“Gentlemen,” said I, and there I stopped; the rest my feelings were under the necessity of supplying. Mrs Wordsworth will go on, kindly haunting us with visions of seeing the lakes once more, which never can be realised. Between us there is a great gulf, not of inexplicable moral antipathies and distances, I hope, as there seemed to be between me and that gentleman concerned in the Stamp Office, that I so strangely recoiled from at Haydon's. I think I had an instinct that he was the head of an office. I hate all such people-accountants' deputy accountants. The dear abstract notion of the East India Company, as long as she is unseen, is pretty, rather poetical; but as she makes herself manifest by the persons of such beasts, I loathe and detest her as the scarlet what-do-you-call-her of Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all our red-letter days, they had done their worst; but I was deceived in the length to which heads of offices, those true liberty-haters, can go. They are the tyrants; not Ferdinand, nor Nero. By a decree passed this week, they have abridged us of the immemorially-observed custom of going at one o'clock of a Saturday, the little shadow of a holiday left us. Dear W. W., be thankful for liberty.

CXC.

TO MESSRS OLLIER

18th June, 1818.

mys

Dear Sir, (whichever opens it),—I am going off to Birmingham. I find my books, whatever faculty of selling they may have (I wish they had more for your sake), are admirably adapted for giving away. You have been bounteous. Six more, and I shall have satisfied all just claims. Am I taking too great a liberty in begging you to send 4 as follows, and reserve 2 for me when I come home? That will make 31. Thirty-one times 12 is 372 shillings—

eighteen pounds twelve shillings!!! But here are my friends, to whom, if you could transmit them, as I shall be away a month, you will greatly

Oblige the obliged,

C. LAMB.

Mr Ayrton, James Street, Buckingham Gate; Mr Alsager, Suffolk Street East, Southwark, by Horsemonger Lane.

And in one parcel, directed to R. Southey, Esq., Keswick, Cumberland:

One for R. S.;

And one for W. Wordsworth, Esq.

If you will be kind enough simply to write "From the Author" in all 4, you will still further, &c.

Either Longman or Murray is in the frequent habit of sending books to Southey, and will take charge of the parcel. It will be as well to write in at the beginning thus:

"R. Southey, Esq. From the Author."

"W. Wordsworth, Esq. From the Author."

Then, if I can find the remaining 2 left for me at Russell Street when I return, rather than encroach any more on the heap, I will engage to make no more new friends, ad infinitum, yourselves being the last.

Yours truly,

C. L.

I think Southey will give us a lift in that damn'd Quarterly. I meditate an attack upon that Cobbler Gifford, which shall appear immediately after any favorable mention which S. may make in the Quarterly. It can't, in decent gratitude, appear before.

CXCI.

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

Monday, Oct. 26, 1818.

Dear Southey, I am pleased with your friendly remembrances of my little things. I do not know

whether I have done a silly thing or a wise one, but it is of no great consequence. I run no risk, and care for no censures. My bread and cheese is stable as the foundations of Leadenhall Street, and if it hold out as long as the “foundations of our empire in the East," I shall do pretty well. You and W. W. should have had your presentation copies more ceremoniously sent, but I had no copies when I was leaving town for my holidays, and rather than delay, commissioned my bookseller to send them thus nakedly. By not hearing from W. W. or you, I began to be afraid Murray had not sent them. I do not see S. T. C. so often as I could wish. He never comes to me; and though his host and hostess are very friendly, it puts me out of my way to go see one person at another person's house. It was the same when he resided at Morgan's. Not but they also were more than civil; but, after all, one feels so welcome at one's own house. Have you seen poor Miss Betham's "Vignettes" ? Some of them, the second particularly, "To Lucy,” are sweet and good as herself, while she was herself. She is in some measure abroad again. I am better than I deserve to be. The hot weather has been such a treat! Mary joins in this little corner in kindest remembrances to you all.

C. L.

CXCII.

TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Dec. 24th, 1818.

My dear Coleridge,-I have been in a state of incessant hurry ever since the receipt of your ticket. It found me incapable of attending you, it being the night of Kenney's new comedy, which has utterly failed. You know my local aptitudes at such a time; I have been a thorough rendezvous for all consultations. My head begins to clear up a little, but it has had bells in it. Thank you kindly for your ticket, though the mournful prognostic which ac

companies it certainly renders its permanent pretensions less marketable; but I trust to hear many

a

course yet. You excepted Christmas week, by which I understood next week; I thought Christmas week was that which Christmas Sunday ushered in. We are sorry it never lies in your way to come to us; but, dear Mahomet, we will come to you. Will it be convenient to all the good people at Highgate, if we take a stage up, not next Sunday, but the following, viz., 3rd January, 1819? Shall we be too late to catch a skirt of the old out-goer ? How the years crumble from under us! We shall hope to see you before then; but, if not, let us know if then will be convenient. Can we secure a coach

home?

Believe me ever yours,

C. LAMB.

I have but one holiday, which is Christmas Day itself nakedly no pretty garnish and fringes of St John's Day, Holy Innocents, &c., that used to bestud it all around in the calendar. Improbe labor! I write six hours every day in this candle-light fog-den at Leadenhall.

CXCIII.

TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

1819.

Dear Wordsworth,-I_received a copy of "Peter Bell" a week ago, and I hope the author will not be offended if I say I do not much relish it. The humour, if it is meant for humour, is forced; and then the price!-sixpence would have been dear for it. Mind, I do not mean your "Peter Bell," but a "Peter Bell" which preceded it about a week, and is in every bookseller's shop window in London, the type and paper nothing differing from the true one, the preface signed W. W., and the supplementary preface quoting as the author's words an extract from

I

It

the supplementary preface to the “ Lyrical Ballads.” Is there no law against these rascals? I would have this Lambert Simnel whipt at the cart's tail. Then there is Rogers! He has been re-writing your Poem of the Strid, and publishing it at the end of his "Human Life." Tie him up to the cart, hangman, while you are about it. Who started the spurious "P.B." I have not heard. I should guess, one of the sneering brothers, the vile Smiths; but I have heard no name mentioned. "Peter Bell" (not the mock one) is excellent; for its matter I mean. cannot say that the style of it quite satisfies me. is too lyrical. The auditors to whom it is feigned to be told, do not arride me. I would rather it had been told me, the reader, at once. “Hartleap Well" is the tale for me; in matter as good as this; in manner infinitely before it, in my poor judgment. Why did you not add "The Waggoner"?-Have I thanked you, though, yet, for "Peter Bell"? I would not not have it for a good deal of money. C is very foolish to scribble about books. Neither his tongue nor fingers are very retentive. But I shall not say any thing to him about it. He would only begin a very long story, with a very long face; and I see him far too seldom to teaze him with affairs of business or conscience when I do see him. He never comes near our house; and when we go to see him he is generally writing, or thinking. He is writing in his study till the dinner comes, and that is scarce over before the stage summons us away. The mock" P. B." had only this effect on me, that after twice reading it over in hopes to find something diverting in it, I reached your two books off the shelf, and set into a steady reading of them, till I had nearly finished both before I went to bed: the two of your last edition, of course, I mean: and in the morning I awoke determining to take down the Excursion. I wish the scoundrel imitator could know this. But