restore her back to
you well and comfortable.

She will make up for this sad interruption of
her young friend's studies. I am sure she will —
she must — after you have spared her for a little
time. Change of scene may do very much for
her. I think this last proof of your kindness to
her in her desolate state can hardly make her love
and respect you more than she has ever done. O,
how glad shall we be to return her fit for her
occupation.

208

Madam, I trouble you with my nonsense ; but
you would forgive me, if you knew how light-
hearted you have made two poor souls at Enfield,
that were gasping for news of their poor friend.
I will pray for you and Mr. Williams. Give our
very best respects to him, and accept our thanks.
We are happier than we hardly know how to
bear. God bless you ! My very kindest congratu-
lations to Miss Humphreys.

Believe me, dear madam, your ever obliged
servant, C. Lamb

DCXXV. — TO SARAH HAZLITT

March 4, 1830.

Dear Sarah, — I was meditating to come and
see you, but I am unable for the walk. We are
both very unwell, and under affliction for poor
Emma, who has had a very dangerous brain fever,
and is lying very ill at Bury, from whence I ex-
pect a summons to fetch her. We are very sorry
for your confinement. Any books I have are at
your service. I am almost, I may say quite, sure
that letters to India pay no postage, and may go
by the regular Post Office, now in St. Martin's
le Grand. I think any receiving house would
take them.

I wish I could confirm your hopes about Dick
Norris. But it is quite a dream. Some old Bencher
of his surname is made Treasurer for the year, I
suppose, which is an annual office. Norris was

209

sub-treasurer, — quite a different thing. They
were pretty well in the summer, since when we
have heard nothing of them. Mrs. Reynolds is
better than she has been for years ; she is with a
disagreeable woman that she has taken a mighty
fancy to out of spite to a rival woman she used to
live and quarrel with ; she grows quite fat, they
tell me, and may live as long as I do, to be a tor-
menting rent-charge to my diminish'd income.
We go on pretty comfortably in our new plan.
I will come and have a talk with you when poor
Emma's affair is settled, and will bring books.
At present I am weak, and could hardly bring
my legs home yesterday after a much shorter
stroll than to Northaw. Mary has got her bon-
net on for a short expedition. May you get better,
as the spring comes on. She sends her best love
with mine. C. L.

DCXXVL — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

March 5, 1830.

Dear Madam, — I feel greatly obliged by your
letter of Tuesday, and should not have troubled
you again so soon, but that you express a wish
to hear that our anxiety was relieved by the as-
surances in it. You have indeed given us much
comfort respecting our young friend, but con-
siderable uneasiness respecting your own health
and spirits, which must have suffered under such
attention. Pray believe me that we shall wait in

210

quiet hope for the time when I shall receive the
welcome summons to come and relieve you from
a charge, which you have executed with such
tenderness. We desire nothing so much as to
exchange it with you. Nothing shall be want-
ing on my part to remove her with the best
judgment I can, without (I hope) any necessity
for depriving you of the services of your valuable
housekeeper. Until the day comes, we entreat
that you will spare yourself the trouble of writ-
ing, which we should be ashamed to impose
upon you in your present weak state. Not hear-
ing from you, we shall be satisfied in believing
that there has been no relapse. Therefore we
beg that you will not add to your troubles by
unnecessary, though most kind, correspondence.

Till I have the pleasure of thanking you
personally, I beg you to accept these written
acknowledgments of all your kindness. With
respects to Mr. Williams and sincere prayers for
both your healths, I remain,

Your ever obliged servant, C. Lamb

My sister joins me in respects and thanks.

DCXXVII.— TO JAMES GILLMAN

March 8, 1830.

My dear G., — Your friend Battin (for I knew
him immediately by the smooth satinity of his
style) must excuse me for advocating the cause

211

of his friends in Spitalfields. The fact is, I am
retained by the Norwich people, and have already
appeared in their paper under the signatures of
"Lucius Sergius," "Bluff," "Broad-Cloth,"
" No-Trade-to-the-Woollen-Trade," " Anti-
plush," &c, in defence of druggets and long
camblets. And without this pre-engagement, I
feel I should naturally have chosen a side oppo-
site to , for in the silken seemingness of his

nature there is that which offends me. My flesh
tingles at such caterpillars. He shall not crawl
me over. Let him and his workmen sing the
old burthen, —

Heigh ho, ye weavers !

for any aid I shall offer them in this emergency.
I was over Saint Luke's the other day with my
friend Tuthill, and mightily pleased with one of
his contrivances for the comfort and amelior-
ation of the students. They have double cells,
in which a pair may lie feet to feet horizontally,
and chat the time away as rationally as they can.
It must certainly be more sociable for them these
warm raving nights. The right-hand truckle in
one of these friendly recesses, at present vacant,
was preparing, I understood, for Mr. Irving.
Poor fellow ! it is time he removed from Pen-
tonville. I followed him as far as to Highbury
the other day, with a mob at his heels, calling
out upon Ermigiddon, who I suppose is some
Scotch moderator. He squinted out his favourite

212

eye last Friday, in the fury of possession, upon a
poor woman's shoulders that was crying matches,
and has not missed it. The companion truck, as
far as I could measure it with my eye, would
conveniently fit a person about the length of
Coleridge, allowing for a reasonable drawing
up of the feet, not at all painful. Does he talk
of moving this quarter ? You and I have too
much sense to trouble ourselves with revelations ;
marry, to the same in Greek you may have some-
thing professionally to say.

Tell C. that he was to come and see us some
fine day. Let it be before he moves, for in his
new quarters he will necessarily be confined in
his conversation to his brother prophet. Con-
ceive the two Rabbis foot to foot, for there are
no Gamaliels there to affect a humbler posture !
All are masters in that Patmos, where the law
is perfect equality — Latmos, I should rather say,
for they will be Luna's twin darlings ; her affec-
tion will be ever at the full. Well ; keep your
brains moist with gooseberry this mad March,
for the devil of exposition seeketh dry places.

C. L.

NOTE

[" He squinted out * * * ." Irving had sight only in one
eye, an obliquity caused, it is suggested, by lying when a baby
in a wooden cradle, the sides of which prevented the other
from gathering light.

" To the same in Greek." An atrocious pun, which I leave
to the reader to discover. Gillman was a doctor. — E. V.
Lucas.]

213

DCXXV1IL— TO WILLIAM AYRTON

March 14, 1830.

My dear Ayrton, — Your letter, which was
only not so pleasant as your appearance would
have been, has revived some old images ; Phillips
(not the colonel), with his few hairs bristling up
at the charge of a revoke, which he declares im-
possible ; the old captain's significant nod over
the right shoulder (was it not ?) ; Mrs. Burney's
determined questioning of the score, after the
game was absolutely gone to the devil, the plain
but hospitable cold boiled-beef suppers at side-
board ; all which fancies, redolent of middle age
and strengthful spirits, come across us ever and
anon in this vale of deliberate senectitude,ycleped
Enfield.

You imagine a deep gulf between you and us ;
and there is a pitiable hiatus in kind between St.
James's Park and this extremity of Middlesex.
But the mere distance in turnpike roads is a trifle.
The roof of a coach swings you down in an hour
or two. We have a sure hot joint on a Sunday,
and when had we better ? I suppose you know
that ill health has obliged us to give up house-
keeping ; but we have an asylum at the very next
door — only twenty-four inches further from
town, which is not material in a country expe-
dition — where a table d'hote is kept for us, with-
out trouble on our parts, and we adjourn after
dinner, when one of the old world (old friends)

214

drops casually down among us. Come and find
us out, and seal our judicious change with your
approbation, whenever the whim bites, or the sun
prompts. No need of announcement, for we are
sure to be at home.

I keep putting off the subject of my answer.
In truth I am not in spirits at present to see Mr.
Murray on such a business ; but pray offer him my
acknowledgments and an assurance that I should
like at least one of his propositions, as I have
so much additional matter for the Specimens,
as might make two volumes in all, or one (new
edition) omitting such better known authors as
Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson, &c.

But we are both in trouble at present. A very
dear young friend of ours, who passed her Christ-
mas holidays here, has been taken dangerously ill
with a fever, from which she is very precariously
recovering, and I expect a summons to fetch her
when she is well enough to bear the journey
from Bury. It is Emma Isola, with whom we
got acquainted at our first visit to your sister
at Cambridge, and she has been an occasional
inmate with us — and of late years much more
frequently — ever since. While she is in this
danger, and till she is out of it, and here in a
probable way to recovery, I feel that I have no
spirits for an engagement of any kind. It has
been a terrible shock to us ; therefore I beg
that you will make my handsomest excuses to
Mr. Murray.

215

Our very kindest loves to Mrs. A. and the
younger A.'s.

Your unforgotten, C. Lamb

DCXXIX. — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

March 22, 1830.

Dear Madam, — Once more I have to return
you thanks for a very kind letter. It has glad-
dened us very much to hear that we may have
hope to see our young friend so soon, and through
your kind nursing so well recovered. I sincerely
hope that your own health and spirits will not
have been shaken : you have had a sore trial
indeed, and greatly do we feel indebted to you
for all which you have undergone. If I hear
nothing from you in the meantime, I shall
secure myself a place in the Cornwallis Coach for
Monday. It will not be at all necessary that
I shall be met at Bury, as I can well find my
way to the rectory, and I beg that you will not
inconvenience yourselves by such attention. Ac-
cordingly as I find Miss Isola able to bear the
journey, I intend to take the care of her by
the same stage or by chaises perhaps, dividing the
journey ; but exactly as you shall judge fit.

It is our misfortune that long journeys do not
agree with my sister, who would else have taken
this care upon herself, perhaps more properly.
It is quite out of the question to rob you of the
service of any of your domestics. I cannot think

216

of it. But if in your opinion a female attendant
would be requisite on the journey, or if you or
Mr. Williams would feel more comfortable by her
being in the charge of two, I will most gladly
engage one of her nurses or any young person
near you that you can recommend ; for my ob-
ject is to remove her in the way that shall be
most satisfactory to yourselves.

On the subject of the young people that you
are interesting yourselves about, I will have the
pleasure to talk with you when I shall see you.
I live almost out of the world and out of the
sphere of being useful ; but no pains of mine
shall be spared, if but a prospect opens of doing
a service. Could I do all I could wish, and I in-
deed have grown helpless to myself and others,
it would not satisfy the arrears of obligation
I owe to Mr. Williams and yourself for all your
kindness.

I beg you will turn in your mind and consider
in what most comfortable way Miss Isola can
leave your house, and I will implicitly follow
your suggestions. What you have done for her
can never be effaced from our memories, and
I would have you part with her in the way that
would best satisfy yourselves.

I am afraid of impertinently extending my
letter, else I feel I have not half said what I
would say. So, dear madam, till I have the
pleasure of seeing you both, of whose kindness
I have heard so much before, I respectfully take

217

my leave with our kindest love to your poor pa-
tient and most sincere regards for the health and
happiness of Mr. Williams and yourself. May
God bless you. Ch. Lamb

DCXXX. — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

April 2, 1830.

Dear Madam, — I have great pleasure in let-
ting you know that Miss Isola has suffered very
little from fatigue on her long journey. I am
ashamed to say that I came home rather the
more tired of the two. But I am a very unprac-
tised traveller. She has had two tolerable nights'
sleeps since, and is decidedly not worse than when
we left you. I remembered the magnesia accord-
ing to your directions, and promise that she shall
be kept very quiet, never forgetting that she is
still an invalid.

We found my sister very well in health, only
a little impatient to see her; and, after a few
hysterical tears for gladness, all was comfortable
again. We arrived here from Epping between
five and six. The incidents of our journey were
trifling, but you bade me tell them. We had
then in the coach a rather talkative gentleman,
but very civil, all the way, and took up a servant
maid at Stamford, going to a sick mistress. To
the latter, a participation in the hospitalities of
your nice rusks and sandwiches proved agree-
able, as it did to my companion, who took merely

218

a sip of the weakest wine and water with them.
The former engaged me in a discourse for full
twenty miles on the probable advantages of steam
carriages, which being merely problematical, I
bore my part in with some credit, in spite of
my totally un-engineer-like faculties. But when
somewhere about Stanstead he put an unfortun-
ate question to me as to the "probability of its
turning out a good turnip season ; " and when I,
who am still less of an agriculturist than a steam-
philosopher, not knowing a turnip from a potato
ground, innocently made answer that I believed
it depended very much upon boiled legs of mut-
ton, my unlucky reply set Miss Isola a-laughing
to a degree that disturbed her tranquillity for the
only moment in our journey. I am afraid my
credit sank very low with my other fellow-trav-
eller, who had thought he had met with a well-
informed passenger, which is an accident so desir-
able in a stage-coach. We were rather less com-
municative, but still friendly, the rest of the way.
How I employed myself between Epping and
Enfield the poor verses * in the front of my paper

1 L east Daughter, but not least beloved, of Grace !

0 frown not on a stranger, who from place

U nknown and distant these few lines hath penn'd.

1 but report what thy Instructress Friend
S o oft hath told us of thy gentle heart.
A pupil most affectionate thou art,

C areful to learn what elder years impart.
L ouisa — Clare — by which name shall I call thee ?
A prettier pair of names sure ne' er was found,
R esembling thy own sweetness in sweet sound.
E ver calm peace and innocence befal thee !

219

may inform you, which you may please to christen
an acrostic in a Cross Road, and which I wish
were worthier of the lady they refer to. But
I trust you will plead my pardon to her on a sub-
ject so delicate as a lady's good name. Your
candour must acknowledge that they are written
strait.

And now dear Madam, I have left myself
hardly space to express my sense of the friendly
reception I found at Fornham. Mr. Williams
will tell you that we had the pleasure of a slight
meeting with him on the road, where I could
almost have told him, but that it seemed ungra-
cious, that such had been your hospitality that
I scarcely missed the good master of the family
at Fornham, though heartily I should have re-
joiced to have made a little longer acquaintance
with him. I will say nothing of our deeper
obligations to both of you, because I think we
agreed at Fornham, that gratitude may be over-
exacted on the part of the obliging, and over-
expressed on the part of the obliged, person.
My sister and Miss Isola join in respects to Mr.
Williams and yourself, and I beg to be remem-
bered kindly to the Miss Hammonds and the
two gentlemen whom I had the good fortune to
meet at your house. I have not forgotten the
election in which you are interesting yourself,
and the little that I can I will do immediately.
Miss Isola will have the pleasure of writing to
you next week, and we shall hope, at your leisure,

220

to hear of your own health, &c. I am, dear
Madam, with great respect, your obliged,

Charles Lamb

[ Added in Miss Isolds handi\ I must just add
a line to beg you will let us hear from you, my
dear Mrs. Williams. I have just received the
forwarded letter. Fornham we have talked about
constantly, and I felt quite strange at this home
the first day. I will attend to all you said, my
dear Madam.

DCXXXL — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

April 9, 1830.

Dear Madam, — I do assure you that your
verses gratified me very much, and my sister is
quite proud of them. For the first time in my
life I congratulated myself upon the shortness
and meanness of my name. Had it been Schwartz-
enberg or Esterhazy, it would have put you to
some puzzle. I am afraid I shall sicken you
of acrostics ; but this last was written to order.1

1 G o little Poem, and present
R espectful terms of compliment ;
A gentle lady bids thee speak !
C ourteous is she, tho' thou be weak —
E voke from Heaven as thick as manna

J oy after joy on Grace Joanna:
O n Fornham' s Glebe and Pasture land
A blessing pray. Long, long may stand,
N ot touched by Time, the Rectory blithe;
N o grudging churl dispute his Tithe;
A t Easter be the offerings due

*22I

I beg you to have inserted in your county paper
something like this advertisement : " To the
nobility, gentry, and others, about Bury : — C.
Lamb respectfully informs his friends and the
public in general, that he is leaving off business
in the acrostic line, as he is going into an en-
tirely new line. Rebuses and charades done as
usual, and upon the old terms. Also, epitaphs
to suit the memory of any person deceased."
I thought I had adroitly escaped the rather un-
pliable name of "Williams," curtailing your
poor daughters to their proper surnames ; but it
seems you would not let me off so easily. If these
trifles amuse you, I am paid. Tho' really 'tis
an operation too much like — "A, apple-pye;
B, bit it." To make amends, I request leave
to lend you the Excursion, and to recommend,
in particular, the Churchyard Stories, in the sev-
enth book, I think. They will strengthen the
tone of your mind after its weak diet on acros-
tics.

Miss Isola is writing, and will tell you that
we are going on very comfortably. Her sister
is just come. She blames my last verses, as being
more written on Mr. Williams than on yourself;

W ith cheerful spirit paid ; each pew

I n decent order filled 5 no noise

L oud intervene to drown the voice,

L earning, or wisdom of the Teacher ;

I mpressive be the Sacred Preacher,
A nd strict his notes on holy page ;
M ay young and old from age to age

S alute, and still point out, "The good man's Parsonage!"

222

but how should I have parted whom a superior
Power has brought together? I beg you will
jointly accept of our best respects, and pardon
your obsequious if not troublesome correspond-
ent, C. L.

P. S. I am the worst folder-up of a letter in
the world, except certain Hottentots, in the
land of Caffre, who never fold up their letters
at all, writing very badly upon skins, &c.

DCXXXII. — TO JAMES GILLMAN

Early spring, 1830.

Dear Gillman, — Pray do you, or S. T. C,
immediately write to say you have received back
the golden works of the dear, fine, silly old
angel, which I part from, bleeding, and to say
how the winter has used you all.

It is our intention soon, weather permitting,
to come over for a day at Highgate; for beds
we will trust to the Gate-House, should you be
full: tell me if we may come casually, for in
this change of climate there is no naming a day
for walking. With best loves to Mrs. Gillman,
&c.

Yours, mopish, but in health,

C. Lamb

I shall be uneasy till I hear of Fuller's safe
arrival.

223

DCXXXIII. — TO JAMES VALE ASBURY

April, 1830.

Dear Sir, — Some draughts and boluses have
been brought here, which we conjecture were
meant for the young lady whom you saw this
morning, though they are labelled for

Miss I so la Lamb.

No such person is known on the Chase Side, and
she is fearful of taking medicines which may
have been made up for another patient. She begs
me to say that she was born an Isola and chris-
tened Emma. Moreover, that she is Italian by
birth, and that her ancestors were from Isola
Bella (Fair Island) in the kingdom of Naples.
She has never changed her name, and rather
mournfully adds that she has no prospect at pre-
sent of doing so. She is literally /. Sola, or single,
at present. Therefore she begs that the obnox-
ious monosyllable may be omitted on future
phials — an innocent syllable enough, you'll
say, but she has no claim to it. It is the bitterest
pill of the seven you have sent her. When a
lady loses her good name, what is to become of
her ? Well she must swallow it as well as she
can, but begs the dose may not be repeated.
Yours faithfully,

Charles Lamb (not Isola)

224

DCXXXIV.— TO JAMES VALE ASBURY

[Undated.]

Dear Sir, — It is an observation of a wise man
that " moderation is best in all things." I can-
not agree with him "in liquor." There is a
smoothness and oiliness in wine that makes it go
down by a natural channel, which I am positive
was made for that descending. Else, why does
not wine choke us ? could Nature have made
that sloping lane, not to facilitate the down-
going ? She does nothing in vain. You know
that better than I. You know how often she
has helped you at a dead lift, and how much
better entitled she is to a fee than yourself
sometimes, when you carry off the credit. Still
there is something due to manners and customs,
and I should apologise to you and Mrs. Asbury
for being absolutely carried home upon a man's
shoulders thro' Silver Street, up Parson's Lane,
by the Chapels (which might have taught me
better), and then to be deposited like a dead log
at Gaffer Westwood's, who it seems does not
" insure " against intoxication. Not that the
mode of conveyance is objectionable. On the
contrary, it is more easy than a one-horse chaise.
Ariel in the Tempest says, —

On a bat's back do I fly, after sunset merrily.

Now I take it that Ariel must sometimes have
stayed out late of nights. Indeed, he pretends

225

that " where the bee sucks, there sucks he," as
much as to say that his suction is as innocent as
that little innocent (but damnably stinging when
he is provok'd) winged creature. But I take it
that Ariel was fond of metheglin, of which the
bees are notorious brewers.

But then you will say : What a shocking
sight to see a middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half
riding upon a gentleman's back up Parson's Lane
at midnight. Exactly the time for that sort of
conveyance, when nobody can see him, nobody
but heaven and his own conscience ; now heaven
makes fools, and don't expect much from her
own creation ; and as for conscience, she and I
have long since come to a compromise. I have
given up false modesty, and she allows me to
abate a little of the true. I like to be liked, but
I don't care about being respected. I don't re-
spect myself. But, as I was saying, I thought he
would have let me down just as we got to Lieu-
tenant Barker's coal-shed (or emporium), but by
a cunning jerk I eased myself, and righted my
posture. I protest, I thought myself in a palan-
quin, and never felt myself so grandly carried.
It was a slave under me. There was I, all but
my reason. And what is reason? and what is
the loss of it? and how often in a day do we
do without it, just as well ? Reason is only count-
ing, two and two makes four. And if on my
passage home, I thought it made five, what
matter ? Two and two will just make four, as

226

it always did, before I took the finishing glass
that did my business. My sister has begged me
to write an apology to Mrs. A. and you for dis-
gracing your party ; now it does seem to me
that I rather honoured your party, for every one
that was not drunk (and one or two of the ladies,
I am sure, were not) must have been set off greatly
in the contrast to me. I was the scapegoat. The
soberer they seemed. By the way is magnesia
good on these occasions ? iiipol: med : sum: ante
noct : in rub : can :. I am no licentiate, but know
enough of simples to beg you to send me a
draught after this model. But still you will say
(or the men and maids at your house will say)
that it is not a seemly sight for an old gentleman
to go home pick-a-back. Well, may be it is not.
But I never studied grace. I take it to be a mere
superficial accomplishment. I regard more the
internal acquisitions. The great object after sup-
per is to get home, and whether that is obtained
in a horizontal posture or perpendicular (as fool-
ish men and apes affect for dignity) I think is
little to the purpose. The end is always greater
than the means. Here I am, able to compose a
sensible rational apology, and what signifies how
I got here? I have just sense enough to remem-
ber I was very happy last night, and to thank
our kind host and hostess, and that 's sense enough,
I hope. Charles Lamb

N. B. What is good for a desperate head-
227

ache ? Why, patience, and a determination not
to mind being miserable all day long. And that
I have made my mind up to. So, here goes.
It is better than not being alive at all, which
I might have been, had your man toppled me
down at Lieut. Barker's coal-shed. My sister
sends her sober compliments to Mrs. A. She
is not much the worse.

Yours truly, C. Lamb

DCXXXV. — TO MRS. WILLIAMS

April 21, 1830.

Dear Madam, — I have ventured upon some
lines, which combine my old acrostic talent
(which you first found out) with my new pro-
fession of epitaph-monger.1 As you did not

* G race Joanna here doth lie :
R eader, wonder not that I
A nte-date her hour of rest.
C an I thwart her wish exprest,
E v'n unseemly though the laugh

J esting with an Epitaph ?

0 n her bones the turf lie lightly,
A nd her rise again be brightly!

N o dark stain be found upon her —
N o, there will not, on mine honour —
A nswer that at least I can.

Would that I, thrice happy man,

1 n as spotless garb might rise,
Light as she will climb the skies,
L eaving the dull earth behind,

I n a car more swift than wind.
A 11 her errors, all her failings,
(M any they were not) and ailings,
S leep secure from Envy's railings.

228

please to say when you would die, I have left a
blank space for the date. May kind heaven be
a long time in filling it up. At least you cannot
say that these lines are not about you, though
not much to the purpose. We were very sorry
to hear that you have not been very well, and
hope that a little excursion may revive you. Miss
Isola is thankful for her added day ; but I verily
think she longs to see her young friends once
more, and will regret less than ever the end of
her holydays. She cannot be going on more
quietly than she is doing here, and you will per-
ceive amendment.

I hope all her little commissions will all be
brought home to your satisfaction. When she
returns, we purpose seeing her to Epping on her
journey. We have had our proportion of fine
weather and some pleasant walks, and she is
stronger, her appetite good, but less wolfish than
at first, which we hold a good sign. I hope Mr.
Wing will approve of its abatement. She de-
sires her very kindest respects to Mr. Williams
and yourself, and wishes to rejoin you. My
sister and myself join in respect, and pray tell
Mr. Donne, with our compliments, that we
shall be disappointed, if we do not see him.

This letter being very neatly written, I am
very unwilling that Emma should club any of
her disproportionate scrawl to deface it.
Your obliged servant,

C. Lamb
229

DCXXXVI. — TO BASIL MONTAGUE

Dear B. M., — You are a kind soul of your-
self, and need no spurring, but if you can help a
worthy man you will have two worthy men obliged
to you. I am writing from Hone's possible Cof-
fee-House, which must answer, if he can find
means to open it, which unfortunately flag. We
purpose a little subscription, but I know how
tender a subject the pocket is. Your advice may
be important to him.

Yours most truly, C. Lamb

This is a letter of business, so I won't send
unseasonable love to Mrs. Montague and the
both good Proctors.

DCXXXVII. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

May 10, 1830.

Dear Southey, — My friend Hone, whom you
would like for a friend, I found deeply impressed
with your generous notice of him in your beauti-
ful Life of Bunyan, which I am just now full of.
He has written to you for leave to publish a
certain good-natured letter. I write not this to
enforce his request, for we are fully aware that the
refusal of such publication would be quite con-
sistent with all that is good in your character.
Neither he nor I expect it from you, nor exact
it ; but if you would consent to it, you would

230

have me obliged by it, as well as him. He is just
now in a critical situation : kind friends have
opened a coffee-house for him in the city, but
their means have not extended to the purchase
of coffee-pots, credit for reviews, newspapers, and
other paraphernalia. So I am sitting in the skele-
ton of a possible divan. What right I have to
interfere, you best know. Look on me as a dog
who went once temporarily insane, and bit you,
and now begs for a crust. Will you set your wits
to a dog ? Our object is to open a subscription,
which my friends of the Times are most willing
to forward for him, but think that a leave from
you to publish would aid it.

But not an atom of respect or kindness will or
shall it abate in either of us if you decline it.
Have this strongly in your mind.

Those Every-Day and Table Books will be a
treasure a hundred years hence ; but they have
failed to make Hone's fortune.

Here his wife and all his children are about
me, gaping for coffee customers ; but how should
they come in, seeing no pot boiling !

Enough of Hone. I saw Coleridge a day or
two since. He has had some severe attack, not
paralytic ; but, if I had not heard of it, I should
not have found it out. He looks, and especially
speaks, strong. How are all the Wordsworths
and all the Southeys ? whom I am obliged to you
if you have not brought up haters of the name of

C. Lamb
231

P. S. I have gone lately into the acrostic
line. I find genius (such as I had) declines with
me, but I get clever. Do you know anybody
that wants charades, or such things, for al-
bums ? I do 'em at so much a sheet. Perhaps
an epigram (not a very happy-gram) I did for
a school-boy yesterday may amuse. I pray Jove
he may not get a flogging for any false quan-
tity ; but 't is, with one exception, the only
Latin verses I have made for forty years, and I
did it " to order."

SUUM CUIQUE

Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas

Fur, rapiens, spolians, quod mihi, quodque tibi,

Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, meumque, suumque ;
Omne suum est : tandem cuique suum tribuit.

Dat laqueo collum; vestes, vah ! carnifici dat;
Sese Diabolo: sic bene: cuique suum.

I write from Hone's, therefore Mary cannot
send her love to Mrs. Southey, but I do.

Yours ever, C. L.

DCXXXVIII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

May 12, 1830.

Dear M., — I dined with your and my Rogers
at Mr. Cary's yesterday. Cary consulted me on
the proper bookseller to offer a lady's MS. novel
to. I said I would write to you. But I wish you
would call on the translator of Dante at the
British Museum, and talk with him. He is

232

the pleasantest of clergymen. I told him of all
Rogers's handsome behaviour to you, and you
are already no stranger. Go. I made Rogers
laugh about your nightingale sonnet, not having
heard one. 'T is a good sonnet notwithstanding.
You shall have the books shortly. C. L.

DCXXXIX. — TO VINCENT NOVELLO

May 14, 1830.

Dear Novello, — Mary hopes you have not
forgot you are to spend a day with us on Wednes-
day. That it may be a long one, cannot you
secure places now for Mrs. Novello, yourself, and
the Clarkes ? We have just table room for four.
Five make my good landlady fidgetty ; six, to
begin to fret ; seven, to approximate to fever
point. But seriously we shall prefer four to two
or three ; we shall have from half-past ten to
six, when the coach goes off, to scent the coun-
try. And pray write now, to say you do so come,
for dear Mrs. Westwood else will be on the ten-
ters of incertitude. C. Lamb

DCXL. — TO VINCENT NOVELLO

May 20, 1830.

Dear N., — Pray write immediately to say
" The book has come safe." I am anxious, not
so much for the autographs, as for that bit of
the hair-brush. I enclose a cinder, which be-

233

longed to Shield, when he was poor, and lit his
own fires. Any memorial of a great musical
genius, I know, is acceptable ; and Shield has
his merits, though Clementi, in my opinion, is
far above him in the sostenuto. Mr. Westwood
desires his compliments, and begs to present you
with a nail that came out of Jomelli's coffin,
who is buried at Naples.

DCXLI. — TO WILLIAM HONE

May 21, 1830.

Dear Hone, — I thought you would be pleased
to see this letter. Pray if you have time to, call
on Novello, No. 66 Great Queen St. I am anx-
ious to learn whether he received his album
I sent on Friday by our nine o'clock morning
stage. If not, beg him inquire at the Old Bell,
Holborn.

Charles Lamb

Southey will see in the Times all we proposed
omitting is omitted.

DCXLIL — TO WILLIAM HONE

May 21, 1830.

Thanks for the paper. Much better an entire
letter (exceptis excipiendis) than extracts. Put me
down per Moxhay. C. L.

234

DCXLIIL — TO SARAH HAZLITT

May 24, 1830.

Dear Sarah, — I found my way to Northaw
on Thursday and a very good woman behind a
counter, who says also that you are a very good
lady, but that the woman who was with you
was naught. These things may be so or not.
I did not accept her offered glass of wine (home-
made, I take it), but craved a cup of ale, with
which I seasoned a slice of cold Lamb from a
sandwich box, which I ate in her back parlour,
and proceeded for Berkhampstead, &c. ; lost
myself over a heath, and had a day's pleasure.
I wish you could walk as I do, and as you used
to do. I am sorry to find you are so poorly ; and,
now I have found my way, I wish you back at
Goody Tomlinson's. What a pretty village 't is !
I should have come sooner, but was waiting a
summons to Bury. Well, it came, and I found
the good parson's lady (he was from home) ex-
ceedingly hospitable.

Poor Emma, the first moment we were alone,
took me into a corner, and said, "Now, pray,
don't drink ; do check yourself after dinner, for
my sake, and when we get home to Enfield, you
shall drink as much as ever you please, and I
won't say a word about it." How I behaved,
you may guess, when I tell you that Mrs. Wil-
liams and I have written acrostics on each other,
and she hoped that she should have " no reason

235

to regret Miss Isola's recovery, by its depriving
her of our begun correspondence." Emma stayed
a month with us, and has gone back (in toler-
able health) to her long home, for she comes
not again for a twelvemonth.

I amused Mrs. Williams with an occurrence
on our road to Enfield. We travelled with one
of those troublesome fellow-passengers in a stage-
coach, that is called a well-informed man. For
twenty miles we discoursed about the properties
of steam, probabilities of carriages by ditto, till
all my science, and more than all, was exhausted,
and I was thinking of escaping my torment by
getting up on the outside, when, getting into
Bishops Stortford, my gentleman, spying some
farming land, put an unlucky question to me :
" What sort of a crop of turnips I thought we
should have this year?" Emma's eyes turned
to me, to know what in the world I could have
to say; and she burst into a violent fit of laughter,
maugre her pale, serious cheeks, when, with the
greatest gravity, I replied, that " it depended, I
believed, upon boiled legs of mutton." This
clinch'd our conversation ; and my gentleman,
with a face half wise, half in scorn, troubled us
with no more conversation, scientific or philo-
sophical, for the remainder of the journey.

Ayrton was here yesterday, and as learned to
the full as my fellow-traveller. What a pity
that he will spoil a wit and a devilish pleasant
fellow (as he is) by wisdom ! He talk'd on

236

music ; and by having read Hawkins and Burney
recently I was enabled to talk of names, and
show more knowledge than he had suspected I
possessed ; and in the end he begg'd me to shape
my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he
was gone, and sent him.

Martin Burney is as odd as ever. We had a
dispute about the word " heir," which I con-
tended was pronounced like " air;" he said that
might be in common parlance ; or that we might
so use it, speaking of the Heir-at-Law, a comedy;
but that in the law courts it was necessary to
give it a full aspiration, and to say Hayer ; he
thought it might even vitiate a cause, if a counsel
pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he
" would consult Serjeant Wilde ; " who gave it
against him. Sometimes he falleth into the water,
sometimes into the fire. He came down here,
and insisted on reading Virgil's Eneid all through
with me (which he did), because a counsel mutr.
know Latin. Another time he read out all the
Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations
are very emphatic in a Court of Justice. A third
time, he would carve a fowl, which he did very
ill-favouredly, because " we did not know how
indispensable it was for a barrister to do all those
sort of things well. Those little things were of
more consequence than we supposed." So he
goes on, harassing about the way to prosperity,
and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat
a wrong one — harum-scarum. Why does not

237

his guardian angel look to him ? He deserves
one : may be, he has tired him out.

I am tired with this long scrawl, but I thought
in your exile, you might like a letter.

Commend me to all the wonders in Derby-
shire, and tell the devil I humbly kiss — my hand
to him. Yours ever,

C. Lamb

Mary's love ? Yes. Mary Lamb quite well.

DCXLIV.— TO SARAH HAZLITT

June 3, 1830.

Dear Sarah, — I named your thought about
William to his father, who expressed such horror
and aversion to the idea of his singing in public
that I cannot meddle in it directly or indirectly.
Ayrton is a kind fellow, and if you chuse to con-
sult him by letter, or otherwise, he will give you
the best advice, I am sure, very readily. / have
no doubt that M. Burney's objection to interfering
was the same with mine.

With thanks for your pleasant long letter,
which is not that of an invalid, and sympathy
for your sad sufferings, I remain, in haste,

Yours truly

Mary's kindest love.

238

DCXLV. — TO WILLIAM HONE

June 17, 1830.

I hereby impower Matilda Hone to superin-
tend daily the putting into the twopenny post
the Times newspaper of the day before, directed
"Mr. Lamb, Enfield," which shall be held a
full and sufficient direction: the said insertion to
commence on Monday morning next. And I
do engage to pay to William Hone, Coffee and
Hotel Man, the quarterly sum of ^1, to be paid
at the ordinary Quarter days, or thereabout, for
the reversion of the said paper, commencing
with the 24th inst., or Feast of John the Bap-
tist; the intervening days to be held and con-
sidered as nothing. C. Lamb

Vivant Coffee, Coffee-potque !

DCXLVL — TO BERNARD BARTON

June 28, 1830.

Dear B. B., — Could you dream of my pub-
lishing without sending a copy to you? You will
find something new to you in the volume, par-
ticularly the translations. Moxon will send to
you the moment it is out. He is the young poet
of Xmas, whom the author of the Pleasures of
Memory [Rogers] has set up in the bookvending
business with a volunteer'd loan of ^500 — such
munificence is rare to an almost stranger. But

239

Rogers, I am told, has done many good-natured
things of this nature.

I need not say how glad to see A. K. and
Lucy we should have been, — and still shall be,
if it be practicable. Our direction is Mr. West-
wood's, Chase Side, Enfield, but alas ! I know
not theirs. We can give them a bed. Coaches
come daily from the Bell, Holborn.

You will see that I am worn to the poetical
dregs, condescending to acrostics, which are nine
fathom beneath album verses — but they were
written at the request of the lady where our
Emma is, to whom I paid a visit in April to
bring home Emma for a change of air after a
severe illness, in which she had been treated like
a daughter by the good parson and his whole
family. She has since return'd to her occupa-
tion.

I thought on you in Suffolk, but was forty
miles from Woodbridge. I heard of you the
other day from Mr. Pulham of the India House.

Long live King William the Fourth.

S. T. C. says, we have had wicked kings, fool-
ish kings, wise kings, good kings (but few), but
never till now have we had a blackguard king.

Charles Second was profligate, but a gentle-
man.

I have nineteen letters to dispatch this leisure
sabbath for Moxon to send about with copies;
so you will forgive me short measure, — and
believe me, Yours ever, C. L.

240

Pray do let us see your Quakeresses if possible.
DCXLVIL — TO WILLIAM HONE

July i, 1830.

Pray let Matilda keep my newspapers till you
hear from me, as we are meditating a town resi-
dence. C. Lamb

Let her keep them as the apple of her eye.

DCXLVIIL — TO MRS. RICKMAN

1830.

Dear Mrs. Rickman, — I beg your acceptance
of a little volume, which may amuse either of
your young ladies. It pretends to no high flights,
and may lie about with albums, shells, and such
knicknacks. Will you re-give, or lend me, by
the bearer, the one volume of Juvenile Poetry ?
I have tidings of a second at Brighton. If the
two tally, we may some day play a hand at old
whist, who shall have both.

With best regards to you all, yours ever,

C. Lamb

Any little commissions in the book line from
Mr. Rickman, or any of your friends, will be
most punctually attended to by my friend the
publisher.

241

DCXLIX. — TO BERNARD BARTON

[p. m. August 30, 1830.]

Dear B. B., — My address is 34 Southampton
Buildings, Holborn. For God's sake do not let
me be pester' d with Annuals. They are all
rogues who edit them, and something else who
write in them. I am still alone, and very much
out of sorts, and cannot spur up my mind to
writing. The sight of one of those Tear Books
makes me sick. I get nothing by any of 'em,
not even a copy.

Thank you for your warm interest about my
little volume, for the critics on which I care not
the five-hundred-thousandth part of the tythe
of a half-farthing. I am too old a militant for
that. How noble, tho', in R. S. to come for-
ward for an old friend, who had treated him so
unworthily. Moxon has a shop without cus-
tomers, I a book without readers. But what
a clamour against a poor collection of album
verses, as if we had put forth an epic. I cannot
scribble a long letter — I am, when not at foot,
very desolate, and take no interest in anything,
scarce hate anything, but Annuals. I am in an
interregnum of thought and feeling.

What a beautiful autumn morning this is, if it
was but with me as in times past when the candle
of the Lord shined round me.

I cannot even muster enthusiasm to admire the
French heroism.

242

In better times I hope we may some day meet,
and discuss an old poem or two. But if you 'd
have me not sick, no more of Annuals.

C. L. Ex-Elia

Love to Lucy and A. K. always.

DCL. — TO SAMUEL ROGERS

October 5, 1830.

Dear Sir, — I know not what hath bewitch' d
me that I have delayed acknowledging your beau-
tiful present. But I have been very unwell and
nervous of late. The poem was not new to me,
tho' I have renewed acquaintance with it. Its
metre is none of the least of its excellencies. 'T is
so far from the stiffness of blank verse — it gal-
lops like a traveller, as it should do — no crude
Miltonisms in it. Dare I pick out what most
pleases me ? It is the middle paragraph in page
thirty-four. It is most tasty. Though I look on
every impression as a proof of your kindness, I am
jealous of the ornaments, and should have prized
the verses naked on whity-brown paper.

I am, Sir, yours truly, C. Lamb

DCLI. — TO VINCENT NOVELLO

November 8, 1830.

Tears are for lighter griefs. Man weeps the doom
That seals a single victim to the tomb.

243

But when Death riots, when with whelming sway
Destruction sweeps a family away ;
When Infancy and Youth, a huddled mass,
All in an instant to oblivion pass,
And Parents' hopes are crush'd ; what lamentation
Can reach the depth of such a desolation ?
Look upward, Feeble Ones ! look up, and trust
That He, who lays this mortal frame in dust,
Still hath the immortal Spirit in His keeping.
In Jesus' sight they are not dead, but sleeping.

DearN., — Will these lines do? I despair of
better. Poor Mary is in a deplorable state here
at Enfield. Love to all, C. Lamb

NOTE

[The four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg,
of York, had been drowned in the Ouse. A number of poets
were asked for verses, the best to be inscribed on a monument
in York Minster. Those of James Montgomery were chosen.
— E. V. Lucas.]

DCLII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

November 12, 1830.

Dear Moxon, — I have brought my sister to
Enfield, being sure that she had no hope of re-
covery in London. Her state of mind is deplor-
able beyond any example. I almost fear whether
she has strength at her time of life ever to get out
of it. Here she must be nursed, and neither see
nor hear of anything in the world out of her sick
chamber. The mere hearing that Southey had
called at our lodgings totally upset her. Pray see

244

him, or hear of him at Mr. Rickman's, and ex-
cuse my not writing to him. I dare not write or
receive a letter in her presence ; every little task
so agitates her. Westwood will receive any letter
for me, and give it me privately. Pray assure
Southey of my kindliest feelings towards him;
and, if you do not see him, send this to him.

Kindest remembrances to your sister, and be-
lieve me ever yours, C. Lamb

Remember me kindly to the Allsops.

DCLIIL— TO EDWARD MOXON

December, 1830.

Dear M., — Something like this was what I
meant. But on reading it over, I see no great fun
or use in it. It will only stuff up and encroach
upon the sheet you propose. Do as, and what,
you please. Send proof, or not, as you like. If
you send, send me a copy or two of the Album
Verses, and the Juvenile Poetry, if bound.

I am happy to say Mary is mending, but not
enough to give me hopes of being able to leave
her. I sadly regret that I shall possibly not see
Southey or Wordsworth, but I dare not invite
either of them here, for fear of exciting my sis-
ter, whose only chance is quiet. You don't know
in what a sad state we have been.

I think the Devil may come out without pre-
faces, but use your discretion.

245

Make my kindest remembrances to Southey,
with my heart's thanks for his kind intent. I
am a little easier about my will, and as Ryle is
executor, and will do all a friend can do at the
Office, and what little I leave will buy an annu-
ity to piece out tolerably, I am much easier.
Yours ever, C. L.

DCLIV. — TO GEORGE DYER

December 20, 1830.

Dear Dyer, — I would have written before to
thank you for your kind letter, written with your
own hand. It glads us to see your writing. It
will give you pleasure to hear that, after so much
illness, we are in tolerable health and spirits once
more. Miss Isola intended to call upon you after
her night's lodging at Miss Buffam's, but found
she was too late for the stage. If she comes to
town before she goes home, she will not miss
paying her respects to Mrs. Dyer and you, to
whom she desires best love.

Poor Enfield, that has been so peaceable
hitherto, has caught the inflammatory fever ; the
tokens are upon her ! and a great fire was blazing
last night in the barns and haystacks of a farmer,
about half a mile from us. Where will these
things end ? There is no doubt of its being the
work of some ill-disposed rustic ; but how is he
to be discovered ? They go to work in the dark
with strange chemical preparations unknown to

246

our forefathers. There is not even a dark lantern
to have a chance of detecting these Guy Fauxes.
We are past the iron age, and are got into the
fiery age, undream' d of by Ovid. You are lucky
in Clifford's Inn where, I think, you have few
ricks or stacks worth the burning. Pray keep as
little corn by you as you can, for fear of the
worst.

It was never good times in England since the
poor began to speculate upon their condition.
Formerly, they jogged on with as little reflection
as horses : the whistling ploughman went cheek
by jowl with his brother that neighed. Now the
biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather
breeches ; and in the dead of night the half-
illuminated beast steals his magic potion into
a cleft in a barn, and half a country is grinning
with new fires. Farmer Graystock said some-
thing to the touchy rustic that he did not relish,
and he writes his distaste in flames. What a
power to intoxicate his crude brains, just mud-
dlingly awake, to perceive that something is
wrong in the social system ! — what a hellish
faculty above gunpowder !

Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted, we
shall see who can hang or burn fastest. It is not
always revenge that stimulates these kindlings.
There is a love of exerting mischief. Think of
a disrespected clod that was trod into earth, that
was nothing, on a sudden by damned arts refined
into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits

247

of the earth and their growers in a mass of fire !
What a new existence ! — what a temptation
above Lucifer's ! Would clod be anything but
a clod, if he could resist it? Why, here was
a spectacle last night for a whole country ! — a
bonfire visible to London, alarming her guilty
towers, and shaking the Monument with an ague
fit, — all done by a little vial of phosphor in a
clown's fob ! How he must grin, and shake his
empty noddle in clouds, the Vulcanian epicure !
Can we ring the bells backward ? Can we un-
learn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then
burn the world ? There is a march of science ;
but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?
Who shall persuade the boor that phosphor will
not ignite ?

Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns
proportionable, lie smoking ashes and chaff", which
man and beast would sputter out and reject like
those apples of asphaltes and bitumen. The food
for the inhabitants of earth will quickly disap-
pear. Hot rolls may say : " Fuimus panes, fuit
quartern-loaf, et ingens gloria apple-pasty-
orum." That the good old munching system
may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary
George, is the devout prayer of thine, to the last
crust, Ch. Lamb

note

[Incendiarism, the result of agricultural distress and in
opposition to the competition of the new machinery, was rife
in the country at this time.]

248

DCLV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Christmas, 1830.

Dear M., — A thousand thanks for your punc-
tualities. What a cheap book is the last Hogarth
you sent me ! I am pleased now that Hunt did-
dled me out of the old one. Speaking of this,
only think of the new farmer with his thirty
acres. There is a portion of land in Lambeth
parish called Knaves Acre. I wonder he over-
look'd it. Don't show this to the firm of Dilk &
Co. I next want one copy of Leicester School,
and wish you to pay Leishman, Taylor, 2 Bland-
ford Place, Pall Mall, opposite the British Insti-
tution, ^6.10. for coat, waistcoat, &c. And I
vehemently thirst for the 4th No. of Nichols's
Hogarth, to bind 'em up (the two books) as
Hogarth, and Supplement. But as you know the
price, don't stay for its appearance ; but come as
soon as ever you can with your bill of all de-
mands in full, and, as I have none but £$ notes,
bring with you sufficient change.

Weather is beautiful. I grieve sadly for Miss
Wordsworth. We are all well again. Emma is
with us, and we all shall be glad of a sight of
you. Come on Sunday, if you can ; better, if you
come before. Perhaps Rogers would smile at
this. A pert half chemist half apothecary, in our
town, who smatters of literature and is immeas-
urable unletter'd, said to me, "Pray, Sir, may
not Hood (he of the acres) be reckon'd the

249

prince of wits in the present day?" to which I
assenting, he adds, " I had always thought that
Rogers had been reckon'd the prince of wits, but
I suppose that now Mr. Hood has the better title
to that appellation." To which I replied that
Mr. R. had wit with much better qualities, but
did not aspire to the principality. He had taken
all the puns manufactured in "John Bull for our
friend, in sad and stupid earnest. One more
album verses, please. Adieu. C. L.

DCLVI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

February 3, 1831.

Dear Moxon, — The snows are ancle-deep
slush and mire, that 't is hard to get to the post-
office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'T is a
slough of despair, or I should sooner have thank'd
you for your offer of the Life, which we shall
very much like to have, and will return duly.
I do not know when I shall be in town, but in
a week or two at farthest, when I will come as
far as you if I can. We are moped to death with
confinement within doors. I send you a curi-
osity of G. Dyer's tender conscience. Between
thirty and forty years since, G. published the
Poet's Fate, in which were two very harmless
lines about Mr. Rogers, but Mr. R. not quite
approving of them, they were left out in a sub-
sequent edition, 1801. But G. has been worry t-
ing about them ever since ; if I have heard him

250

once, I have heard him a hundred times, express
a remorse proportion' d to a consciousness of
having been guilty of an atrocious libel. As the
devil would have it, a fool they call Barker, in
his Parriana has quoted the identical two lines
as they stood in some obscure edition anterior
to 1 80 1, and the withers of poor G. are again
wrung. His letter is a gem ; with his poor
blind eyes it has been laboured out at six sit-
tings. The history of the couplet is in page
three of this irregular production, in which every
variety of shape and size that letters can be
twisted into is to be found. Do shew his part
of it to Mr. R. some day. If he has bowels
they must melt at the contrition so queerly char-
acter'd of a contrite sinner. G. was born I verily
think without original sin, but chuses to have
a conscience, as every Christian gentleman should
have. His dear old face is insusceptible of the
twist they call a sneer, yet he is apprehensive of
being suspected of that ugly appearance. When
he makes a compliment, he thinks he has given
an affront. A name is personality. But shew (no
hurry) this unique recantation to Mr. R. 'Tis
like a dirty pocket handkerchief muck'd with
tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is the
impress of sincerity in every pot-hook and hanger.
And then the gilt frame to such a pauper picture !
It should go into the Museum.

I am heartily sorry my Devil does not answer.
We must try it a little longer, and after all I

251

think I must insist on taking a portion of the
loss upon myself. It is too much you should
lose by two adventures. You do not say how
your general business goes on, and I should very
much like to talk over it with you here. Come
when the weather will possibly let you. I want
to see the Wordsworths, but I do not much like
to be all night away. It is dull enough to be
here together, but it is duller to leave Mary ; in
short it is painful, and in a flying visit I should
hardly catch them. I have no beds for them,
if they came down, and but a sort of a house to
receive them in, yet I shall regret their depart-
ure unseen. I feel cramped and straiten'd every
way. Where are they ?

We have heard from Emma but once, and that
a month ago, and are very anxious for another
letter.

You say we have forgot your powers of being
serviceable to us. That we never shall. I do not
know what I should do without you when I want
a little commission. Now then. There are left
at Miss Buffam's, the Tales of the Castle, and
certain volumes Retrospective Review. The first
should be convey'd to Novello's, and the Reviews
should be taken to Talfourd's office, ground floor,
East side, Elm Court, Middle Temple, to whom
I should have written, but my spirits are wretched.
It is quite an effort to write this. So, with the
Life, I have cut you out three pieces of service.
What can I do for you here ? But hope to see

252

you very soon, and think of you with most kind-
ness. I fear to-morrow, between rains and snows,
it would be impossible to expect you, but do not
let a practicable Sunday pass. We are always at
home.

Mary joins in remembrances to your sister,
whom we hope to see in any fine-ish weather,
when she '11 venture.

Remember us to Allsop, and all the dead peo-
ple — to whom, and to London, we seem dead.

DCLVII. — TO GEORGE DYER

February 22, 183 1.

Dear Dyer, — Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Rogers's
friends, are perfectly assured that you never in-
tended any harm by an innocent couplet, and that
in the revivification of it by blundering Barker
you had no hand whatever. To imagine that, at
this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic
expression of more than thirty years' standing,
would be to suppose him indulging his Pleasures
of Memory with a vengeance. You never penned
a line which for its own sake you need (dying)
wish to blot. You mistake your heart if you think
you can write a lampoon. Your whips are rods
of roses. Your spleen has ever had for its objects
vices, not the vicious — abstract offences, not the
concrete sinner. But you are sensitive, and wince
as much at the consciousness of having commit-
ted a compliment, as another man would at the

253

perpetration of an affront. But do not lug me
into the same soreness of conscience with your-
self. I maintain, and will to the last hour, that
I never writ of you but con amore. That if any
allusion was made to your near-sightedness, it was
not for the purpose of mocking an infirmity, but
of connecting it with scholar-like habits : for
is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat
near of sight, before age naturally brings on the
malady ? You could not then plead the obrepens
senectus.

Did I not moreover make it an apology for
a certain absence, which some of your friends may
have experienced, when you have not on a sud-
den made recognition of them in a casual street-
meeting, and did I not strengthen your excuse for
this slowness of recognition, by further account-
ing morally for the present engagement of your
mind in worthy objects ? Did I not, in your per-
son, make the handsomest apology for absent-of-
mind people that was ever made ? If these things
be not so, I never knew what I wrote or meant
by my writing, and have been penning libels all
my life without being aware of it. Does it fol-
low that I should have exprest myself exactly
in the same way of those dear old eyes of yours
now — now that Father Time has conspired with
a hard task-master to put a last extinguisher upon
them ? I should as soon have insulted the an-
swerer of Salmasius [Milton], when he awoke
up from his ended task, and saw no more with

254

mortal vision. But you are many films removed
yet from Milton's calamity. You write perfectly
intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the
same size or tallness ; but that only shows your
proficiency in the hands — text, german-hand,
court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and afford vari-
ety. You pen better than you did a twelvemonth
ago ; and if you continue to improve, you bid
fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at
your young gentlemen's academy. But you must
beware of Valpy, and his printing-house, that
hazy cave of Trophonius, out of which it was a
mercy that you escaped with a glimmer. Beware
of MSS. and variae lectiones. Settle the text for
once in your mind, and stick to it. You have some
years' good sight in you yet, if you do not tamper
with it. It is not for you (for us I should say)
to go poring into Greek contractions, and star-
gazing upon slim Hebrew points. We have yet
the sight

Of sun, and moon, and star, throughout the year,
And man and woman.

You have vision enough to discern Mrs. Dyer
from the other comely gentlewoman who lives up
at staircase No. 5 ; or, if you should make a blun-
der in the twilight, Mrs. Dyer has too much
good sense to be jealous for a mere effect of im-
perfect optics. But don't try to write the Lord's
Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the
compass of a halfpenny ; nor run after a midge
or a mote to catch it ; and leave off hunting for

255

needles in bushels of hay, for all these things
strain the eyes. The snow is six feet deep in
some parts here. I must put on jack-boots to
get at the post-office with this. It is not good
for weak eyes to pore upon snow too much. It
lies in drifts. I wonder what its drift is ; only
that it makes good pancakes, remind Mrs. Dyer.
It turns a pretty green world into a white one.
It glares too much for an innocent colour, me-
thinks.

I wonder why you think I dislike gilt edges.
They set off a letter marvellously. Yours, for
instance, looks for all the world like a tablet of
curious hieroglyphics in a gold frame. But don't
go and lay this to your eyes. You always wrote
hieroglyphically, yet not to come up to the
mystical notations and conjuring characters of
Dr. Parr. You never wrote what I call a school-
master's hand, like Clarke ; nor a woman's hand,
like Southey ; nor a missal hand, like Porson ;
nor an all-of-the-wrong-side-sloping hand, like
Miss Hayes ; nor a dogmatic, Mede-and-Persian,
peremptory hand, like Rickman ; but you ever
wrote what I call a Grecian's hand ; what the
Grecians write (or used) at Christ's Hospital;
such as Whalley would have admired, and Boyer
have applauded ; but Smith or Atwood (writing-
masters) would have horsed you for. Your boy-
of-genius hand and your mercantile hand are
various. By your flourishes, I should think you
never learned to make eagles or corkscrews, or

256

flourish the governors' names in the writing-
school ; and by the tenor and cut of your letters
I suspect you were never in it at all. By the
length of this scrawl you will think I have a
design upon your optics ; but I have writ as
large as I could out of respect to them — too
large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is a sort of
deputy Grecian's hand ; a little better, and more
of a worldly hand, than a Grecian's, but still
remote from the mercantile. I don't know how
it is, but I keep my rank in fancy still since
school-days. I can never forget I was a deputy
Grecian ! And writing to you, or to Coleridge,
besides affection, I feel a reverential deference
as to Grecians still. I keep my soaring way above
the Great Erasmians, yet far beneath the other.
Alas ! what am I now ? what is a Leadenhall
clerk or India pensioner to a deputy Grecian ?
How art thou fallen, O Lucifer ! Just room for
our loves to Mrs. D., &c, C. Lamb

DCLVIII.— TO HENRY F. CARY

April 13,1831.

Dear C, — I am daily for this week expect-
ing Wordsworth, who will not name a day. I
have been expecting him by months and by
weeks ; but he has reduced the hope within the
seven fractions hebdomidal of this hebdoma.
Therefore I am sorry I cannot see you on
Thursday. I think within a week or two I shall

257

be able to invite myself some day for a day, but
we hermits with difficulty poke out of our shells.
Within that ostraceous retirement I meditate
not unfrequently on you. My sister's kindest
remembrances to you both. C. L.

DCLIX. — TO BERNARD BARTON

April 30, 1 83 1.

Vir bone ! — Recepi literas tuas amicissimas, et
in mentem venit responsuro mihi, vel raro, vel nun-
quam, inter nos intercedisse Latinam linguam,
organum rescribendi, loquendive. Epistolae tuae,
Plinianis elegantiis (supra quod Tremulo deceat)
refertae, tarn a verbis Plinianis adeo abhorrent, ut
ne vocem quamquam (Romanam scilicet) habere
videaris, quam "ad canem," ut aiunt, " reiectare
possis." Forsan desuetudo Latinissandi ad ver-
naculam linguam usitandam, plusquam opus sit,
coegit. Per adagia quaedam nota, et in ore om-
nium pervulgata, ad Latinitatis perditae recuper-
ationem revocare te institui.

Felis in abaco est, et aegre videt.

Omne quod splendet nequaquam aurum putes.

Imponas equo mendicum, equitabit idem ad
diabolum.

Fur commode a fure prenditur.

O Maria, Maria, valde contraria, quomodo
crescit hortulus tuus ?

Nunc maiora canamus.

Thomas, Thomas, de Islington, uxorem duxit
258

die nupera Dominica. Reduxit domum postera.
Succedenti baculum emit. Postridie ferit illam.
Aegrescit ilia subsequent. Proxima (nempe
Veneris) est mortua. Plurimum gestiit Thomas,
quod appropinquanti Sabbato efferenda sit.

Horner quidam Iohannulus in angulo sedebat,
artocreas quasdam deglutiens. Inseruit pollices,
pruna nana evellens, et magna voce exclamavit
" Dii boni, quam bonus puer no ! "

Diddle-diddle-dumkins ! meus unicus filius Io-
hannes cubitum ivit, integris braccis, caliga una
tantum, indutus. Diddle-diddle, etc. Da Capo.

Hie adsum saltans Ioannula. Cum nemo adsit
mihi, semper resto sola.

Aenigma mihi hoc solvas, et Oedipus fies.

Qua ratione assimulandus sit equus Tremulo ?

Quippe cui tota communicatio sit per Hay et
Neigh, iuxta consilium illud Dominicum, "Fiat
omnis communicatio vestra Yea et Nay."

In his nugis caram diem consumo, dum invi-
gilo valetudini carioris nostrae Emmae, quae apud
nos iamdudum aegrotat. Salvere vos iubet mecum
Maria mea, ipsa integra valetudine. Elia

Ab agro Enfeldiense datum, Aprilis nescio
quibus Calendis. Davus sum, non Calendarius.
P. S. Perdita in toto est Billa Reformatura.

NOTE

[The following translation is by Mr. Stephen Gwynn :
Good Sir, — I have received your most kind letter, and it

259

has entered my mind as I began to reply, that the Latin tongue
has seldom or never been used between us as the instrument
of converse or correspondence. Your letters, filled with Plinian
elegancies (more than becomes a Quaker), are so alien to Pliny's
language, that you seem not to have a word (that is, a Roman
word) to throw, as the saying is, at a dog. Perchance the dis-
use of Latinising had constrained you more than is right to the
use of the vernacular. I have determined to recall you to the
recovery of your lost Latinity by certain well-known adages
common in all mouths.

The cat 's in the cupboard and she can't see.

All that glitters is not gold.

Set a beggar on horseback and he '11 ride to the devil.

Set a thief to catch a thief.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow ?
Now let us sing of weightier matters.

Tom, Tom, of Islington, wed a wife on Sunday. He brought
her home on Monday. Bought a stick on Tuesday. Beat her well
on Wednesday. She was sick on Thursday. Dead on Friday.
Tom was glad on Saturday night to bury his wife on Sunday.

Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie.
He put in his thumb and drew out a plum and cried " Good
Heavens, what a good boy am I ! "

Diddle, diddle, dumkins ! my son John went to bed with his
breeches on ; one shoe off" and the other shoe on, diddle,
diddle, etc. (Da Capo.)

Here am I, jumping Joan. When no one 's by, I 'm all alone.

Solve me this enigma, you shall be an CEdipus.

Why is a horse like a Quaker ?

Because all his communication is by Hay and Neigh, after
the Lord's counsel, " Let all your communication be Yea and
Nay."

In these trifles I waste the precious day, while watching over
the health of our more precious Emma, who has been sick in
our house this long time. My Mary sends you greeting with
me, she herself in sound health.

Given from the Enfield country seat, on I know not what
Calends of April. I am Davus, not an Almanac.

P. S. The Reform Bill is lost altogether.]

260

DCLX. — TO HENRY F. CARY

Datum ab agro Enfeldiensi,
Maii die sexta, 1831.

Assidens est mihi bona soror, Euripiden evolv-
ens, donum vestrum, carissime Cary, pro quo
gratias agimus, lecturi atque iterum lecturi
idem. Pergratus est liber ambobus, nempe Sa-
cerdotis Commiserationis, sacrum opus a te ipso
humanissimae religionis sacerdote dono datum.
Lachrymantes gavisuri sumus; est ubi dolor fiat
voluptas ; nee semper dulce mihi est ridere ;
aliquando commutandum est he! he! he! cum
heu ! heu ! heu !

A Musis Tragicis me non penitus abhorruisse
testis sit Carmen Calamitosum, nescio quo autore
lingua prius vernacula scriptum, et nuperrime
a me ipso Latine versum, scilicet, Tom Tom of
Islington. Tenuistine ?

Thomas Thomas de Islington,

Uxorem duxit die quadam Solis,

Abduxit domum sequenti die,

Emit baculum subsequenti,

Vapulat ilia postera,

Aegrotat succedenti, mortua fit crastina.

Et miro gaudio afficitur Thomas luce postera quod
subsequenti (nempe, Dominica) uxor sit efFer-
enda.

En Iliades domesticas !
En circulum calamitatum !
Plane hebdomadalem tragoediam.

I nunc et confer Euripiden vestrum his luctibus,

261

hac morte uxoria ; confer Alcesten ! Hecuben !
quasnon antiquas heroinas dolorosas.

Suffundor genas lachrymis, tantas strages re-
volvens. Quid restat nisi quod tecum tuam Caram
salutamus ambosque valere iubeamus, nosmet ipsi
bene valentes. Elia

note

[The following translation is by Mr. Stephen Gwynn :
Sitting by me is my good sister, turning over Euripides, your
gift, dear Cary [a pun here, " carissime care "], for which we
thank you, and will read and re-read it. Most acceptable to
both of us is this book of Pity's Priest, a sacred work of your
bestowing, yourself a priest of the most humane religion. We
shall take our pleasure weeping; there are times when pain
turns pleasure, and I would not always be laughing : sometimes
there should be a change — heu! heu! for he! he!

That I have not shrunk from the Tragic Muses, witness this
Lamentable Ballad, first written in the vernacular by I know
not what author and lately by myself put into Latin, T. T. of
Islington. Have you heard it ? (See translation of preceding
Utter.)

And Thomas is possessed with a wondrous joy on the fol-
lowing morning, because on the next day, that is, Sunday, his
wife must be buried.

Lo, your domestic Iliads !

Lo, the wheel of calamities I

The true tragedy of a week.

Go to now, compare your Euripides with these sorrows, this
death of a wife ! Compare Alcestis ! Hecuba ! or what not
other sorrowing heroines of antiquity.

My cheeks are tear-bedewed as I revolve such slaughter.
What more to say, but to salute you Cary and your Cara, and
wish you health, ourselves enjoying it.]

262

DCLXL — TO EDWARD MOXON

July 14, 1 83 1.

Collier's book would be right acceptable. And
also a sixth volume just publish' d of Nichols's
Illustrations of the Literary History of 18th Cen-
tury. I agree with you, and do yet not disagree
with W. W., as to H[unt]. It rejoyced my heart
to read his friendly spirited mention of your pub-
lications. It might be a drawback to my pleas-
ure, that he has tried to decry my "Nicky," but
on deliberate re- and reperusal of his censure I
cannot in the remotest degree understand what
he means to say. He and I used to dispute about
hell eternities, I taking the affirmative. I love to
puzzle atheists, and — parsons. I fancy it runs in
his head, that I meant to rivet the idea of a per-
sonal devil. Then about the glorious three days !
there was never a year or day in my past life,
since I was pen-worthy, that I should not have
written precisely as I have.

Logic and modesty are not among H.'s virtues.
Talfourd flatters me upon a poem which " no-
body but I could have written," but which I have
neither seen nor heard of, — The Banquet, or "Ban-
queting Something," that has appeared in The Tat-
ler. Know you of it ? How capitally the French-
man has analysed Satan! I was hinder'd, or I was
about doing the same thing in English, for him
to put into French, as I prosified Hood's mid-
summer fairies. The garden of cabbage escap'd

263

him ; he turns it into a garden of pot-herbs. So
local allusions perish in translation.

About eight days before you told me of R.'s
interview with the Premier, I, at the desire of
Badams, wrote a letter to him (Badams) in the
most moving terms setting forth the age, infirm-
ities, &c, of Coleridge. This letter was convey'd
by B. to his friend Mr. Ellice of the Treasury,
brother-in-law to Lord Grey, who immediately
pass'd it on to Lord Grey, who assured him of
immediate relief by a grant on the King's bounty,
which news E. communicated to B. with a de-
sire to confer with me on the subject, on which
I went up to the Treasury (yesterday fortnight)
and was received by the great man with the
utmost cordiality (shook hands with me coming
and going) ; a fine hearty gentleman, and, as
seeming willing to relieve any anxiety from me,
promised me an answer thro' Badams in two or
three days at furthest. Meantime Gilman's ex-
traordinary insolent letter comes out in the Times!
As to my acquiescing in this strange step, I told
Mr. Ellice (who expressly said that the thing was
renewable three-yearly) that I consider'd such
a grant as almost equivalent to the lost pension, as
from C.'s appearance and the representations of
the Gilmans, I scarce could think C.'s life worth
two years' purchase. I did not know that the
chancellor had been previously applied to. Well,
after seeing Ellice I wrote in the most urgent
manner to the Gilmans, insisting on an immedi-

264

ate letter of acknowledgment from Coleridge, or
them in his name to Badams, who not knowing
C. had come forward so disinterestedly amidst his
complicated illnesses and embarrassments, to use
up an interest, which he may so well need, in
favour of a stranger; and from that day not a letter
has B. or even myself, received from Highgate,
unless that published one in the Times is meant as
a general answer to all the friends who have stirr'd
to do C. service ! Poor C. is not to blame, for he
is in leading-strings. I particularly wish you
would read this part of my note to Mr. Rogers.
Now for home matters. Our next two Sundays
will be choked up with all the Sugdens. The
third will be free, when we hope you will show
your sister the way to Enfield and leave her with
us for a few days. In the meanwhile, could you
not run down some week day (afternoon, say) and
sleep at the Horse Shoe ? I want to have my sec-
ond volume Elias bound specimen fashion, and to
consult you about 'em. Kenney has just assured
me that he has just touch'd j£ioo from the
theatre ; you are a damn'd fool if you don't exact
your tythe of him, and with that assurance I rest,
Your brother fool, C. L.

DCLXII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Early August, 1831.

Dear M., — The R.A. here memorised was
George Dawe, whom I knew well and heard

265

many anecdotes of, from Daniels and Westall,
at H. Rogers's ; to each of them it will be well
to send a magazine in my name. It will fly like
wild fire among the Royal Academicians and
artists. Could you get hold of Proctor — his
chambers are in Lincoln's Inn, at Montagu's
— or of Janus Weathercock ? — both of their
prose is capital. Don't encourage poetry. The
Peter s Net does not intend funny things only.
All is fish. And leave out the sickening E/ia
at the end. Then it may comprise letters and
characters addrest to Peter — but a signature
forces it to be all characteristic of the one man
Elia, or the one man Peter, which cramped me
formerly.

I have agreed not for my sister to know the
subjects I chuse till the magazine comes out ; so
beware of speaking of 'em, or writing about
'em, save generally. Be particular about this
warning. Can't you drop in some afternoon,
and take a bed ?

The Athenaeum has been hoaxed with some
exquisite poetry that was two or three months
ago in Hone's Book. I like your first Number
capitally. But is it not small ?

Come and see us, week-day if possible.

C. L.

Pray forward the enclosed, or put it in the
post.

266

DCLXIII. — TO JOHN FORSTER

August 4, 1 83 1.

My dear Boy, — Scamper off with this to
Dilke, and get it in for to-morrow; then we
shall have two things in in the first week.

Your Laureat

DCLXIV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

1831.

Dear M., — I have ingeniously contrived to
review myself. Tell me if this will do. Mind,
for such things as these — half quotations — I do
not charge Elia price. Let me hear of, if not
see you. Peter

DCLXV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

August 5, 1 83 1.

Send, or bring me, Hone's Number for Au-
gust.

Hunt is a fool, and his critics. The anecdotes
of E. and of G. D. are substantially true. What
does Elia (or Peter) care for dates ?

That is the poem I mean. I do not know
who wrote it, but it is in Hone's book as far
back as April.

' T is a poem I envy — that and Montgomery's
Last Man (nothing else of his). I envy the writ-
ers, because I feel I could have done something

267

like it. S is a coxcomb. W is a

and a great poet. L.

DCLXVI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

This instant received, this instant I answer
your's — Dr. Cresswell has one copy, which I
cannot just now re-demand, because at his desire
I have sent on Satan to him, which when he
ask'd for, I frankly told him, was imputed a
lampoon on him ! I have sent it him, and can-
not, till we come to explanation, go to him or
send.

But on the faith of a gentleman, you shall have
it back some Any for Another. The three I send.
I think two of the blunders perfectly immaterial.
But your feelings, and I fear pocket, is every-
thing. I have just time to pack this off by the
two o'clock stage. Yours till we meet.

At all events I behave more gentlemanlike
than Emma did, in returning the copies.

Yours till we meet — do come. Bring the
sonnets.

Why not publish 'em — or let another book-
seller ?

DCLXVII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

September 5, 1831.

Dear M., — Your letter's contents pleased me.
I am only afraid of taxing you, yet I want a

268

stimulus, or I think I should drag sadly. I shall
keep the monies in trust till I see you fairly over
the next ist January. Then I shall look upon
'em as earned. Colburn shall be written to. No
part of yours gave me more pleasure (no, not the
j£io, tho' you may grin) than that you will re-
visit old Enfield, which I hope will be always
a pleasant idea to you.

Yours very faithfully, C. L.

DCLXVIII. — TO WILLIAM HAZLITT, Jr.

September 13, 1831.

Dear William, — We have a sick house, Mrs.
Westwood's daughter in a fever, and grand-
daughter in the measles, and it is better to see no
company just now ; but in a week or two we shall
be very glad to see you ; come at a hazard then,
on a week-day if you can, because Sundays are
stuff' d up with friends on both parts of this great
ill-mix' d family. Your second letter, dated third
September, came not till Sunday and we staid
at home in evening, in expectation of seeing
you.

I have turned and twisted what you ask'd me
to do in my head, and am obliged to say I cannot
undertake it — but as a composition for declining
it, will you accept some verses which I meditate
to be addrest to you on your father, and prefix-
able to your Life ? Write me word that I may
have 'em ready against I see you some ten days

269

hence, when I calculate the house will be unin-
fected. Send your mother's address.

If you are likely to be again at Cheshunt before
that time, on second thoughts, drop in here, and
consult, Yours, C. L.

Not a line is yet written — so say, if I shall
do 'em.

DCLXIX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

October 24, 1831.

To address an abdicated monarch is a nice point
of breeding. To give him his lost titles is to
mock him ; to withhold 'em is to wound him.
But his minister who falls with him may be
gracefully sympathetic. I do honestly feel for
your diminution of honours, and regret even the
pleasing cares which are part and parcel of great-
ness. Your magnanimous submission, and the
cheerful tone of your renunciation, in a letter
which, without flattery, would have made an
" Article" and which, rarely as I keep letters,
shall be preserved, comfort me a little. Will it
please, or plague you, to say that when your parcel
came I damned it, for my pen was warming in
my hand at a ludicrous description of a landscape
of an R. A., which I calculated upon sending you
to-morrow, the last day you gave me. Now any
one calling in, or a letter coming, puts an end to
my writing for the day. Little did I think that

270

the mandate had gone out, so destructive to my
occupation, so relieving to the apprehensions
of the whole body of R. A.'s. So you see I had
not quitted the ship while a plank was remain-
ing.

To drop metaphors, I am sure you have done
wisely. The very spirit of your epistle speaks that
you have a weight off your mind. I have one on
mine. The cash in hand, which, as ***** * less
truly says, burns in my pocket. I feel queer at
returning it (who does not ?). You feel awkward
at re-taking it (who ought not?). Is there no
middle way of adjusting this fine embarrassment?
I think I have hit upon a medium to skin the
sore place over, if not quite to heal it. You hinted
that there might be something under ^"10 by
and by accruing to me, Devil's Money. You are
sanguine — say £j.ios. — that I entirely re-
nounce and abjure all future interest in, I insist
upon it, and "by Him I will not name" I won't
touch a penny of it. That will split your loss
one half, and leave me conscientious possessor
of what I hold. Less than your assent to this,
no proposal will I accept of.

The Rev. Mr. , whose name you have

left illegible (is it Seagull?) never sent me any
book on Christ's Hospital by which I could
dream that I was indebted to him for a dedication.
Did G. D. send his penny tract to me to convert
me to Unitarianism ? Dear blundering soul ! why
I am as old a one-Goddite as himself. Or did he

271

think his cheap publication would bring over the
Methodists over the way here ? However, I '11
give it to the pew-opener (in whom I have a
little interest) to hand over to the clerk, whose
wife she sometimes drinks tea with, for him to
lay before the deacon, who exchanges the civility
of the hat with him, for him to transmit to the
minister, who shakes hand with him out of

chapel, and he, in all odds, will

with it.

I wish very much to see you. I leave it to you
to come how you will. We shall be very glad
(we need not repeat) to see your sister, or sisters,
with you ; but for you individually I will just
hint that a dropping in to tea unlook'd for about
five, stopping bread-n-cheese and gin-and-water,
is worth a thousand Sundays. I am naturally
miserable on a Sunday, but a week-day evening
and supper is like old times. Set out now, and
give no time to deliberation.

P. S. The second volume of Elia is delight-
fully bound, I mean) and quite cheap. Why,
man, 't is a unique.

If I write much more I shall expand into an
article, which I cannot afford to let you have so
cheap.

By the by, to shew the perverseness of human
will — while I thought I must furnish one of
those accursed things monthly, it seemed a labour
above Hercules's " Twelve " in a year, which
were evidently monthly contributions. Now I

272

am emancipated, I feel as if I had a thousand
essays swelling within me. False feelings both.

I have lost Mr. Aitken's town address — do you
know it ? Is he there ?

Your ex-Lampoonist, or Lamb-punnist —
from Enfield, Oct. 24, or " last day but one for
receiving articles that can be inserted."

DCLXX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

December 15, 1831.

Dear M., — S. \ probably Southey] I know,
has an aversion, amounting almost to horror, of
H. [probably Hunt]. He -would not lend his name.
The other I might wring a guinea from, but he
is very properly shy of his guineas. It would be
improper in me to apply to him, and impertin-
ent to the other. I hope this will satisfy you,
but don't give my reason to H.'s friend, simply
say I decline it.

I am very much obliged to you for thinking
of Cary. Put me down seven shillings (was n't
it ?) in your books, and I set you down for more
in my good ones. One copy will go down to
immortality now, the more lasting as the less its
leaves are disturbed. This letter willcost you
3*/. ; but I did not like to be silent on the above.

Nothing with my name will sell ; a blast is
upon it. Do not think of such a thing, unless
ever you become rich enough to speculate.

Being praised, and being bought, are different
273

things to a book. Fancy books sell from fashion,
not from the number of their real likers. Do
not come at so long intervals. Here we are sure
to be.

DCLXXI. — TO J. HUME'S DAUGHTERS

1832.

Many thanks for the wrap-rascal, but how
delicate the insinuating in, into the pocket, of
that 3 y2 d., in paper too ! Who was it ? Amelia,
Caroline, Julia, Augusta, or " Scots who have " ?

As a set-off to the very handsome present,
which I shall lay out in a pot of ale certainly to
her health, I have paid sixpence for the mend
of two button-holes of the coat now return'd.
She shall not have to say, " I don't care a button
for her."

Adieu, tres aimables !

Buttons bd.

Gift 1%

Due from . . . zl/2

which pray accept * * * from your foolish coat-
forgetting, C. L.

DCLXXII. — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

March 5, 1832.

Dear Sir, — My friend Aders, a German mer-
chant, German born, has open'd to the public

274

at the Suffolk St. gallery his glorious collection
of old Dutch and German pictures. Pray see
them. You have only to name my name, and
have a ticket — if you have not received one
already. You will possibly notice 'em, and
might lug in the inclosed,1 which I wrote for
Hone's Tear Book, and has appear'd only there,
when the pictures were at home in Euston
Square. The fault of this matchless set of pic-
tures is, the admitting a few Italian pictures with

1 TO C. ADERS, Esc..

On bis Collection of Paintings by the old German Masters

Friendliest of men, Aders, I never come
Within the precincts of this sacred room,
But I am struck with a religious fear,
Which says, "Let no profane eye enter here."
With imagery from heav'n the walls are clothed,
Making the things of time seem vile and loathed.
Spare saints, whose bodies seem sustain' d by love
With martyrs old in meek procession move.
Here kneels a weeping Magdalen, less bright
To human sense for her blurr'd cheeks ; in sight
Of eyes, new-touch' d by heaven, more winning fair
Than when her beauty was her only care.
A hermit here strange mysteries doth unlock
In desart sole, his knees worn by the rock.
There angel harps are sounding, while below
Palm-bearing virgins in white order go.
Madonnas, varied with so chaste design,
While all are different, each seems genuine,
And hers the only Jesus : hard outline,
And rigid form, by Durer's hand subdued
To matchless grace, and sacro-sanctitude ;
Dvirer, who makes thy slighted Germany
Vie with the praise of paint-proud Italy.

Whoever enter' st here, no more presume
To name a parlour, or a drawing-room ;
But, bending lowly to each holy story,
Make this thy chapel and thine oratory.

27S

'em, which I would turn out to make the col-
lection unique and pure. Those old Albert
Diirers have not had their fame. I have tried to
illustrate 'em. If you print my verses, a copy,
please, for me.

DCLXX1II. — TO S. T COLERIDGE

April 14, 1832.

My dear Coleridge, — Not an unkind thought
has passed in my brain about you. But I have
been wofully neglectful of you, so that I do not
deserve to announce to you that, if I do not hear
from you before then, I will set out on Wednes-
day morning to take you by the hand. I would
do it this moment, but an unexpected visit might
flurry you. I shall take silence for acquiescence,
and come. I am glad you could write so long a
letter. Old loves to, and hope of kind looks from,
the Gilmans, when I come.

Yours, semper idem, C. L.

If you ever thought an offence, much more
wrote it, against me, it must have been in the
times of Noah; and the great waters swept it
away. Mary's most kind love, and maybe a
wrong prophet of your bodings ! — here she is
crying for mere love over your letter. I wring
out less, but not sincerer, showers.

My direction is simply, Enfield.

276

DCLXXIV. — TO JOHN FORSTER

Late April, 1832.

One day in my life

Do come. C. L.

I have placed poor Mary at Edmonton, — I
shall be very glad to see the Hunchback and
Straitback the first evening they can come. I am
very poorly indeed. I have been cruelly thrown
out. Come and don't let me drink too much.
I drank more yesterday than I ever did any one
day in my life. C. L.

Do come. Cannot your sister come and take
a half bed — or a whole one? Which, alas, we
have to spare.

DCLXXV.— TO EDWARD MOXON (?)

June 1, 1832.

I am a little more than half alive. I was more
than half dead. The ladies are very agreeable.
I flatter myself I am less than disagreeable. Con-
vey this to Mr. Forster, whom with you I shall
just be able to see some ten days hence, and be-
lieve me, ever yours, C. L.

I take Forster's name to be John ; but you
know whom I mean, the Pym-praiser, not pimp-
raiser.

277

DCLXXVI. — TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date.]
{With Acrostics enclosed')

TO M. L. [MARY LOCKE]

M ust I write with pen unwilling,
A nd describe those graces killing,
R ightly, which I never saw ?
Yes — it is the album's law.

L et me then invention strain,

O n your excellence grace to feign,

C old is fiction. I believe it

K indly as I did receive it ;

E ven as I, F.'s tongue, did weave it.

TO S. L. [SARAH LOCKE]

S hall I praise a face unseen,
A nd extol a fancied mien,
R ave on visionary charm,
A nd from shadows take alarm !
H atred hates without a cause,

L ove may love without applause,
O r, without a reason given,
C harmed be with unknown heaven.
K eep the secret, though, unmocked,
E ver in your bosom Locked.

Am I right? Sarah I distinctly remember;
but Mary I am not sure ought not to be Anne.
It is soon rectified in that case. Tou I take to be
John.

C. L.
278

DCLXXVII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

July 12, 1832.

Dear M., — My hand shakes so, I can hardly
say don't come yet. I have been worse to-day
than you saw me. I am going to try water gruel
and quiet if I can get it. But a visitor has just
been down, and another a day or two before,
and I feel half frantic. I will write when better.
Make excuses to Forster for the present.

C. Lamb

DCLXXVIII. — TO WALTER WILSON

August, 1832.

My dear Wilson, — I cannot let my old friend
Mrs. Hazlitt (sister-in-law to poor Wm. Hazlitt)
leave Enfield, without endeavouring to introduce
her to you, and to Mrs. Wilson. Her daughter
has a school in your neighbourhood, and for her
talents and for her merits I can answer. If it lies
in your power to be useful to them in any way,
the obligation to your old office-fellow will be
great. I have not forgotten Mrs. Wilson's album,
and if you, or she, will be the means of procur-
ing but one pupil for Miss Hazlitt, I will rub
up my poor poetic faculty to the best. But you
and she will one day, I hope, bring the album
with you to Enfield. Poor Mary is ill, or would
send her love. Yours very truly,

C. Lamb
279

News. — Collet is dead, Du Puy is dead. I am
not. — Hone is turned believer in Irving and his
unknown tongues !

In the name of dear Defoe, which alone might
be a bond of union between us, adieu !

DCLXXIX. — TO HENRY C. ROBINSON

Early October, 1832.

For Landor's kindness I have just esteem. I
shall tip him a letter, when you tell me how to
address him.

Give Emma's kindest regrets that I could not
entice her good friend, your nephew, here.

Her warmest love to the Bury Robinsons —
our all three to H. Crab.

C. L.

Accompanying copy of Landor's verses to
Emma Isola, and others, contributed to Miss
Wordsworth's album, and poem written at Wast-
water.

DCLXXX. — TO WALTER S. LANDOR

October, 1832.

Dear Sir, — Pray accept a little volume. 'T is
a legacy from Elia, you '11 see. Silver and gold
had he none, but such as he had, left he you. I
do not know how to thank you for attending to
my request about the album. I thought you

280

would never remember it. Are not you proud
and thankful, Emma?

Yes, very, both — Emma Isola

Many things I had to say to you, which there
was not time for. One why should I forget ? 't is
for Rose Aylmer, which has a charm I cannot
explain. I lived upon it for weeks.

Next I forgot to tell you I knew all your Welch
annoyancers, the measureless Beethams. I knew
a quarter of a mile of them. Seventeen brothers
and sixteen sisters, as they appear to me in mem-
ory. There was one of them that used to fix his
long legs on my fender, and tell a story of a
shark, every night, endless, immortal. How have
I grudged the salt sea ravener not having had his
gorge of him !

The shortest of the daughters measured five
foot eleven without her shoes. Well, some day
we may confer about them. But they were tall.
Surely I have discover'd the longitude.

Sir, if you can spare a moment, I should be
happy to hear from you; that rogue Robinson
detained your verses, till I call'd for them. Don't
entrust a bit of prose to the rogue, but believe
me, Your obliged, C. L.

My sister sends her kind regards.

NOTE

[Crabb Robinson took Landor to see Lamb on September
28, 1832. The following passage in Forster's Life of Landor
describes the visit and explains this letter ;

28l

The hour he passed with Lamb was one of unalloyed enjoyment. A
letter from Crabb Robinson before he came over had filled him with
affection for that most loveable of men, who had not an infirmity to which
his sweetness of nature did not give something of kinship to a virtue. " I
have just seen Charles and Mary Lamb," Crabb Robinson had written
(20th October, 183 1), "living in absolute solitude at Enfield. I find your
poems lying open before Lamb. Both tipsy and sober he is ever muttering
Rose Aylmer. But it is not those lines only that have a curious fascination
for him. He is always turning to Gebir for things that haunt him in the
same way." Their first and last hour was now passed together, and before
they parted they were old friends. I visited Lamb myself (with Barry
Cornwall) the following month, and remember the boyish delight with
which he read to us the verses which Landor had written in the album of
Emma Isola. He had just received them through Robinson, and had lost
little time in making rich return by sending Landor his Last Essays of
Elia.

Landor wrote to Lady Blessington :

I do not think that you ever knew Charles Lamb, who is lately dead.
Robinson took me to see him.

"Once, and once only, have I seen thy face,
Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue
Run o'er my heart, yet never has been left
Impression on it stronger or more sweet.
Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
What wisdom in thy levity, what soul
In every utterance of thy purest breast!
Of all that ever wore man's form, 'tis thee
I first would spring to at the gate of Heaven."

I say tripping tongue, for Charles Lamb stammered and spoke hur-
riedly. He did not think it worth while to put on a fine new coat to come
down and see me in, as poor Coleridge did, but met me as if I had been
a friend of twenty years' standing ; indeed, he told me I had been so, and
shewed me some things I had written much longer ago, and had utterly
forgotten. The world will never see again two such delightful volumes as
The Essays of Elia ; no man living is capable of writing the worst twenty
pages of them. The Continent has Zadig and Gil Bias, we have Elia and
Sir Roger de Coverly.]

DCLXXXI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Late 1832.

A poor mad usher (and schoolfellow of mine)
282

has been pestering me through you with poetry and
petitions. I have desired him to call upon you for
a half sovereign, which place to my account.

I have buried Mrs. Reynolds at last, who has
virtually at least bequeath'd me a legacy of ^32
per annum, to which add that my other pen-
sioner is safe housed in the workhouse, which
gets me ^10.

Richer by both legacies ^42 per annum. For
a loss of a loss is as good as a gain of a gain. But
let this be between ourselves, specially keep it from

A or I shall speedily have candidates for the

pensions. Mary is laid up with a cold. Will you
convey the inclosed by hand?

When you come, if you ever do, bring me one
Devil's Visit, I mean Southey's; also the Hogarth
which is complete, Noble's I think. Six more
letters to do. Bring my bill also. C. L.

DCLXXXII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Winter, 1832.

Thank you for the books. I am ashamed to
take tythe thus of your press. I am worse to a
publisher than the two Universities and the Brit-
ish Museum. A[llan] C [unningham] I will forth-
with read. B[arry] C[ornwall] (I can't get out
of the A, B, C) I have more than read. Taken
altogether, 't is too lovey ; but what delicacies !
I like most King Death ; glorious 'bove all, The
Lady with the Hundred Rings; The Owl ; Epistle

283

to What *s his Name (here may be I 'm partial) ;
Sit down, Sad Soul; The Pauper s Jubilee (but that ' s
old, and yet 'tis never old); The Falcon; Felon's
Wife; damn "Madame Pasty" (but that is bor-
rowed) :

Apple-pie is very good,
And so is apple-pasty ;

But

O Lard ! 't is very nasty :

but chiefly the dramatic fragments, — scarce three
of which should have escaped my Specimens, had
an antique name been prefixed. They exceed his
first. So much for the nonsense of poetry ; now
to the serious business of life.

Up a court (Blandford Court) in Pall Mall
(exactly at the back, of Marlbro' House), with
iron gate in front, and containing two houses, at
No. 2 did lately live Leishman my taylor. He is
moved somewhere in the neighbourhood, devil
knows where. Pray find him out, and give him
the opposite. I am so much better, tho' my hand
shakes in writing it, that, after next Sunday, I can
well see F[orster] and you. Can you throw B. C.
in ? Why tarry the wheels of my Hogarth ?

Charles Lamb

note

[" I am worse to a publisher." There is a rule by which a
publisher must present copies of every book to the Stationers'
Hall, to be distributed to the British Museum, the Bodleian,
and Cambridge University Library. — E. V. Lucas.]

284

DCLXXXIII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

December, 1832.

This is my notion : wait till you are able to
throw away a round sum (say ^1500) upon a
speculation, and then — don't do it. For all your
loving encouragements, till this final damp came
in the shape of your letter, thanks — for books
also ; greet the Fosters and Proctors, and come
singly or conjunctively as soon as you can. John-
son and Fare's sheets have been wash'd — unless
you prefer Danby's last bed — at the Horseshoe.

NOTE

[I assume Lamb's advice to refer to Moxon's intention of
founding a paper called The Reflector, which Forster was to
edit. All trace of this periodical has vanished, but it existed
in December, 1832, for three numbers, and was then with-
drawn. Lamb contributed to it.

Johnson and Fare had just murdered — on December 19 —
a Mr. Danby, at Enfield. They had met him in the Crown
and Horseshoe.

W. C. Hazlitt prints a note to Moxon in his Bohn edition
in which Lamb advises the withdrawal of The Reflector at
once. This would be December, 1832. — E. V. Lucas.]

DCLXXXIV. — TO JOHN FORSTER

To Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, 14 Bouverie
Street, Fleet Street. For the Editor of the Re-
flector, from C. Lamb.

December 23, 1832.

I am very sorry the poor Reflector is abortive.

285

'T was a child of good promise for its weeks. But
if the chances are so much against it, withdraw
immediately. It is idle up-hill waste of money
to spend another stamp on it.

NOTE

[Arc
" Obiit

Ground the seal of this note are the words in Lamb's hand :
Diit Edwardus Reflector Armiger, 31 Dec, 1832. Natus
tres hcbdomidas. Pax animae ejus." — E. V. Lucas.]

DCLXXXV. — TO LOUISA BADAMS

December 31, 1832.

Dear Mrs. B., — Mary has not enterprise
enough to venture on a journey at this dreary
time of the year, and 't is too uncomfortable for
us to leave her, for a night even, to the discourt-
eous hospitalities of old frosty Westwood and his
thin spouse : types of Christmas turned sour, or
the first of January born with teeth and wrinkles.
Cordial Illcomes, Not Welcomes — " wretched
New Years to you:" Discompliments of the
Season. Spring, and we, will lure her out some
fine April day. Instead pray accept of our kind-
est congratulations.

Besides, I have been not a little disconcerted.

On the night of our murder (an hour or two
before it), the maid being busy, I went out to
order an additional pint of porter for Moxon,
who had surprised us with a late visit. Now I
never go out quite disinterested upon such occa-

286

sions. And I begged a half-pint of ale at the bar
which our sweet-faced landlady good-humouredly
complied with, asking me into the parlour, but
a side door was just open that disclosed a more
cheerful blaze, and I entered where four people
were engaged over dominoes. One of them,
Fare, invited me to join in it, partly out of impu-
dence, I believe ; however, not to balk a Christ-
mas frolic, I complied, and played with Danby,
but soon gave over, having forgot the game. I
was surprised with D. challenging me as having
known me in the Temple. He must have been
a child then. I did not recognise him, but per-
fectly remembered his father, who was a hair-
dresser in the Temple. This was all that passed,
as I went away with my beer. Judge my sur-
prise when the next morning I was summoned
before Dr. Creswell to say what I knew of the
transaction. My examination was conducted
with all delicacy, and of course I was soon dis-
missed. I was afraid of getting into the papers,
but I was pleased to find myself only noticed as
a " gentleman whose name we could not gather."
Poor D.! the few words I spoke to him were to
remind him of a trick Jem White played upon
his father. The boy was too young to know
anything about it. In the Morning Post appeared
this paragraph : "Yesterday morning, Mr. Danby,
the respectable hairdresser in Pump Court in the
Temple, in a fit of delirium threw himself out
of a two pair stairs window, looking into the

287

passage that leads to Fig-tree Court, and his head
was literally smashed to atoms." White went
to D.'s to see how it operated, and found D.
quietly weaving wigs, and the shop full of law-
yers that had come to enquire particulars. D.
was a man much respected. Indeed hairdressers
in the Inns of Court are a superior race of trades-
men. They generally leave off rich, as D. did.
Well, poor D. had never heard the story or prob-
ably forgotten it ; and his company looking on
me a little suspiciously, as they do at alehouses
when a rather better drest person than them-
selves attempts to join 'em — (it never answers,
— at least it seemed so to me when I heard of
the murder) — I went away. One often fancies
things afterwards that did not perhaps strike one
at the time. However, after all, I have felt queer
ever since. It has almost sickened me of the
Crown and Horseshoe, and I shan't hastily go
into the taproom again. I have made a long
letter and can just say good-bye, C. Lamb

DCLXXXVL — TO EDWARD MOXON

January, 1833.

I have a proof from Dilke. That serves for
next Saturday. What Forster had will serve a
second. I sent you a third concluding article for
him and us (a capital hit, I think, about Cer-
vantes), of which I leave you to judge whether
we shall not want it to print before a third or

288

even second week. In that case beg D. to clap
them in all at once ; and keep the Athenceums
to print from. What I send is the concluding
article of the painters.

Soften down the title in the book to
"Defect of the Imaginative Faculty in Artists."

Consult Dilke.

DCLXXXVIL — TO EDWARD MOXON

January 3, 1833.

Be sure and let me have the Atheneeum — or,
if they don't appear, the copy back again. I
have no other.

I am glad you are introduced to Rickman;
cultivate the introduction. I will not forget to
write to him. I want to see Blackwood, but not
without you. We are yet Emma-less. And so
that is all I can remember. This is a corkscrew.
\Here is a florid corkscrew.] C. L. Fecit

C. Lamb, born 1775 ;
nourished about
the year 1832.

DCLXXXVIII. — TO JOHN FORSTER

I wish you'd go to Dilke's, or let Mockson,
and ax him to add this to what I sent him a few
days since, or to continue it the week after. The
Plantas &c. are capital. Come down with Procter
and Dante on Sunday. I send you the last proof

289

— not of my friendship. I knew you would like
the title. I do thoroughly.- The Last Essays of
Elia keeps out any notion of its being a second
volume.

PCLXXXIX. — TO JOHN FORSTER

There was a talk of Richmond on Sunday;
but we were hampered with an unavoidable en-
gagement that day, besides that I wish to show
it you when the woods are in full leaf. Can you
have a quiet evening here to-night or to-morrow
night ? We are certainly at home.

Yours, C. Lamb

DCXC — TO PRINTER OF ATHENAEUM

January, 1833.

I have read the enclosed five-and-forty times
over. At last (O ! Argus penetration !) I have
discovered a dash that might be dispensed with.
Pray don't trouble yourself with such useless
courtesies. I can well trust your editor when I
don't use queer phrases which prove themselves
wrong by creating a distrust in the sober com-
positor.

DCXCI.— TO EDWARD MOXON

January 24, 1833.

Dear Murray ! Moxon, I mean, — I am not
290

to be making you pay postage every day, but
cannot let pass the congratulations of sister,
brother, and "Silk Cloak," all most cordial on
your change of place. Rogers approving, who
can demur ? Tell me when you get into Dover
St., and what the No. is — that I may change
foolscap for gilt, and plain Mr. for Esquire. I
shall Mister you while you stay.

If you are not too great to attend to it, I wish
us to do without the Sonnets of Sydney : twelve
will take up as many pages, and be too palpable
a fill up. Perhaps we may leave them out, re-
taining the article, but that is not worth saving.
I hope you liked my Cervantes article which I
sent you yesterday.

Not an inapt quotation, for your fallen prede-
cessor in Albemarle Street, to whom you must
give the coup du main, —

Murray, long enough his country's pride. — Pope.

DCXCIL — TO EDWARD MOXON

February n, 1833.

I wish you would omit "by the author of
Elia," now, in advertising that damn'd Devil's
Wedding.

I had sneaking hopes you would have dropt
in to-day ; 't is my poor birthday. Don't stay
away so. Give Forster a hint; you are to bring
your brother some day ; sisters in better weather.

Pray give me one line to say if you receiv'd
291

and forwarded Emma's pacquet to Miss Adams,
and how Dover St. looks. Adieu.

Is there no Blackwood this month ?

\Added on cover :]

What separation will there be between the
friend's preface, and the Essays ? Should not Last
Essays, &c, head them ? If 't is too late, don't
mind. I don't care a farthing about it.

DCXCIII. — TO LOUISA BADAMS

February 15, 1833.

Dear Mrs. B., — Thanks for your remem-
brance of your old fellow-prisoners at murderous
Enfield. By the way, Cooper, who turned King's
evidence, is come back again whitewash'd, has
resumed his seat at chapel, and took his sister
(a fact) up the Holt White's lane to shew her
the topography of the deed. I intend asking him
to supper. They say he is pleasant in conversa-
tion. Will you come and meet him ?

I don't know how we shall see you. Mary has
objections to travelling, and I never stay out the
night when I come up. Could n't Badams and
you make a twenty -four hours' day here? The
room is vacant at the Horseshoe where Fare slept
last, unless you prefer Johnson's last bed.

Mary, Emma, and I have got thro' the Inferno
with the help of Cary ; and Mary is in for it. She
is commencing Tasso. When the spring is riper,

292

we will spare Emma for a few days, if you '11 be
kind to her.

Triple loves and kind memory to you both.

C. L.

DCXCIV.— TO EDWARD MOXON

February, 1833.

My dear M., — I send you the last proof —
not of my friendship — pray see to the finish.

I think you will see the necessity of adding
those words after " Preface " — and " Preface "
should be in the " contents-table."

I take for granted you approve the title. I do
thoroughly.

Perhaps if you advertise it in full, as it now
stands, the title-page might have simply the Last
Essays ofE/ia, to keep out any notion of its being
a second volume.

Well, I wish us luck heartily for your sake
who have smarted by me.

DCXCV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Dear M., — Emma has teized me to take her
into the gallery of an opera on Tuesday, and I
have written for orders. We came up this morn-
ing. Can you house and bed us after the opera ?
Miss M., maybe, won't object to sharing half her
bed. And for me, I can sleep on straw, rushes,
thorns, Procrustes' couch ! or anywhere. Do not

293

write if you can take us in. Write only if you
can't. Ch. Lamb

DCXCVL — TO T. N. TALFOURD

February, 1833.

My dear T., — Now cannot I call him Serjeant;
what is there in a coif? Those canvas-sleeves
protective from ink, when he was a law-chit —
a ChittyMng (let the leathern apron be apo-
cryphal), do more 'specially plead to the Jury
Court of old memory. The costume (will he
agnize it ?) was as of a desk-fellow or Socius Plutei.
Methought I spied a brother !

That familiarity is extinct for ever. Curse me
if I can call him Mr. Serjeant — except, mark
me, in company. Honour where honour is due;
but should he ever visit us (do you think he
ever will, Mary?), what a distinction should I
keep up between him and our less fortunate
friend, H[enry] C[rabb] Rfobinson] ! Decent
respect shall always be the Crabb's — but, some-
how, short of reverence.

Well, of my old friends, I have lived to see
two knighted: one made a judge, another in
a fair way to it. Why ami restive ? why stands
my sun upon Gibeah?

Variously, my dear Mrs. Talfourd (I can be
more familiar with her !), Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd,
— my sister prompts me — (these ladies stand
upon ceremonies) — has the congratulable news

294

affected the members of our small community.
Mary comprehended it at once, and entered into
it heartily. Mrs. W[estwoodJ was, as usual, per-
verse— wouldn't, or couldn't, understand it.
A Serjeant ? She thought Mr. T. was in the law.
Did n't know that he ever 'listed.

Emma alone truly sympathised. She had a
silk gown come home that very day, and has
precedence before her learned sisters accord-
ingly.

We are going to drink the health of Mr. and
Mrs. Serjeant, with all the young serjeantry —
and that is all that I can see that I shall get by
the promotion.

Valete, et mementote amici quondam vestri humil-
limi. C. L.

DCXCVII.— TO EDWARD MOXON

1833.

Dear M., — Let us see you and your brother
on Sunday.

The Elias are beautifully got up. Be cautious
how you name the probability of bringing 'em
ever out complete — till these are gone off.
Everybody 'd say "O I '11 wait then."

An't we to have a copy of the Sonnets ?

Mind, I shall insist upon having no more
copies : only I shall take three or four more of
you at trade price. I am resolute about this.

Yours ever

295

DCXCVIII. — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

February, 1833.
CHRISTIAN NAMES OF WOMEN

TO EDITH s[0UTHEYJ

In Christian world Mary the garland wears !
Rebecca sweetens on a Hebrew's ear;
Quakers for pure Priscilla are more clear;
And the light Gaul by amorous Ninon swears.
Among the lesser lights how Lucy shines !
What air of fragrance Rosamund throws round !
How like a hymn doth sweet Cecilia sound !
Of Marthas, and of Abigails, few lines
Have bragg'd in verse. Of coarsest household stuff
Should homely Joan be fashioned. But can
You Barbara resist, or Marian ?
And is not Clare for love excuse enough ?
Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess,
These all, than Saxon Edith, please me less.

Many thanks for the life you have given us :
I am perfectly satisfied. But if you advert to it

again, I give you a delicate hint. Barbara S

shadows under that name Miss Kelly's early life,
and I had the anecdote beautifully from her.

DCXCIX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Early 1833.

No writing, and no word, ever passed between
Taylor, or Hessey, and me, respecting copyright.
This I can swear. They made a volume at their
own will, and volunteer'd me a third of profits,

296

which came to ^30, which came to Bilk, and
never came back to me. Proctor has acted a
friendly part — when did he otherwise ? I am

very sorry to hear Mrs. P as I suppose, is

not so well. I meditated a rallying epistle to him
on his Gemini — his two Sosias, accusing him
of having acted a notable piece of duplicity. But
if his partner in the double dealing suffers, it
would be unseasonable. You cannot remember
me to him too kindly. Your chearful letter has
relieved us from the dumps; all may be well. I
rejoice at your letting your house so magnifi-
cently. Talfourd's letter may be directed to him
" On the Western Circuit." (Is it the Western ?
he goes to Reading, &c.) That is the way, send
it. With Blackwood pray send Piozziana and a
Literary Gazette if you have one. The Piozzi and
that shall be immediately return'd, and I keep
Madame Darblay for you eventually, a long-
winded reader at present having use of it.

The weather is so queer that I will not say I
expect you, &c, but am prepared for the pleasure
of seeing you when you can come.

We had given you up (the postman being
late) and Emma and I have twenty times this
morning been to the door in the rain to spy for
him coming.

Well, I know it is not all settled, but your
letter is chearful and cheer-making.

We join in triple love to you.

Elia & Co.
297

I am settled in any case to take at bookseller's
price any copies I have more. Therefore oblige
me by sending a copy of Elia to Coleridge and
B. Barton, and enquire (at your leisure of course)
how I can send one, with a letter, to Walter
Savage Landor. These three put in your next
bill on me. I am peremptory that it shall be so.
These are all I can want.

DCC — TO B. W. PROCTER

Enfield, Monday.

Dear P , I have more than ^30 in my

house, and am independent of quarter-day, not
having received my pension.

Pray settle, I beg of you, the matter with
Mr. Taylor. I know nothing of bills, but most
gladly will I forward to you that sum for him,
for Mary is very anxious that M[oxon] may not
get into any litigation. The money is literally
rotting in my desk for want of use. I should

not interfere with M , tell M when

you see him, but Mary is really uneasy ; so lay
it to that account, not mine.

Yours ever and two evers, C. L.

Do it smack at once, and I will explain to

M why I did it. It is simply done to ease

her mind. When you have settled, write, and
I '11 send the bank-notes to you twice, in halves.

Deduct from it your share in broken bottles,
298

which, you being capital in your lists, I take to
be two shillings. Do it as you love Mary and
me. Then Elia 's himself again.

DCCI. — TO WILLIAM HONE

March 6, 1833.

Dear Friend, — Thee hast sent a Christian
epistle to me, and I should not feel clear if I
neglected to reply to it, which would have been
sooner if that vain young man, to whom thou
didst intrust it, had not kept it back. We should
rejoice to see thy outward man here, especially
on a day which should not be a first day, being
liable to worldly callers in on that day. Our
little book is delayed by a heathenish injunction,
threatened by the man Taylor. Canst thou copy
and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse
which in my younger days I wrote on friend
Aders' pictures ? Thou wilt find it in the book
called the Table Book.

Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom the world
calleth Mary and Emma, greet you with me.

Ch. Lamb

6th of 3d month, 4th day.

DCCII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

March 19, 1833.

I shall expect Forster and two Moxons on
Sunday, and hope for Procter.

299

I am obliged to be in town next Monday.
Could we contrive to make a party (paying or
not is immaterial) for Miss Kelly's that night,
and can you shelter us after the play, I mean
Emma and me ? I fear, I cannot persuade Mary
to join us.

N. B. I can sleep at a public house. Send an
Elia (mind I insist on buying it) to T. Manning,
Esq., at Sir G. Tuthill's, Cavendish Square. Do
write.

DCCIII. — TO EDWARD MOXON

March 30, 1833.

Dear M., — Emma and we are delighted with
the Sonnets, and she with her nice Walton. Mary
is deep in the novel. Come as early as you can.
I stupidly overlook'd your proposal to meet you
in Green Lanes, for in some strange way I burnt
my leg, shin-quarter, at Forster's ; * it is laid up on
a stool, and Asbury attends. You '11 see us all as
usual, about Taylor, when you come.

Yours ever, C. L.

* Or the night I came home, for I felt it not
bad till yesterday. But I scarce can hobble across
the room. I have secured four places for night :
in haste. Mary and E. do not dream of anything
we have discussed.

300

DCCIV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

Spring, 1833.

Dear M., — Many thanks for the books; the
Faust I will acknowledge to the author. But
most thanks for one immortal sentence, " If I do
not cheat him, never trust me again." I do not
know whether to admire most, the wit or justness
of the sentiment. It has my cordial approbation.
My sense of meum and tuum applauds it. I main-
tain it, the eighth commandment hath a secret
special reservation, by which the reptile is ex-
empt from any protection from it; as a dog, or
a nigger, he is not a holder of property. Not
a ninth of what he detains from the world is
his own. "Keep your hands from picking and
stealing" is no ways referable to his acquists.
I doubt whether bearing false witness against thy
neighbour at all contemplated this possible scrub.
Could Moses have seen the speck in vision ? An
ex post facto law alone could relieve him, and we
are taught to expect no eleventh commandment.
The outlaw to the Mosaic dispensation! — un-
worthy to have seen Moses' behind — to lay his
desecrating hands upon Elia ! Has the irriverent
ark-toucher been struck blind I wonder? The
more I think of him, the less I think of him.
His meanness is invisible with aid of solar micro-
scope; my moral eye smarts at him. The less
flea that bites little fleas! The great beast! the
beggarly nit!

301

More when we meet ; mind, you '11 come, two
of you — and could n't you go off in the morning,
that we may have a day-long curse at him, if
curses are not dis-hallowed by descending so low ?
Amen. Maledicatur in extremis.

DCCV. — TO JOHN FORSTER

Swallow your damn'd dinner and your brandy
and water fast, and come immediately. I want
to take Knowles in to Emma's only female friend
for five minutes only, and we are free for the
evening. I '11 do a Prologue.

DCCVI. — TO EDWARD MOXON
Last line alter to, —

A store of gratitude is left behind.

Because, as it now stands, if the author lays his
hand upon his heart, and emfattically says, —

I have (so and so) behind,

the audience may think it is all my**** in a
bandbox, and so in fact it is. Yours, by old and
new ties, C. Lamb

Condemn them, damn them, hiss them as you will,
Their author is your grateful servant still.

I want to see fouster (not the German foust)
and you, boy.

302

Mind, I don't care the ioo,oooth part of a
bad sixpence if Knowles gets a Prologue more
to his mind.

DCCVII.— TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. ? April 10, 1833.]

Dear M., — The first Oak sonnet and the
Nightingale, may show their faces in any An-
nual unblushing. Some of the others are very
good.

The Sabbath too much what you have written
before.

You are destined to shine in sonnets, I tell
you.

Shall we look for you Sunday, we did in vain
Good Friday [April 5].

DCCVIII. — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

April, 1833.

Dear Sir, — I read your note in a moment of
great perturbation with my landlady and chuck'd
it in the fire, as I should have done an epistle of
Paul, but as far as my sister recalls the import
of it, I reply. The sonnets (36 of them) have
never been printed, much less published, till the
other day (the proof-sheets only were in my hand
about a fortnight ago), save that a few of 'em
have come out in Annuals. Two vols., of poetry
of M.'s, have been publish'd, but they were not

3°3

these. The Nightingale has been in one of those
gewgaws, the Annuals; whether the other I sent
you has, or not, penitus ignoro. But for heaven's
sake do with 'em what you like.

Yours, C. L.

DCCIX. — TO MRS. WILLIAM AYRTON

April (16), 1833.

Dear Mrs. Ayrton, — I do not know which to
admire most, your kindness or your patience, in
copying out that intolerable rabble of panegryc
from over the Atlantic. By the way, now your
hand is in, I wish you would copy out for me the
1 3th, 1 7th, and 24th of Barrow's sermons in folio,
and all of Tillotson's (folio also) except the first,
which I have in manuscript, and which, you
know, is Ayrton's favourite. Then — but I won't
trouble you any farther just now. Why does not
A. come and see me ? Can't he and Henry Crabbe
concert it ? 'T is as easy as lying is to me. Mary's
kindest love to you both. Elia

DCCX. — TO EDWARD MOXON

[April 25, 1833.]

My dear Moxon, — We perfectly agree in your
arrangement. // has quite set my sister s mind at
rest. She will come with you on Sunday, and re-
turn at eve, and I will make comfortable arrange-
ments with the Buffams. We desire to have you

3°4

here dining unWestwooded, and I will try and
get you a bottle of choice port. I have trans-
ferr'd the stock I told you to Emma. The plan
of the Buffams steers admirably between two
niceties. Tell Emma we thoroughly approve it.
As our damn'd Times is a day after the fair, I am
setting off to Enfield Highway to see in a morn-
ing paper (alas ! the Publican's) how the play
ran. Pray, bring four orders for Mr. Asbury —
undated. In haste (not for neglect),

Yours ever, C. Lamb

DCCXI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

[April 27, 1833.]

Dear M., — Mary and I are very poorly. As-
bury says 'tis nothing but influenza. Mr. W.
appears all but dying : he is delirious. Mrs. W.
was taken so last night that Mary was obliged at
midnight to knock up Mrs. Waller to come and
sit up with her. We have had a sick child, who
sleeping or not sleeping, next me with a paste-
board partition between, killed my sleep. The
little bastard is gone. My bedfellows are Cough
and Cramp, we sleep three in a bed. Domestic
arrangements (Blue Butcher and all) devolve on
Mary. Don't come yet to this house of pest and
age. We propose when E. and you agree on the
time, to come up and meet her at the Buffams',
say a week hence, but do you make the appoint-
ment. The Lachlans send her their love.

3°S

I do sadly want those two last Hogarths ; and
an't I to have the Play ?

Mind our spirits are good and we are happy
in your happinesses. C. L.

Our old and ever loves to dear Em.

DCCXII. — TO REV. JAMES GILLMAN

May 7. l833-
By a strange occurrence we have quitted En-
field for ever. Oh ! the happy eternity ! Who is
Vicar or Lecturer for that detestable place con-
cerns us not. But Asbury, surgeon and a good fel-
low, has offered to get you a Mover and Seconder,
and you may use my name freely to him. Except
him and Dr. Creswell, I have no respectable
acquaintance in the dreary village. At least my
friends are all in the public line, and it might
not suit to have it moved at a special vestry by
John Gage at the Crown and Horseshoe, licensed
victualler, and seconded by Joseph Horner of
the Green Dragon, ditto, that the Rev. J. G. is
a fit person to be Lecturer, &c.

My dear James, I wish you all success, but
am too full of my own emancipation almost to
congratulate any one else.

With both our loves to your father and mo-
ther and glorious S. T. C,

Yours, C. Lamb

306

DCCXIII. — TO JOHN FORSTER

Edmonton, May, 1833.

Dear F., — Can you oblige me by sending four
box orders undated for the Olympic Theatre ?
I suppose Knowles can get 'em. It is for the
Waldens, with whom I live. The sooner the
better, that they may not miss the Wife — I meet
you at the Talfourds' Saturday week, and if they
can't, perhaps you can, give me a bed.

Yours, ratherish unwell, C. Lamb

Or write immediately to say if you can't get
'em.

DCCXIV. — TO JOHN FORSTER

[May 12, 1833.]

Dear Boy, — I send you the original E/ias,
complete.

When I am a little composed, I shall hope to
see you and Proctor here ; maybe, may see you
first in London. C. L.

DCCXV.— TO MISS RICKMAN

May 23, 1833.

Dear Miss Rickman, — My being a day in
town, and my being moved from Enfield, made
your letter late, and my reply in consequence.
I am glad you like Elia. Perhaps, as Miss Kelly

3°7

is just now in notoriety, it may amuse you to
know that " Barbara S." is all of it true of ber,
being all communicated to me from her own
mouth. The " wedding " of course you found
out to be Sally Burney's. As to Mrs. G., I know
no reason why your dear mother should not call
upon her. I remember Rickman and she did not
return Mr. and Mrs. G.'s congratulatory visit on
their wedding. No fresh reason has occurred
since to prevent any civilities on their side. By
a sudden illness of my sister (they now last half
the year, in violence first, and a succeeding dread-
ful depression) I have come to the resolution of
living with her under it at a place where she is
under regular treatment, and am at Mr. Walden's,
Church Street, Edmonton. In a few weeks, I
should like one quiet day among you, but not
before. With loves to father and mother, and
your kind-hearted sister, whose Christian name
I am an heathen if I just now can remember,
Yours sincerely, C. Lamb

Mrs. Godwin is a second wife. Mary Wol-
stoncroft has been dead thirty years !

DCCXVL — TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

End of May nearly [1833].

Dear Wordsworth, — Your letter, save in what
respects your dear sister's health, chear'd me in
my new solitude. Mary is ill again. Her illnesses

308

encroach yearly. The last was three months, fol-
lowed by two of depression most dreadful. I look
back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice
little durations of six weeks or so, followed by
complete restoration — shocking as they were to
me then. In short, half her life she is dead to me,
and the other half is made anxious with fears
and lookings forward to the next shock. With
such prospects, it seem'd to me necessary that
she should no longer live with me, and be flut-
tered with continual removals, so I am come to
live with her, at a Mr. Walden's and his wife's,
who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge
and board us only. They have had the care of
her before. I see little of her ; alas ! I too often
hear her. Sunt lachrymae rerum — and you and
I must bear it —

To lay a little more load on it, a circumstance
has happen' d, cujus pars magna fui, and which
at another crisis I should have more rejoiced in.
I am about to lose my old and only walk-com-
panion, whose mirthful spirits were the "youth
of our house," Emma Isola. I have her here
now for a little while, but she is too nervous
properly to be under such a roof, so she will
make short visits, be no more an inmate. With
my perfect approval, and more than concurrence,
she is to be wedded to Moxon at the end of
August. So "perish the roses and the flowers"
— how is it?

Now to the brighter side, I am emancipated

3°9

from most hated and detestable people, the West-
woods. I am with attentive people, and younger.
I am three or four miles nearer the Great City,
coaches half-price less, and going always, of which
I will avail myself. I have few friends left there,
one or two, tho', most beloved. But London
streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, tho' of
the latter not one known one were remaining.

Thank you for your cordial reception of Elia.
Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling with me,
several incongruous things are in it, but in the
composition it served me as illustrative.

I want you in the popular fallacies to like the
" Home that is no home" and " rising with the
lark."

I am feeble, but chearful in this my genial
hot weather, — walk'd sixteen miles yesterday.
I can't read much in summer time.

With very kindest love to all, and prayers for
dear Dorothy, I remain most attachedly yours,

C. Lamb

at mr. walden's, church street, edmonton, mid-
dlesex.

Moxon has introduced Emma to Rogers, and
he smiles upon the project. I have given E.
my Milton — will you pardon me ? — in part of
a portion. It hangs famously in his Murray-like
shop.

\On the wrapper is written :]

Dr. M[oxon], inclose this in a better-looking
310

paper, and get it frank' d, and good b'ye till Sun-
day. Come early — C. L.

DCCXVIL— TO SARAH HAZLITT

Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton,
May 31, 1833.

Dear Mrs. Hazlitt, — I will assuredly come,
and find you out, when I am better. I am driven
from house and home by Mary's illness. I took
a sudden resolution to take my sister to Edmon-
ton, where she was under medical treatment last
time, and have arranged to board and lodge with
the people. Thank God, I have repudiated En-
field. I have got out of hell, despair of heaven,
and must sit down contented in a half-way purga-
tory. Thus ends this strange eventful history.
But I am nearer town, and will get up to you
somehow before long. I repent not of my reso-
lution. 'T is late, and my hand unsteady, so good
b'ye till we meet. Your old C. L.

DCCXVIIL — TO MATILDA BETH AM

June, 1833.

Dear Miss Betham, — I sit down, very poorly,
to write to you, being come to Mr. Walden's,
Church Street, Edmonton,to be altogether with poor
Mary, who is very ill, as usual, only that her ill-
nesses are now as many months as they used to
be weeks in duration ; the reason your letter only

311

just found me. I am saddened with the havoc
death has made in your family. I do not know
how to appreciate the kind regard of dear Anne ;
Mary will understand it two months hence, I
hope ; but neither she nor I would rob you, if
the legacy will be of use to, or comfort to you.
My hand shakes so I can hardly write. On
Saturday week I must come to town, and will
call on you in the morning before one o'clock.
Till when I take kindest leave.

Your old Friend, C. Lamb

DCCXIX. — TO MISS MARY BETHAM

[June 5, 1833.]

Dear Mary Betham, — I remember you all,
and tears come out when I think on the years
that have separated us. That dear Anne should
so long have remember'd us affects me. My dear
Mary, my poor sister, is not, nor will be for two
months perhaps, capable of appreciating the kind
old long memory of dear Anne \who had just died,
leaving j[jo to Mary Lamb].

But not a penny will I take, and I can answer
for my Mary when she recovers, if the sum left
can contribute in any way to the comfort of
Matilda.

We will halve it, or we will take a bit of it,
as a token, rather than wrong her. So pray
consider it as an amicable arrangement. I write
in great haste, or you won't get it before you go.

312

We do not want the money ; but if dear Matilda
does not much want it, why, we will take our
thirds. God bless you. C. Lamb

I am not at Enfield, but at Mr. Walden's,
Church Street, Edmonton, Middlesex.

DCCXX. — TO MRS. NORRIS

[Postmarked] July 10, 1833.

Dear Mrs. Norris, — I wrote to Jekyll, and
sent him an Elia. This is his kind answer. So you
see that he will be glad to see any of you that
shall be in town, and will arrange, if you prefer
it, to accompany you. If you are at Brighton,
Betsey will forward this. I have cut off the
name at the bottom to give to a foolish autograph
fancier. Love to you all. Emma sends her very
kindest. C. Lamb

DCCXXI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

[July 14, 1833.]

Dear M., — The Hogarths are delicate. Per-
haps it will amuse Emma to tell her that, a day
or two since, Miss Norris (Betsy) call'd to me on
the road from London from a gig conveying her
to Widford, and engaged me to come down this
afternoon. I think I shall stay only one night ;
she would have been glad of E.'s accompani-
ment, but I would not disturb her, and Mrs. N.

SIS

is coming to town on Monday, so it would not
have suited. Also, C. V.Le Grice gave me a din-
ner at Johnny Gilpin's yesterday, where we talk'd
of what old friends were taken or left in the
thirty years since we had met.

I shall hope to see her on Tuesday.

To Bless you both, C. L.

DCCXXII. — TO MRS. NORRIS

Edmonton [July 18, 1833].

Dear Mrs. N orris, — I got home safe. Pray
accept these little books, and some of you give
me a line to say you received them. Love to all,
and thanks for three agreeable days. I send them
this afternoon (Tuesday) by Canter's coach. Are
the little girls packed safe ? They can come in
straw, and have eggs under them. Ask them to
lie soft, 'cause eggs smash. Elia

DCCXXIII. — TO THOMAS ALLSOP

My dear Allsop, — I think it will be impos-
sible for us to come to Highgate in the time you
propose. We have friends coming to-morrow,
who may stay the week ; and we are in a bustle
about Emma's leaving us — so we will put off
the hope of seeing Mrs. Allsop till we come to
town, after Emma's going, which is in a fort-
night and a half, when we mean to spend a time

in town, but shall be happy to see you on Sun-
day, or any day.

In haste. Hope our little Porter does.

Yours ever, C. L.

DCCXXIV. — TO MR. TUFF

[Edmonton, 1833.]

Dear Sir, — I learn that Covent Garden, from
its thin houses every night, is likely to be shut
up after Saturday ; so that no time is to be lost
in using the orders. Yours,

C. Lamb

DCCXXV. — TO EDWARD MOXON

July 24, 1833.

For God's sake, give Emma no more watches.
One has turn'd her head. She is arrogant and
insulting. She said something very unpleasant to
our old Clock in the passage, as if he did not keep
time, and yet he had made her no appointment.
She takes it out every instant to look at the mo-
ment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because
there the bird-boys ask you, " Pray, Sir, can you
tell us what 's a Clock," and she answers them
punctually. She loses all her time looking " what
the time is." I overheard her whispering, "Just
so many hours, minutes, &c, to Tuesday — I
think St. George's goes too slow " — This little
present of Time, why, 't is Eternity to her —

3*5

What can make her so fond of a gingerbread
watch ?

She has spoil'd some of the movements. Be-
tween ourselves, she has kissed away " half-past
1 2," which I suppose to be the canonical hour in
Hanover Sq.

Well, if " love me, love my watch " answers,
she will keep time to you — It goes right by the
Horse Guards —

[On the next page:} Emma has kist this yel-
low wafer — a hint.

Dearest M., — Never mind opposite nonsense.
She does not love you for the watch, but the
watch for you.

I will be at the wedding, and keep the 30th
July, as long as my poor months last me, as a fes-
tival gloriously. Yours ever, Elia

We have not heard from Cambridge. I will
write the moment we do.

Edmonton, 24th July, 3.20 post mer. minutes
4 instants by Emma's watch.

DCCXXVI. — CHARLES AND MARY LAMB
TO EDWARD AND EMMA MOXON

July 31* l833-

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Moxon, — Time very short.
I wrote to Miss Fryer, and had the sweetest letter
about you, Emma, that ever friendship dictated.

316

" I am full of good wishes ; I am crying with good
wishes," she says ; but you shall see it.

Dear Moxon, — I take your writing most
kindly and shall most kindly your writing from
Paris.

I want to crowd another letter to Miss Fry
into the little time after dinner before Post time.

So with 20000 congratulations,

Yours, C. L.

I am calm, sober, happy. Turn over for the
reason.

I got home from Dover Street, by Evens, half
as sober as a judge. I am turning over a new leaf,
as I hope you will now.

\On the next leaf Mary Lamb wrote:]
My dear Emma and Edward Moxon, — Ac-
cept my sincere congratulations, and imagine
more good wishes than my weak nerves will let
me put into good set words. The dreary blank
of unanswered questions which I ventured to ask
in vain was cleared up on the wedding-day by
Mrs. W. taking a glass of wine, and, with a total
change of countenance, begged leave to drink
Mr. and Mrs. Moxon's health. It restored me,
from that moment, as if by an electrical stroke, to
the entire possession of my senses : I never felt so
calm and quiet after a similar illness as I do now.
I feel as if all tears were wiped from my eyes, and
all care from my heart. Mary Lamb

3*7

[At the foot of this letter Charles Lamb added i\
Dears Again, — Your letter interrupted a

seventh game at picquet which we were having,

after walking to Wright's and purchasing shoes.

We pass our time in cards, walks, and reading.

We attack Tasso soon. C. L.

Never was such a calm or such a recovery.
T is her own words, undictated.

DCCXXVII. — TO LOUISA BADAMS

August 20, 1833.

Dear Mrs. Badams, — I was at church as the
grave Father, and behaved tolerably well, except
at first entrance when Emma in a whisper re-
pressed a nascent giggle. I am not fit for wed-
dings or burials. Both incite a chuckle. Emma
looked as pretty as Pamela, and made her re-
sponses delicately and firmly. I tripped a little
at the altar, was engaged in admiring the altar-
piece, but, recalled seasonably by a Parsonic
rebuke, "Who gives this woman?" was in time
resolutely to reply " I do." Upon the whole the
thing went offdecently and devoutly. Your dodg-
ing post is excellent ; I take it, it was at Wilsdon.
We shall this week or next dine at Islington. I
am writing to know the day, and in that case see
you the next day and talk of beds. My lodging
may be on the cold floor. I long for a hard fought
game with Badams.

318

With haste and thanks for your unusually en-
tertaining letter, yours truly,

Charles and Mary Lamb

I will write to Miss Jas. soon — was meditat-
ing it.

DCCXXVIII. — TO MISS M. BETH AM

August 23, 1833.

Dear Miss B., — Your bridal verses are very
beautiful. Emma shall have them, as here cor-
rected, when they return. They are in France.
The verses, I repeat, are sweetly pretty. I know
nobody in these parts that wants a servant; in-
deed, I have no acquaintance in this new place,
and rarely come to town.

The rule of Christ's Hospital is rigorous, that
the marriage certificate of the parents be pro-
duced, previous to the presentation of a boy, so
that your renowned protege has no chance.

Never trouble yourself about Dyer's neigh-
bour. He will only tell you a parcel of fibs, and
is impracticable to any advice. He has been
long married and parted, and has to pay his wife
a weekly allowance to this day, besides other in-
cumbrances.

In haste and headake, yours,

^Signature lostl\

3IQ

DCCXXIX. — TO H. F. CARY

September 9, 1833.

Dear Sir, — Your packet I have only just re-
ceived, owing, I suppose, to the absence of
Moxon, who is flaunting it about a la Parisienne
with his new bride, our Emma, much to his
satisfaction and not a little to our dulness. We
shall be quite well by the time you return from
Worcestershire, and most most (observe the repe-
tition) glad to see you here or anywhere.

I will take my time with Darley's act. I wish
poets would write a little plainer; he begins some
of his words with a letter which is unknown to
the English typography. Yours, most truly,

C. Lamb

P. S. Pray let me know when you return.
We are at Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Ed-
monton; no longer at Enfield. You will be
amused to hear that my sister and I have, with
the aid of Emma, scrambled through the Inferno
by the blessed furtherance of your polar-star trans-
lation. I think we scarce left anything unmade-
out. But our partner has left us, and we have
not yet resumed. Mary's chief pride in it was
that she should some day brag of it to you.
Your Dante and Sandys' Ovid are the only help-
mates of translations. Neither of you shirk a
word.

Fairfax's Tasso is no translation at all. It 's
320

better in some places ; but it merely observes the
number of stanzas; as for images, similes, &c,
he finds 'em himself, and never " troubles Peter
for the matter."

In haste, dear Cary, yours ever,

C. Lamb

Has Moxon sent you Elia, second volume ? if
not, he shall. Taylor and we are at law about it.

DCCXXX.— TO EDWARD MOXON

September 26, 1833.

We shall be most happy to see Emma, dear to
everybody. Mary's spirits are much better, and
she longs to see again our twelve years' friend.
You shall afternoon sip with me a bottle of
superexcellent Port, after deducting a dinner-
glass for them. We rejoyce to have E. come, the

first visit, without Miss , who, I trust, will

yet behave well ; but she might perplex Mary
with questions.

Pindar sadly wants Preface and notes. Pray,
E., get to Snow Hill before twelve, for we dine
before two. We will make it two. By mistake
I gave you Miss Betham's letter, with the ex-
quisite verses, which pray return to me, or if it
be an improved copy, give me the other, and
albumize mine, keeping the signature. It is too
pretty a family portrait, for you not to cherish.

Your loving friends, C. Lamb, M. Lamb
321

NOTE

[The following poem was addressed to Moxon by Lamb,
and printed in The Atkenaum, December 7, 1833 :

TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE

What makes a happy wedlock ? What has fate

Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate ?

Good sense — good humour ; — these are trivial things,

Dear M , that each trite encomiast sings.

But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt
From every low-bred passion, where contempt,
Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found
A harbour yet ; an understanding sound ;
Just views of right and wrong ; perception full
Of the deformed, and of the beautiful,
In life and manners ; wit above her sex,
Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks ;
Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth,
To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth ;
A noble nature, conqueror in the strife
Of conflict with a hard discouraging life,
Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power
Of those whose days have been one silken hour,
Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring ; a keen sense
Alike of benefit, and of offence,
With reconcilement quick, that instant springs
From the charged heart with nimble angel wings ;
While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd
By a strong hand, seem burnt into her mind.
If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer
Richer than land, thou hast them all in her ;
And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon,
Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.]

DCCXXXL — TO EDWARD MOXON

October 17, 1833.

Dear M., — Get me Shirley (there 's a dear
fellow) and send it soon. We sadly want books,
and this will be readable again and again, and
pay itself. Tell Emma I grieve for the poor self-

322

punishing self-baffling lady ; with all our hearts
we grieve for the pain and vexation she has en-
counter'd ; but we do not swerve a pin's-thought
from the propriety of your measures. God com-
fort her, and there 's an end of a painful neces-
sity. But I am glad she goes to see her. Let her
keep up all the kindness she can between them.
In a week or two I hope Mary will be stout
enough to come among ye, but she is not now,
and I have scruples of coming alone, as she has
no pleasant friend to sit with her in my absence.
We are lonely. I fear the visits must be mostly
from you. By the way omnibuses are ij\ yi.
and coach insides sunk to is. 6d. — a hint. With-
out disturbance to yourselves, or upsetting the
economy of the dear new mistress of a family,
come and see us as often as ever you can. We
are so out of the world, that a letter from either
of you now and then, detailing anything, book
or town news, is as good as a newspaper. I have
desperate colds, cramps, megrims, &c, but do
not despond. My fingers are numb'd, as you see
by my writing. Tell E. I am very good also. But
we are poor devils ; that 's the truth of it. I
won't apply to Dilke — just now at least; I sin-
cerely hope the pastoral air of Dover St. will
recruit poor Harriet. With best loves to all.
Yours ever, C. L.

Ryle and Lowe dined here on Sunday; the
manners of the latter, so gentlemanly! have

323

attracted the special admiration of our landlady.
She guest R. to be nearly of my age. He always
had an old head on young shoulders. I fear I
shall always have the opposite. Tell me anything
of Foster [Forster] or anybody. Write anything
you think will amuse me. I do dearly hope in
a week or two to surprise you with our appear-
ance in Dover St.

DCCXXXIL— TO EDWARD MOXON

November 29, 1833.

Mary is of opinion with me that two of these
Sonnets are of a higher grade than any poetry
you have done yet. The one to Emma is so
pretty ! I have only allowed myself to transpose
a word in the third line. Sacred shall it be for
any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg
that you will make four lines in the room of the
four last. Read Darby and Joan, in Mrs. Moxon's
first album. There you '11 see how beautiful in
age the looking back to youthful years in an old
couple is. But it is a violence to the feelings to
anticipate that time in youth. I hope you and
Emma will have many a quarrel and many a
make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation !)
before the dark days shall come, in which ye
shall say " there is small comfort in them." You
have begun a sort of character of Emma in them
very sweetly; carry it on, if you can, through
the last lines.

324

I love the sonnet to my heart, and you shall
finish it, and I '11 be damn'd if I furnish a line
towards it. So much for that. The next best is,

TO THE OCEAN

Ye gallant winds, if e'er your lusty cheeks

Blew longing lover to his mistress' side,

O, puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide,

is spirited. The last line I altered, and have re-
altered it as it stood. It is closer. These two
are your best. But take a good deal of time in
finishing the first. How proud should Emma be
of her poets !

Perhaps "O Ocean" (though I like it) is too
much of the open vowels, which Pope objects
to. "Great Ocean!" is obvious. "To save sad
thoughts," I think is better (though not good)
than for the mind to save herself. But 't is a
noble sonnet. St. Cloud I have no fault to find
with.

If I return the Sonnets, think it no disrespect ;
for I look for a printed copy. You have done
better than ever. And now for a reason I did
not notice 'em earlier: on Wednesday they came,
and on Wednesday I was a-gadding. Mary gave
me a holiday, and I set off to Snow Hill. From
Snow Hill I deliberately was marching down,
with noble Holborn before me, framing in
mental cogitation a map of the dear London in
prospect, thinking to traverse Wardour Street,
&c, when diabolically I was interrupted by

325

Heigh-ho!

Little Barrow! —
Emma knows him, — and prevailed on to spend
the day at his sister's, where was an album, and
(O march of intellect!) plenty of literary con-
versation, and more acquaintance with the state
of modern poetry than I could keep up with.
I was positively distanced. Knowles' play, which,
epilogued by me, lay on the piano, alone made me
hold up my head. When I came home I read your
letter, and glimpsed at your beautiful sonnet, —

Fair art thou as the morning, my young bride,

and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but deter-
mined not to open them till next day, being in
a state not to be told of at Chatteris. Tell it not
in Gath, Emma, lest the daughters triumph ! I
am at the end of my tether. I wish you could
come on Tuesday with your fair bride. Why
can't you ? Do. We are thankful to your sister
for being of the party. Come, and bring a sonnet
on Mary's birthday. Love to the whole Mox-
onry, and tell E. I every day love her more, and
miss her less. Tell her so from her loving uncle,
as she has let me call myself. I bought a fine
embossed card yesterday, and wrote for the Pawn-
brokeress's album. She is a Miss Brown, engaged
to a Mr. White. One of the lines was (I forget
the rest — but she had them at twenty-four
hours' notice; she is going out to India with her
husband), —

326

May your fame
And fortune, Frances, Whiten with your name !

Not bad as a pun. I wil expect you before two
on Tuesday. I am well and happy, tell E.

DCCXXXIIL— TO MISS FRANCES BROWN

Edmonton, November, 1833.

Dear Frances, — Will you accept these poor
lines, and curl them into your album, clipping
the corners? They will cost you threepence,
which your Aunt Mary will pay you, and then
she will owe me ninepence, from the old shilling
she lost, as she says, in the sawpit. My sister joins
me in remembrances to you all. C. Lamb

I hope your sweetheart's name is White.
Else it will spoil all. May be 't is Black. Then
we must alter it. And may your fortunes blacken
with your name.

DCCXXXIV. — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

Middle December, 1833.

I hoped R. would like his sonnet, but I fear'd
S., that fine old man, might not quite like the turn
of it. This last was penn'd almost literally ex-
tempore. Your Laureat

Is S.'s Christian name Thomas? if not, cor-
rect it.

327

NOTE
[« R." — Rogers ; " S." Stothard. See next letter.]

DCCXXXV. — TO SAMUEL ROGERS

December 21, 1833.

My dear Sir, — Your book, by the unremit-
ting punctuality of your publisher, has reached
me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will till
to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough
reading of it. The Pleasures of Memory was the
first school present I made to Mrs. Moxon — it
had those nice wood-cuts; and I believe she
keeps it still. Believe me, that all the kindness
you have shown to the husband of that excellent
person seems done unto myself. I have tried
my hand at a sonnet in the Times. But the turn
I gave it, though I hoped it would not displease
you, I thought might not be equally agreeable
to your artist. I met that dear old man at poor
Henry's — with you — and again at Cary's —
and it was sublime to see him sit deaf and enjoy
all that was going on in mirth with the company.
He reposed upon the many graceful, many fan-
tastic images he had created; with them he
dined and took wine.

I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses
in the Athenaum to him, in which he is as every-
thing and you as nothing. He is no lawyer who
cannot take two sides. But I am jealous of the
combination of the sister arts. Let them sparkle

328

apart. What injury (short of the theatres) did
not Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery do me with
Shakespeare ? — to have Opie's Shakespeare,
Northcote's Shakespeare, light-headed Fuseli's
Shakespeare, heavy-headed Romney's Shake-
speare, wooden-headed West's Shakespeare
(though he did the best in Lear}, deaf-headed
Reynolds's Shakespeare, instead of my, and every-
body's Shakespeare. To be tied down to an
authentic face of Juliet! To have Imogen's por-
trait ! To confine the illimitable ! I like you
and Stothard (you best), but " out upon this half-
faced fellowship." Sir, when I have read the
book I may trouble you, through Moxon, with
some faint criticisms. It is not the flatteringest
compliment, in a letter to an author, to say you
have not read his book yet. But the devil of a
reader he must be who prances through it in five
minutes, and no longer have I received the parcel.
It was a little tantalizing to me to receive a letter
from Landor, Gebir Landor, from Florence, to
say he was just sitting down to read my Elia,
just received, but the letter was to go out before
the reading. There are calamities in authorship
which only authors know. I am going to call
on Moxon on Monday, if the throng of carriages
in Dover Street on the morn of publication do
not barricade me out.

With many thanks, and most respectful re-
membrances to your sister, yours,

C. Lamb

329

Have you seen Coleridge's happy exemplifica-
tion in English of the Ovidian elegiac metre ? —

In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery current,
In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down.

My sister is papering up the book — careful
soul !

DCCXXXVL — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

I have read the enclosed five and forty times
over. I have submitted it to my Edmonton
friends; at last (O Argus' penetration), I have
discovered a dash that might be dispensed with.
Pray don't trouble yourself with such useless cour-
tesies. I can well trust your editor, when I don't
use queer phrases which prove themselves wrong
by creating a distrust in the sober compositor.

DCCXXXVII. — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

Church Street, Edmonton. [No date.]

May I now claim of you the benefit of the
loan of some books ? Do not fear sending too
many. But do not if it be irksome to yourself, —
such as shall make you say, " Damn it, here 's
Lamb's box come again." Dog's-leaves ensured!
Any light stuff: no natural history or useful
learning, such as Pyramids, Catacombs, Giraffes,
Adventures in Southern Africa, Sec, &c.

With our joint compliments, yours,

C. Lamb

33°

Novels for the last two years, or further back —
nonsense of any period.

DCCXXXVIIL — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

[No date. Spring, 1834.]

Dear Sir, — I return forty-four volumes by
Tate. If they are not all your own, and some of
mine have slipt in, I do not think you will lose
much. Shall I go on with the Table Talk? I
will, if you like it, when the Culinary article has
appear' d.

Robins, the carrier, from the Swan, Snow Hill,
will bring any more contributions, thankfully to
be receiv'd ; I pay backwards and forwards.

C. Lamb

DCCXXXIX. — TO THOMAS HOOD

1834.

Dear Hood, — I have been infinitely amused
with Tylney Hall. 'T is a medley, without con-
fusion, of farce, melodrame, comedy, tragedy,
punchery, what-not. The Fete is as good as
H.'s Strollers in the Barn. For the serious part,
the warning Puci shouts over Raby's head is
most impressive. Duly Luckless Joe should not
have been halter' d; his Fates were brazen [?],
and not absolutely inexorable Clothos, and the
Creole should have been hanged. The puns are
so neat that the most inveterate foe to that kind

331

of joke, not being expectant of 'em, might read
it all through and not find you out. With kind
remembrances to Mrs. Hood, yours,

C. Lamb

My sister, I hope, will relish it by and by, but
it puzzles her to read above a page or two a day.

DCCXL. — TO MARY BETHAM

Edmonton, January 24, 1834.

Dear Mary Betham, — I received the bill, and
when it is payable, some ten or twelve days hence,
will punctually do with the overplus as you direct.
I thought you would like to know it came to
hand, so I have not waited for the uncertainty
of when your nephew sets out. I suppose my
receipt will serve, for poor Mary is not in a
capacity to sign it. After being well from the
end of July to the end of December, she was
taken ill almost on the first day of the New Year,
and is as bad as poor creature can be. I expect
her fever to last fourteen or fifteen weeks — if
she gets well at all, which every successive illness
puts me in fear of. She has less and less strength
to throw it off, and they leave a dreadful depres-
sion after them. She was quite comfortable a few
weeks since, when Matilda came down here to
see us.

You shall excuse a short letter, for my hand
is unsteady. Indeed, the situation I am in with

332

her shakes me sadly. She was quite able to appre-
ciate the kind legacy while she was well. Imag-
ine her kindest love to you, which is but buried
a while, and believe all the good wishes for your
restoration to health from C. Lamb

DCCXLI. — TO EDWARD MOXON

[January 28, 1834.]

I met with a man at my half-way house, who
told me many anecdotes of Kean's younger life.
He knew him thoroughly. His name is Wyatt,
living near the Bell, Edmonton. Also he referred
me to West, a publican, opposite St. George's
Church, Southwark, who knew him more inti-
mately. Is it worth Forster's while to enquire
after them ? C. L.

DCCXLII. — TO WILLIAM HONE

Church Street, Edmonton,
February 7, 1834.

My dear Sir, — I compassionate very much
your failure and your infirmities. I am in afflic-
tion. I am come to Edmonton to live altogether
with Mary, at the house where she is nursed, and
where we see nobody while she is ill, which is,
alas ! the greater part of the year now.

I cannot but think your application, with a
full statement, to the Literary Fund must succeed.
Your little political heats many years are past.

333

You are now remember' d but as the editor of the
Every Day and Table Books. To them appeal.
You have Southey's testimony to their meritori-
ousness. He must be blind indeed who sees ought
in them but what is good-hearted, void of offence
to God and man. I know not a single member
of the Fund, but to whomsoever you may refer
to me I am ready to affirm that your speech and
actions since I have known you — ten or eleven
years I think — have been the most opposite to
anything profane or irreligious, and that in your
domestic relations a kinder husband or father,
as it seemed to me, could not be. Suppose you
transmitted your case, or petition, to Mr. Dilke,
editor of the Athenceum, with this note of mine ;
he knows me, and he may know some of the
Literary Society. I am totally unacquainted with
them.

With best wishes to you and Mrs. Hone,
Yours faithfully, C. Lamb

DCCXLIII. — TO MISS FRYER

February 14, 1834.

Dear Miss Fryer, — Your letter found me just
returned from keeping my birthday (pretty inno-
cent!) at Dover Street. I see them pretty often.
I have since had letters of business to write, or
should have replied earlier. In one word, be less
uneasy about me ; I bear my privations very well ;
I am not in the depths of desolation, as hereto-

334

fore. Your admonitions are not lost upon me.
Your kindness has sunk into my heart. Have
faith in me ! It is no new thing for me to be
left to my sister. When she is not violent, her
rambling chat is better to me than the sense and
sanity of this world. Her heart is obscured, not
buried ; it breaks out occasionally ; and one can
discern a strong mind struggling with the billows
that have gone over it. I could be nowhere
happier than under the same roof with her. Her
memory is unnaturally strong ; and from ages
past, if we may so call the earliest records of our
poor life, she fetches thousands of names and
things that never would have dawned upon me
again, and thousands from the ten years she lived
before me. What took place from early girlhood
to her coming of age principally lives again (every
important thing and every trifle) in her brain
with the vividness of real presence. For twelve
hours incessantly she will pour out without
intermission all her past life, forgetting nothing,
pouring out name after name to the Waldens as
a dream ; sense and nonsense ; truths and errors
huddled together ; a medley between inspiration
and possession. What things we are ! I know
you will bear with me, talking of these things.
It seems to ease me ; for I have nobody to tell
these things to now.

Emma, I see, has got a harp ! and is learning
to play. She has framed her three Walton pic-
tures, and pretty they look. That is a book you

335

should read ; such sweet religion in it — next
to Woolman's ! though the subject be baits and
hooks, and worms and fishes. She has my copy
at present to do two more from.

Very, very tired, I began this epistle, having
been epistolising all the morning, and very kindly
would I end it, could I find adequate expressions
to your kindness. We did set our minds on
seeing you in spring. One of us will indubitably.
But I am not skilled in almanac learning, to
know when spring precisely begins and ends.
Pardon my blots; I am glad you like your book.
I wish it had been half as worthy of your accept-
ance as John Woolman. But 't is a good-natured
book.

DCCXLIV. — TO MISS FRYER

[No date.]

My dear Miss Fryer, — By desire of Emma
I have attempted new words to the old nonsense
of Tartar Drum; but with the nonsense the sound
and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone,
and we have agreed to discard the new version
altogether. As you may be more fastidious in
singing mere silliness, and a string of well-
sounding images without sense or coherence —
Drums of Tartars, who use none, and Tulip trees
ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sun-
beams, &c, — than we are, so you are at liberty
to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little

336

sense, tho' I like Little-sense less than his vagary-
ing younger sister No-sense — so I send them —

The fourth line of first stanza is from an old
ballad.

Emma is looking weller and handsomer (as
you say) than ever. Really, if she goes on thus
improving, by the time she is nine and thirty
she will be a tolerable comely person. But I
may not live to see it. — I take beauty to be
catching — a cholera sort of thing. Now, whether
the constant presence of a handsome object —
for there 's only two of us — may not have the
effect — but the subject is delicate, and as my
old great-Ant used to say — " Andsome is as
andsome duzz" — that was my great-Ant's way
of spelling — (Emma's way of spelling Miss Um-
fris, as I spell her Aunt).

Most and best kind things say to yourself and
dear Mother for all your kindnesses to our Em.,
tho' in truth I am a little tired with her ever-
lasting repetition of 'em. Yours very truly,

Ch. Lamb

love will come

Tune : " The Tartar Drum "
I

Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal,
From the smooth Intruder free ;

Cage thine heart in bars of chrystal,
Lock it with a golden key :

Thro' the bars demurely stealing —
Noiseless footstep, accent dumb,

337

His approach to none revealing —
Watch, or watch not, Love will come.

His approach to none revealing —

Watch, or watch not, Love will come — Love,
Watch, or watch not, Love will come.

Scornful Beauty may deny him —

He hath spells to charm disdain ;
Homely Features may defy him —

Both at length must wear the chain.
Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes —

Hermit poor with age o'ercome —
His soft plea at last convinces;

Sooner, later, Love will come —

His soft plea at length convinces;

Sooner, later, Love will come — Love,
Sooner, later, Love will come.

DCCXLV.— TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Church Street, Edmonton, February 22 [1834].

Dear Wordsworth, — I write from a house of
mourning. The oldest and best friends I have
left are in trouble. A branch of them (and they
of the best stock of God's creatures, I believe) is
establishing a school at Carlisle. Her name is
Louisa Martin, her address 75 Castle Street, Car-
lisle; her qualities (and her motives for this
exertion) are the most amiable, most upright.
For thirty years she has been tried by me, and
on her behaviour I would stake my soul. O if
you can recommend her, how would I love you !
if I could love you better. Pray, pray, recom-

338

mend her. She is as good a human creature, —
next to my sister, perhaps the most exemplary
female I ever knew. Moxon tells me you would
like a letter from me. You shall have one. This
I cannot mingle up with any nonsense which you
usually tolerate from, C. Lamb. Need he add
loves to wife, sister, and all ?

Poor Mary is ill again, after a short lucid in-
terval of four or five months. In short, I may
call her half dead to me.

Good you are to me. Yours with fervour of
friendship; forever.

Turn over.

If you want references, the Bishop of Carlisle
may be one. Louisa's sister (as good as she, she
cannot be better tho' she tries) educated the
daughters of the late Earl of Carnarvon, and he
settled a handsome annuity on her for life. In
short all the family are a sound rock. The pre-
sent Lord Carnarvon married Howard of Gray-
stock's sister.

NOTE

[Wordsworth has written on the wrapper, " Lamb's last
letter."]

DCCXLVL — TO THOMAS MANNING

May 10, 1834.

You made me feel so funny, so happy-like ; it
was as if I was reading one of your old letters
taken out at hazard any time between the last

339

twenty years, 't was so the same. The unity of
place, a garden ! The old Dramatis Personae, a
landlady and daughter. The puns the same in
mould. Will nothing change you? 'T is but a
short week since honest Ryle and I were lament-
ing the gone-by days of Manning and whist.
How savourily did he remember them! Might
some great year but bring them back again !
This was my exclaim, and R. did not ask for an
explanation.

I have had a scurvy nine years of it, and am
now in the sorry fifth act. Twenty weeks nigh
has she been now violent, with but a few sound
months before, and these in such dejection that
her fever might seem a relief to it. I tried to
bring her to town in the winter once or twice,
but it failed. Tuthill led me to expect that this
illness would lengthen with her years, and it has
cruelly — with that new feature of despondency
after. I am with her alone now in a proper
house. She is, I hope, recovering. We play
picquet, and it is like the old times a while, then
goes off. I struggle to town rarely, and then
to see London, with little other motive; for
what is left there hardly? The streets and shops
entertaining ever, else I feel as in a desert, and
get me home to my cave. Save that once a
month I pass a day, a gleam in my life, with
Cary at the Museum (he is the flower of clergy-
men) and breakfast next morning with Robinson.
I look to tbis as a treat. It sustains me. C. is

34°

a dear fellow, with but two vices, which in any
less good than himself would be crimes past re-
demption. He has no relish for Parson Adams ;
hints that he might not be a very great Greek
scholar after all (does Fielding hint that he was
a Porson ?) — and prefers Ye shepherds so cheerful
and gay, and My banks they are furnished with bees,
to The Schoolmistress. I have not seen Wright's,
but the faithfulness of C. Mary and I can attest.
For last year, in a good interval, I giving some
lessons to Emma, now Mrs. Moxon, in the sense
part of her Italian (I knew no words), Mary
pertinaciously undertook, being sixty-nine, to
read the Inferno all thro' with the help of his
translation, and we got thro' it with dictionaries
and grammars, of course to our satisfaction. Her
perseverance was gigantic, almost painful. Her
head was over her task, like a sucking bee, morn
to night. We were beginning the Purgatory,
but got on less rapidly, our great authority for
grammar, Emma, being fled, but should have
proceeded but for this misfortune. Do not come
to town without apprising me. We must all
three meet somehow and "drink a cup."

Yours, C. L.

Mary strives and struggles to be content when
she is well. Last year when we talked of being
dull (we had just lost our seven-years-nearly in-
mate), and Gary's invitation came, she said,
" Did not I say something or other would turn

341

up?" In her first walk out of the house, she
would read every auction advertisement along
the road, and when I would stop her she said,
"These are my play-bills. " She felt glad to get
into the world again, but then follows lowness.
She is getting about, tho', I very much hope.
She is rising, and will claim her morning pic-
quet. I go to put this in the post first. I walk
nine or ten miles a day, always up the road,
dear London-wards. Fields, flowers, birds, and
green lanes I have no heart for. The bare road
is cheerful, and almost as good as a street. I
saunter to the Red Lion duly, as you used to
the Peacock.

NOTE
[Lamb's last letter to Manning.]

DCCXLVII. — TO CHARLES C. CLARKE

[No date. End of June, 1834.]

We heard the music in the Abbey at Winch-
more Hill ! and the notes were incomparably
soften'd by the distance. Novello's chromatics
were distinctly audible. Clara was faulty in B
flat. Otherwise she sang like an angel. The
trombone and Beethoven's walzes were the best.
Who played the oboe?

NOTE

[The letter refers to the performance of Handel's " Crea-
tion," at the Musical Festival, in Westminster Abbey, on

342

June 24, 1834, when Novello and Atwood were the organists,
and Clara Novello (Countess Gigliucci) was one of the
singers.]

DCCXLVTII.— TO JOHN FORSTER

[June 25, 1834.]

Dear F., — I simply sent for the Miltons be-
cause Alsop has some Books of mine, and I
thought they might travel with them. But keep
'em as much longer as you like. I never trouble
my head with other people's quarrels; I do not
always understand my own. I seldom see them
in Dover Street. I know as little as the Man in
the Moon about your joint transactions, and care
as little. If you have lost a little portion of my
"good will," it is that you do not come and
see me. Arrange with Procter, when you have
done with your moving accidents.

Yours, ambulaturus, C. L.

DCCXLIX. — TO J. FULLER RUSSELL

[Summer, 1834.]

Mr. Lamb's compliments, and shall be happy
to look over the lines as soon as ever Mr. Russell
shall send them. He is at Mr. Walden's, —
Church {not Bury) St., Edmd.

Line 10. "Ween," and "wist," and "wot,"
and "eke" are antiquated frippery, and unmod-
ernize a poem rather than give it an antique air,

343

as some strong old words may do. " I guess," " I
know," " I knew," are quite as significant.

31. Why " ee " — barbarous Scoticism ! —
when " eye " is much better and chimes to " cav-
alry " ? A sprinkling of disused words where all
the style else is after the approved recent fashion
teases and puzzles.

37* [Anon the storm begins to slake,
The sullen clouds to melt away,
The moon becalmed in a blue lake
Looks down with melancholy ray.]

The moon becalmed in a blue lake would be
more apt to look up. I see my error — the sky is
the lake — and beg you to laugh at it.

59. What is a maiden's " een," south of the
Tweed ? You may as well call her prettily turned
ears her " lugs."

" On the maiden's lugs they fall " (verse 79).

144. "A coy young Miss " will never do. For
though you are presumed to be a modern, writing
only of days of old, yet you should not write a
word purely unintelligible to your heroine. Some
understanding should be kept up between you.
" Miss " is a nickname not two centuries old ;
came in at about the Restoration. The " King's
Misses " is the oldest use of it I can remember.
It is Mistress Anne Page, not Miss Page. Modern
names and usages should be kept out of sight in
an old subject. W. Scott was sadly faulty in this
respect.

344

2o8. [Tear of sympathy.] Pity's sacred dew.
Sympathy is a young lady's word, rife in modern
novels, and is almost always wrongly applied. To
sympathize is to feel with, not simply for another.
I write verses and sympathize with you. You have
the toothache, I have not ; I feel for you, I can-
not sympathize.

243. What is "sheen " ? Has it more signifi-
cance than "bright" ? Richmond in its old name
was Shene. Would you call an omnibus to take
you to Shene ? How the "all's right " man would
stare !

36 3' [The violet nestled in the shade,

Which fills with perfume all the glade,
Yet bashful as a timid maid
Thinks to elude the searching eye
Of every stranger passing by,
Might well compare with Emily.]

A strangely involved simile. The maiden is lik-
en'd to a violet which has been just before likened
to a maid. Yet it reads prettily, and I would not
have it alter'd.

420. "Een" come again? In line 407 you
speak it out " eye " bravely like an Englishman.

468. Sorceresses do not entice by wrinkles,
but, being essentially aged, appear in assumed
beauty.

NOTE

[This communication was sent to Notes and Queries by the
late Mr. J. Fuller Russell, F.S. A., with this explanation : " I
was residing at Enfield in the Cambridge Long Vacation, 1834,
and — perhaps to the neglect of more improving pursuits —

345

composed a metrical novel, named ' Emily de Wilton,' in three
parts. When the first of them was completed, I ventured to
introduce myself to Charles Lamb (who was living at Edmon-
ton at the time), and telling him what I had done, and that I
had ' scarcely heart to proceed until I had obtained the opinion
of a competent judge respecting my verses,' I asked him to
' while away an idle hour in their perusal,' adding, ' I fear you
will think me very rude and very intrusive, but I am one of the
most nervous souls in Christendom.' Moved, possibly, by this
diffident (not to say unusual) confession, Elia speedily gave his
consent."

The poem was never printed. Lamb's pains in this matter
serve to show how kindly disposed he was in these later years
to all young men; and how exact a sense of words he had. —
E. V. Lucas.]

DCCL. — TO J. FULLER RUSSELL

[Summer, 1834.]

Sir, — I hope you will finish Emily. The story
I cannot at this stage anticipate. Some looseness
of diction I have taken liberty to advert to. It
wants a little more severity of style. There are
too many prettinesses, but parts of the poem are
better than pretty, and I thank you for the
perusal. Your humble Servant, C. Lamb

Perhaps you will favour me with a call while
you stay.

DCCLL — TO CHARLES W. DILKE

[No date. End of July, 1834.]

Dear Sir, — I am totally incapable of doing
346

what you suggest at present, and think it right to
tell you so without delay. It would shock me, who
am shocked enough already, to sit down to write
about it. I have no letters of poor C. By and
bye what scraps I have shall be yours. Pray ex-
cuse me. It is not for want of obliging you, I
assure you. For your box we most cordially feel
thankful. I shall be your debtor in my poor way.
I do assure you I am incapable. Again, excuse
me. Yours sincerely, C. L.

NOTE

[Coleridge's death had occurred on July 25, in his sixty-
second year ; and Dilke had written to Lamb asking for some
words on that event, for The Atherneum. A little while later
a request was made by John Forster that Lamb would write
something for the album of a Mr. Keymer. It was then that
Lamb wrote the few words that stand under the title On the
Death of Coleridge. — E. V. Lucas.]

DCCLII. — TO REV. JAMES GILLMAN

Edmonton, August 5, 1834.

My dear Sir, — The sad week being over, I
must write to you to say that I was glad of being
spared from attending ; I have no words to ex-
press my feeling with you all. I can only say
that when you think a short visit from me would
be acceptable, when your father and mother
shall be able to see me with comfort, I will come
to the bereaved house. Express to them my ten-
derest regards and hopes that they will continue

347

our friends still. We both love and respect them
as much as a human being can, and finally thank
them with our hearts for what they have been to
the poor departed. God bless you all,

C. Lamb

DCCLIII. — TO J. H. GREEN

August 26, 1834.

I thank you deeply for a copy of the will
(Coleridge's), which I had seen, but without the
codicil at Highgate. My sister and myself are
highly gratified at the affectionate remembrance
from our dear old friend. I will endeavour to
collect and send all the fragments we possess of
his handwriting from leaves of good old books,
&c. Letters I fear I have none, having been long
improvident of preserving any. Accept our grat-
itude for your reverential care of his memory and
wishes C. Lamb

DCCLIV. — TO H. F. CARY

September 12, 1834.

Dear C, — We long to see you, and hear
account of your peregrinations, of the Tun at
Heidelburg, the Clock at Strasburg, the statue
at Rotterdam, the dainty Rhenish and poignant
Moselle wines, Westphalian hams, and Botargoes
of Altona. But perhaps you have seen not tasted
any of these things.

348

Yours, very glad to claim you back again to
your proper centre, books and Bibliothecae,

C. and M. Lamb

" By Cot's plessing we will not be absence at
the grace."

I have only got your note just now per negli-
gentiam periniqui Moxoni.

DCCLV. — TO H. F. CARY

October, 1834.

I protest I know not in what words to invest
my sense of the shameful violation of hospitality,
which I was guilty of on that fatal Wednesday.
Let it be blotted from the calendar. Had it been
committed at a layman's house, say a merchant's
or manufacturer's, a cheesemonger's or green-
grocer's, or, to go higher, a barrister's, a member
of Parliament's, a rich banker's, I should have
felt alleviation, a drop of self-pity. But to be
seen deliberately to go out of the house of a
clergyman drunk ! a clergyman of the Church of
England too ! not that alone, but of an expounder
of that dark Italian Hierophant, an exposition
little short of his who dared unfold the Apoca-
lypse : divine riddles both and (without supernal
grace vouchsafed) Arks not to be fingered with-
out present blasting to the touchers. And, then,
from what house ! Not a common glebe or vic-
arage (which yet had been shameful), but from

349

a kingly repository of sciences, human and di-
vine, with the primate of England for its guard-
ian, arrayed in public majesty, from which the
profane vulgar are bid fly.

Could all those volumes have taught me no-
thing better ! With feverish eyes on the succeed-
ing dawn I opened upon the faint light, enough
to distinguish, in a strange chamber not imme-
diately to be recognised, garters, hose, waistcoat,
neckerchief, arranged in dreadful order and pro-
portion, which I knew was not mine own. 'Tis
the common symptom, on awakening, I judge
my last night's condition from. A tolerable scat-
tering on the floor I hail as being too probably
my own, and if the candle-stick be not removed,
I assoil myself. But this finical arrangement,
this finding everything in the morning in exact
diametrical rectitude, torments me. By whom
was I divested ? Burning blushes! not by the fair
hands of nymphs, the Buffam Graces ? Remote
whispers suggested that I coached it home in tri-
umph — far be that from working pride in me,
for I was unconscious of the locomotion ; that
a young Mentor accompanied a reprobate old
Telemachus ; that, the Trojan like, he bore his
charge upon his shoulders, while the wretched
incubus, in glimmering sense, hiccuped drunken
snatches of flying on the bats' wings after sunset.
An aged servitor was also hinted at, to make
disgrace more complete : one, to whom my
ignominy may offer further occasions of revolt

35°

(to which he was before too fondly inclining)
from the true faith ; for, at a sight of my help-
lessness, what more was needed to drive him to
the advocacy of independency ? Occasion led me
through Great Russell Street yesterday. I gazed
at the great knocker. My feeble hands in vain
essayed to lift it. I dreaded that Argus Portitor,
who doubtless lanterned me out on that prodi-
gious night. I called the Elginian marbles. They
were cold to my suit. I shall never again, I said,
on the wide gates unfolding, say without fear of
thrusting back, in a light but a peremptory air,
" I am going to Mr. Cary's." I passed by the
walls of Balclutha. I had imaged to myself a zo-
diac of third Wednesdays irradiating by glimpses
the Edmonton dulness. I dreamed of Highmore !
I am de-vited to come on Wednesdays.

Villanous old age that, with second childhood,
brings linked hand in hand her inseparable twin,
new inexperience, which knows not effects of
liquor. Where I was to have sate for a sober,
middle-aged-and-a-half gentleman, literary too,
the neat-fingered artist can educe no notions but
of a dissolute Silenus, lecturing natural philoso-
phy to a jeering Chromius or a Mnasilus. Pudet.
From the context gather the lost name of .

DCCLVL — TO H. F. CARY

[October 18, 1834.]

Dear Sir, — The unbounded range of muni-
35i

ficence presented to my choice staggers me.
What can twenty votes do for one hundred and
two widows ? I cast my eyes hopeless among
the viduage.

N. B. Southey might be ashamed of himself
to let his aged mother stand at the top of the
list, with his j[ioo a year and butt of sack.
Sometimes I sigh over No. I 2, Mrs. Carve-ill,
some poor relation of mine, no doubt. No. 1 5
has my wishes ; but then she is a Welsh one.
I have Ruth upon No. 21. I'd tug hard for
No. 24. No. 25 is an anomaly: there can be no
Mrs. Hogg. No. 34 ensnares me. No. 73 should
not have met so foolish a person. No. 92 may
bob it as she likes ; but she catches no cherry of
me. So I have even fixedat hap-hazard, as you '11
see. Yours, every third Wednesday,

C. L.

NOTE

[Talfourd states that the note is in answer to a letter en-
closing a list of candidates for a Widows' Fund Society, for
which he was entitled to vote. A Mrs. Southey headed the
list.]

DCCLVII. — TO MRS. NORRIS

[Edmonton, November, 1834.]

Dear Mrs. Norris, — I found Mary on my
return not worse, and she is now no better. I send
all my nonsense I could scrape together, and wish
your young ladies well thro' them. I hope they

352

will like Amwell. Be in no hurry to return them.
Six months hence will do. Remember me kindly
to them and to Richard. Also to Mary and her
cousin. Yours truly, C. Lamb

Pray give me a line to say you received 'em.
I send 'em Wednesday 1 9th, from the Roebuck.

DCCLVIII. — TO MR. CHILDS

Monday. Church Street, Edmonton
(not Enfield, as you erroneously directed yours).
[December, 1834.]

Dear Sir, — The volume which you seem to
want is not to be had for love or money. I with
difficulty procured a copy for myself. Yours is
gone to enlighten the tawny Hindoos. What
a supreme felicity to the author (only he is no
traveller) on the Ganges or Hydaspes (Indian
streams) to meet a smutty Gentoo ready to burst
with laughing at the tale of Bo-Bo ! for doubt-
less it hath been translated into all the dialects
of the East. I grieve the less that Europe should
want it. I cannot gather from your letter, whether
you are aware that a second series of the Essays
is published by Moxon, in Dover Street, Picca-
dilly, called The Last Essays of Elia, and, I am
told, is not inferior to the former. Shall I order
a copy for you, and will you accept it? Shall
I lend you, at the same time, my sole copy of the
former volume (oh ! return it) for a month or

353

two ? In return, you shall favour me with the
loan of one of those Norfolk-bred grunters that
you laud so highly; I promise not to keep it
above a day. What a funny name Bungay is ! I
never dreamt of a correspondent thence. I used
to think of it as some Utopian town or borough
in Gotham land. I now believe in its existence,
as part of merry England !

[Some lines scratched out^\
The part I have scratched out is the best of the
letter. Let me have your commands.

Ch. Lamb, alias Eli a

note

[Talfourd thus explains this letter: " In December, 1834,
Mr. Lamb received a letter from a gentleman, a stranger to
him, — Mr. Childs of Bungay, — whose copy of Elia had been
sent on an Oriental voyage, and who, in order to replace it,
applied to Mr. Lamb." Mr. Childs was a printer. His busi-
ness subsequently became that of Messrs. R. & R. Clark,
which still flourishes.]

DCCLIX. — TO MRS. GEORGE DYER

December 22, 1834.

Dear Mrs. Dyer, — I am very uneasy about
a Book which I either have lost or left at your
house on Thursday. It was the book I went out
to fetch from Miss Buffam's, while the tripe was
frying. It is called Phillip's Theatrum Poeta-
rum; but it is an English book. I think I left
it in the parlour. It is Mr. Cary's book, and I
would not lose it for the world. Pray, if you

354

find it, book it at the Swan, Snow Hill, by an
Edmonton stage immediately, directed to Mr.
Lamb, Church Street, Edmonton, or write to say
you cannot find it. I am quite anxious about it.
If it is lost, I shall never like tripe again.
With kindest love to Mr. Dyer and all,

Yours truly, C. Lamb

note

[This is the last letter of Charles Lamb, who tripped and
fell in Church Street, Edmonton, on December 22, and died
of erysipelas on December 27. At the time of his death
Lamb was sixty, all but a few weeks.

Mary Lamb, with occasional lapses into sound health, sur-
vived him until May 20, 1847. At first she continued to live
at Edmonton, but a few years later moved to the house of
Mrs. Parsons, sister of her old nurse, Miss James, in St.
John's Wood. — E. V. Lucas.]

VThe following undated letters are here given.
The first to William Ayrton was probably written
about May 14, 1821, and the second should have
been inserted after the first letter to Vincent Novello
on p. 233 of this volume :]

DCCLX. — TO WILLIAM AYRTON

[Undated.]

Dear A., — We are at home this Evening.
Excuse forms from,

Your uninformed, C. L.

We'nsdy.

I think Madame Noblet the least graceful
dancer I ever did not see.

355

DCCLXI.— TO WILLIAM AYRTON

Enfield, Thursday.

Dear Ayrton, — Novello paid us a visit yes-
terday, and I very much wished you with us.
Our conversation was principally, as you may sup-
pose, upon Music; and he desiring me to give him
my real opinion respecting the distinct grades of
excellence in all the eminent composers of the
Italian, German, and English Schools, I have
done it, rather to oblige him, than from any over-
weening opinion I have of my own judgment on
that science. Such as it is, I submit it to better
critics, and am, dear Ayrton,

Yours sincerely, Ch. Lamb

P. S. You will find the Essay over leaf — that
is to say, if you look for it there.

FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT
COMPOSERS

Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites. For my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel.
Cannot a man live free and easy,
Without admiring Pergolesi !
Or thro' the world with comfort go
That never heard of Doctor Blow !
So help me God, I hardly have ;
And yet I eat, and drink, and shave,
Like other people, (if you watch it,)
And know no more of stave or crotchet

356

Than did the primitive Peruvians ;

Or those old ante-queer Diluvians

That lived in the unwash'd world with Tubal,

Before that dirty Blacksmith Jubal,

By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at,

Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut.

I care no more for Cimerosa

Than he did for Salvator Rosa,

Being no Painter ; and bad luck

Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck !

Old Tycho Brahe and modern Herschel

Had something in 'em ; but who 's Purcel ?

The devil with his foot so cloven,

For aught I care, may take Beethoven ;

And, if the bargain does not suit,

I '11 throw him Weber in to boot !

There 's not the splitting of a splinter

To chus 'twixt him last named, and Winter.

Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido

Knew just as much, God knows, as I do.

I would not go four miles to visit

Sebastian Bach — or Batch — which is it ?

No more I would for Bononcini.

As for Novello and Rossini,

I shall not say a word to grieve 'em,

Because they 're living. So I leave 'em.

DCCLXII. — TO J. BADAMS

[Undated.]

Dear Badams, — I am very, very sorry at my
heatedness yesterday, which spoil'd the pleasure
I should have taken in seeing you better ; but I
had had a four or five hours hot walk, with the
delicate task of dissuading a friend from a pur-
pose of taking a house here, which friend would

357

have attracted down crowds of literary men,
which men would have driven me wild ; and in
my rage it seem'd to me that the person I un-
justly fell upon was meditating the same sort of
colonization here. Respects and sincere likings
to Mrs. Badams, and the most humble apology
C. L. can offer.

358

PRINTED BV H. O. HOUGHTON & CO.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.

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Full text of "The letters of Charles Lamb, in which many mutilated words and passages have been restored to their original form; with letters never before published and facsimiles of original ms. letters and poems;"

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