The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 87

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 post man being late) and Emma and I have 20 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.

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 3 put in your next bill on me. I am peremptory that it shall be so. These are all I can want.

*Is it the Western? he goes to Reading &c.

[John Taylor, representing the firm of Taylor & Hessey, seems to have set up a claim of copyright in those essays in the _Last Essays of Elia_ that were printed in the _London Magazine_. For Procter's part, see next letter.

_Piozziana; or, Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi_ (Johnson's Mrs.

Thrale), was published in 1833. It was by the Rev. E. Mangin.

Mad. Darblay would be _The Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, 1832, by his daughter Madame d'Arblay (Admiral Burney's niece). The book was severely handled in the _Quarterly_ for April, 1833.

The following letter, which is undated, seems to refer to the difficulty mentioned above:--]

LETTER 566

CHARLES LAMB 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'll send the bank notes to you twice, in halves.

Deduct from it your share in broken bottles, 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.

LETTER 567

CHARLES LAMB 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.

[On this letter is written by Hone in pencil: "This acknowledges a note from me to C.L. written in January preceding and sent by young Will Hazlitt. Received in my paralysis. March, 1833."

On this day Lamb gave Hone two books with the same inscription in each--very tipsily written.]

LETTER 568

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. March 19, 1833.]

I shall _expect_ Forster and two Moxons on Sunday, and _hope_ for Procter.

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.

[Miss Kelly was then giving an entertainment called "Dramatic Recollections" at the Strand Theatre.]

LETTER 569

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. ? Spring, 1833.]

One o Clock.

This instant receiv'd, 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 a "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 cannot, till we come to explanation, go to him or send--