The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol 6 | Page 9

Hackney
15 Mar. 1821.
[In my large edition I give a facsimile of this letter.]

LETTER 270
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
30 March, 1821.
My dear Sir--If you can come next Sunday we shall be equally glad to
see you, but do not trust to any of Martin's appointments, except on
business, in future. He is notoriously faithless in that point, and we did
wrong not to have warned you. Leg of Lamb, as before; hot at 4. And
the heart of Lamb ever.
Yours truly, C.L.

LETTER 271
CHARLES LAMB TO LEIGH HUNT
Indifferent Wednesday [April 18], 1821.
Dear Hunt,--There was a sort of side talk at Mr. Novello's about our
spending Good Friday at Hampstead, but my sister has got so bad a
cold, and we both want rest so much, that you shall excuse our putting
off the visit some little time longer. Perhaps, after all, you know
nothing of it.--
Believe me, yours truly, C. LAMB.

LETTER 272
CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE
May 1st [1821],
Mr. Gilman's, Highgate.
Mr. C.--I will not fail you on Friday by six, and Mary, perhaps, earlier.
I very much wish to meet "Master Mathew," and am much obliged to
the G----s for the opportunity. Our kind respects to them
always.--ELIA.
Extract from a MS. note of S.T.C. in my Beaumont and Fletcher, dated
April 17th 1807.
Midnight.

"God bless you, dear Charles Lamb, I am dying; I feel I have not many
weeks left."
[Master Mathew is in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour."
Lamb's "Beaumont and Fletcher" is in the British Museum. The note
quoted by Lamb is not there, or perhaps it is one that has been crossed
out. This still remains: "N.B. I shall not be long here, Charles! I gone,
you will not mind my having spoiled a book in order to leave a Relic.
S.T.C., Oct. 1811."]

LETTER 273
CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN
[Dated at end: 2 May, 1821.]
Dear Sir--You dine so late on Friday, it will be impossible for us to go
home by the eight o'clock stage. Will you oblige us by securing us beds
at some house from which a stage goes to the Bank in the morning? I
would write to Coleridge, but cannot think of troubling a dying man
with such a request.
Yours truly, C. LAMB.
If the beds in the town are all engaged, in consequence of Mr.
Mathews's appearance, a hackney-coach will serve. Wednes'y. 2 May
'21.
We shall neither of us come much before the time.
[Mrs. Mathews (who was half-sister of Fanny Kelly) described this
evening in her Memoirs of her husband, 1839. Her account of Lamb is
interesting:--
Mr. Lamb's first approach was not prepossessing. His figure was small
and mean; and no man certainly was ever less beholden to his tailor.
His "bran" new suit of black cloth (in which he affected several times
during the day to take great pride, and to cherish as a novelty that he
had long looked for and wanted) was drolly contrasted with his very
rusty silk stockings, shown from his knees, and his much too large thick
shoes, without polish. His shirt rejoiced in a wide ill-plaited frill, and
his very small, tight, white neckcloth was hemmed to a fine point at the
ends that formed part of the little bow. His hair was black and sleek,

but not formal, and his face the gravest I ever saw, but indicating great
intellect, and resembling very much the portraits of King Charles I. Mr.
Coleridge was very anxious about his pet Lamb's first impression upon
my husband, which I believe his friend saw; and guessing that he had
been extolled, he mischievously resolved to thwart his panegyrist,
disappoint the strangers, and altogether to upset the suspected plan of
showing him off.
The Mathews' were then living at Ivy Cottage, only a short distance
from the Grove, Highgate, where the famous Mathews collection of
pictures was to be seen of which Lamb subsequently wrote in the
London Magazine.
Here should come a note to Ayrton saying that Madame Noblet is the
least graceful dancer that Lamb ever "did not see."]

LETTER 274
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN PAYNE COLLIER
May 16, 1821.
Dear J.P.C.,--Many thanks for the "Decameron:" I have not such a
gentleman's book in my collection: it was a great treat to me, and I got
it just as I was wanting something of the sort. I take less pleasure in
books than heretofore, but I like books about books. In the second
volume, in particular, are treasures--your discoveries about "Twelfth
Night," etc. What a Shakespearian essence that speech of Osrades for
food!--Shakespeare is coarse to it--beginning "Forbear and eat no
more." Osrades warms up to that, but does not set