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LXXXVIII.

TO MR RICKMAN

April 10th, 1802.

Dear Rickman,-The enclosed letter explains itself. It will save me the danger of a corporal interview with the man-eater, who, if very sharp set, may take a fancy to me, if you will give me a short note, declaratory of probabilities. These from him who hopes to see you once or twice more before he goes hence, to be no more seen for there is no tipple nor tobacco in the grave, whereunto he hasteneth.

16 Mitre Court Buildings, Inner Temple.

C. LAMB.

How clearly the Goul writes, and like a gentleman!

LXXXIX.

TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Sept. 8th, 1802. Dear Coleridge,-I thought of not writing till we had performed some of our commissions; but we have been hindered from setting about them, which yet shall be done to a tittle. We got home very pleasantly on Sunday. Mary is a good deal fatigued, and finds the difference of going to a place, and coming from it. I feel that I shall remember your mountains to the last day I live. They haunt me perpetually. I am like a man who has been falling in love unknown to himself, which he finds out when he leaves the lady. I do not remember any very strong impression while they were present; but, being gone, their mementos are shelved in my brain. We passed a very pleasant little time with the Clarksons. The Wordsworths are at Montague's rooms, near neighbours to us. They dined with us yesterday, and I was their guide to Bartlemy Fair!

I shall put your Letter in the penny post, and shall

always do so, if you have no objection, for I don't want to see Stuart, our Dissolution was rather ambiguous and I am not sure he is not displeased. I was pleased to recognise your Blank verse Poem (the Picture) in the Morn Post of Monday. It reads very well and I feel some dignity in the notion of being able to understand it better than most Southern Readers.

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I hope you got over the fatigue of Helvellin. shall expect little notes now and then to accompany yours to Stuart, which will pay me for the pang I must feel! in defrauding the Company. Mind, if you think the Penny Post not safe or had otherwise rather I dropt 'em in myself, I will, but I hate to encounter that impudent clerk.

I yesterday hunted about at Lockington's, &c., for Milton's Prose Works, which if I could have got reasonably I should have beg'd your acceptance. The only one I met with, the best Quarto, was 6 guineas -But I don't despair.

Observe the Lambe (but don't mark it) on those letters I am not to open.

My next letter I hope will contain some account of your commissions.

I am hurrying this off at my office where I am got for the first time today, and very awkward I feel and strange at Business. I forget the names of Books and feel myself not half so great a man as when I [was a] scrambler among mountains. I feel debased. But I shall soon break in my mountain spirit.

Particularly tell me about little Pipos (or flying Opossum) the only child (but one) I had ever an inclination to steal from its parents. That one was a Beggar's brat that I might have had cheap. I hope his little thrash has gone.

But don't be jealous. I have a very affectionate memory of you all veneres Pi-pos: but Pipos I especially love.

Remember me kindly to Hartley and Hartley's old friends at Greta Hall and very kindly to Sara. I may venture to add Mary's love, I am sure, tho' she does not sit beside me. Public offices scare away familiar faces and make ugly faces too familiar. Have you seen Stoddart and Allen. We past S. on the road. God bless you all.

C. L.

XC.

TO MRS GODWIN

[1802.]

Dear Mrs G.,-Having observed with some concern that Mr. Godwin is a little fastidious in what he eats for supper, I herewith beg to present his palate with a piece of dried salmon. I am assured it is the best that swims in Trent. If you do not know how to dress it, allow me to add, that it should be cut in thin slices and boiled in paper previously prepared in butter. Wishing it exquisite, I remain,-Much as before, yours sincerely, C. LAMB.

Some add mashed potatoes.

XCI.

TO THOMAS MANNING

24th Sept. 1802, London.

My dear Manning,-Since the date of my last letter I have been a traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My first impulse was to go and see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my aspiring mind, that I did not understand a word of the language, since I certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally certainly intend never to learn the language; therefore that could be no objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe, Stoddart promising to go with me another year, prevented that plan. My next scheme (for to my restless, ambitious mind

London was become a bed of thorns) was to visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say, without breeches. This my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my final resolve was, a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, without giving Coleridge any notice, for my time, being precious, did not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality in the world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable house, quite enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains: great floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into colours, purple, &c., &c. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that went off, (as it never came again; while we stayed we had no more fine sunsets ;) and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, when the mountains were all dark with clouds upon their heads. Such an impression I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I suppose I can ever again. Glorious Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, Skiddaw, &c. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire in his study; which is a large antique, ill-shaped room, with old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves of scattered folios, an Æolian harp, and an old sofa, half bed, &c. And all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw, and his broad-breasted brethren: what a night! Here we stayed three full weeks, in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or two with the Clarksons, (good people, and most hospitable, at whose house we tarried one

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day and night,) and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone to Calais. They have since been in London, and past much time with us: he is now gone into Yorkshire to be married. So we have seen Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater, (where the Clarksons live,) and a place at the other end of Ulswater; I forget the name: to which we travelled on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. We have clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied myself that there is such a thing as that which tourists call romantic, which I very much suspected before they make such a spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets around them, till they give as dim a light as at four o'clock next morning the lamps do after an illumination. Mary was excessively tired when she got about half-way up Skiddaw, but we came to a cold rill, (than which nothing can be imagined more cold, running over cold stones,) and with the reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it most manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a prospect of mountains all about and about, making you giddy; and then Scotland afar off, and the border countries so famous in song and ballad! It was a day that will stand out, like a mountain, I am sure in my life. But I am returned, (I have now been come home near three weeks; I was a month out,) and you cannot conceive the degradation I felt at first, from being accustomed to wander free as air among mountains, and bathe in rivers without being controlled by any one, to come home and work. felt very little. I had been dreaming I was a very great man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after all, Fleet Street and the Strand are better places to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn

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