The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol 5 | Page 7

August (Original in the
possession of the Master of Magdelene.)
252 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Summer From the original
(Morrison Collection).
253 Charles Lamb to Thomas Holcroft, Jr. Autumn From the original
(Morrison Collection).
254 Charles Lamb to Joseph Cottle Nov. 5 Mr. Hazlitt's text.
255 Charles Lamb to Joseph Cottle (_incomplete_) Late in year Mr.
Hazlitt's text.
256 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth Nov. 25 From Mr. Gordon
Wordsworth's original.
1820.
257 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Jan. 10 Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn)

with alterations.
258 Mary Lamb to Mrs. Vincent Novello Spring From the Cowden
Clarkes' Recollections of Writers.
259 Charles Lamb to Joseph Cottle May 26 Mr. Hazlitt's text.
260 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth May 25 From Professor
Knight's Life of Wordsworth.
261 Charles Lamb to Thomas Allsop July 13
262 Charles and Mary Lamb to Samuel James Arnold No date
263 Charles Lamb to Barron Field Aug. 16 Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The
Lambs_).
263A Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Autumn Mr. Hazlitt's text
(Bohn).
APPENDIX
Coleridge's "Ode on the Departing Year" Wither's "Supersedeas"
Dyer's "Poetic Sympathies" (_fragment_) Haydon's Party (from
Taylor's _Life of Haydon_)
FRONTISPIECE
CHARLES LAMB (AGED 44)
From a Water-colour Drawing by J. G. F. Joseph.

THE LETTERS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB
1796-1820

LETTER 1
CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE
[Postmark May 27, 1796.]
DEAR C---- make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill,
when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all the
purposes of a single life, so give yourself no further concern about it.
The money would be superfluous to me, if I had it.
With regard to Allen,--the woman he has married has some money, I
have heard about £200 a year, enough for the maintenance of herself &
children, one of whom is a girl nine years old! so Allen has dipt
betimes into the cares of a family. I very seldom see him, & do not
know whether he has given up the Westminster hospital.
When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor Milton, and

publishes his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em,--a Guinea a book is
somewhat exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the
Work. The extracts from it in the Monthly Review and the short
passages in your Watchman seem to me much superior to any thing in
his partnership account with Lovell.
Your poems I shall procure forthwith. There were noble lines in what
you inserted in one of your Numbers from Religious Musings, but I
thought them elaborate. I am somewhat glad you have given up that
Paper--it must have been dry, unprofitable, and of "dissonant mood" to
your disposition. I wish you success in all your undertakings, and am
glad to hear you are employed about the Evidences of Religion. There
is need of multiplying such books an hundred fold in this philosophical
age to prevent converts to Atheism, for they seem too tough disputants
to meddle with afterwards. I am sincerely sorry for Allen, as a family
man particularly.
Le Grice is gone to make puns in Cornwall. He has got a tutorship to a
young boy, living with his Mother, a widow Lady. He will of course
initiate him quickly in "whatsoever things are lovely, honorable, and of
good report." He has cut Miss Hunt compleatly,--the poor Girl is very
ill on the Occasion, but he laughs at it, and justifies himself by saying,
"she does not see him laugh." Coleridge, I know not what suffering
scenes you have gone through at Bristol--my life has been somewhat
diversified of late. The 6 weeks that finished last year and began this
your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a mad house at
Hoxton--I am got somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one. But
mad I was--and many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough
to make a volume if all told.
My Sonnets I have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and
will some day communicate to you.
I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which if I finish I publish.
White is on the eve of publishing (he took the hint from Vortigern)
Original letters of Falstaff, Shallow &c--, a copy you shall have when it
comes out. They are without exception the best imitations I ever saw.
Coleridge, it may convince you of my regards for you when I tell you
my head ran on you in my madness, as much almost as on another
Person, who I am inclined to think was the more immediate cause of
my temporary frenzy.

The sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry but you will be curious
to read it when I tell you it