The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol 6 | Page 8

the door, she being confined to her private room. I trust you and the Juveniles will comply with this reasonable request.
& am Dear Mrs. Ayrton your's and yours' Truly C. LAMB. Cov. Gar. 23 Jan. 1821.
[Mrs. Ayrton (_née_ Arnold) was the wife of William Ayrton, the musical critic.]

LETTER 268
CHARLES LAMB TO MISS HUMPHREYS
London 27 Jan'y. 1821.
Dear Madam, Carriages to Cambridge are in such request, owing to the Installation, that we have found it impossible to procure a conveyance for Emma before Wednesday, on which day between the hours of 3 and 4 in the afternoon you will see your little friend, with her bloom somewhat impaired by late hours and dissipation, but her gait, gesture, and general manners (I flatter myself) considerably improved by--somebody that shall be nameless. My sister joins me in love to all true Trumpingtonians, not specifying any, to avoid envy; and begs me to assure you that Emma has been a very good girl, which, with certain limitations, I must myself subscribe to. I wish I could cure her of making dog's ears in books, and pinching them on poor Pompey, who, for one, I dare say, will heartily rejoyce at her departure.
Dear Madam,
Yours truly
foolish C.L.
[Addressed to "Miss Humphreys, with Mrs. Paris, Trumpington Street, Cambridge." Franked by J. Rickman.
This letter contains the first reference in the correspondence to Emma Isola, daughter of Charles Isola, Esquire Bedell of Cambridge University, and granddaughter of Agostino Isola, the Italian critic and teacher, of Cambridge, among whose pupils had been Wordsworth. Miss Humphreys was Emma Isola's aunt. Emma seems to have been brought to London by Mrs. Paris and left with the Lambs.
Pompey seems to have been the Lamb's first dog. Later, as we shall see, they adopted Dash.]

LETTER 269
CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM AYRTON
[Dated at end: March 15, 1821.]
Dear Madam, We are out of town of necessity till Wednesday next, when we hope to see one of you at least to a rubber. On some future Saturday we shall most gladly accept your kind offer. When I read your delicate little note, I am ashamed of my great staring letters.
Yours most truly
CHARLES LAMB.
Dalston near 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