"We have not heard from Cambridge. I that moment, as if by an electrical stroke, to will write the moment we do. the entire possession of my senses. I never "Edmonton, 24th July, twenty minutes felt so calm and quiet after a similar illness past three by Emma's watch."

Miss Lamb was in the sad state of mental estrangement up to the day of the wedding but then in the constant companionship of her brother at Edmonton. The following cluster of little letters to the new married pair-the first from Charles, introducing one from Mary-shows the happy effect of the news on her mental health.

TO MR. AND MRS. MOXON.

"August, 1833.

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Moxon,-Time very short. I wrote to Miss Fryer, and had the sweetest letter about you, Emma, that ever friendship dictated. 'I am full of good wishes, I am crying with good wishes,' she says; but you shall see it."

"Dear Moxon,-I take your writing most kindly, and shall most kindly your writing from Paris.

"I want to crowd another letter to Miss Fryer into the little time after dinner, before post-time. So with twenty thousand congratulations, Yours, C. L.

"I am calm, sober, happy. Turn over for the reason. I got home from Dover Street, by Evans, half as sober as a judge. I am turning over a new leaf, as I hope you will

now."

as I do now. I feel as if all tears were wiped
from my eyes, and all care from my heart.
"MARY LAMB."

"Sept. 9th, 1833. "Dear Sir,-Your packet I have only just received, owing, I suppose, to the absence of Moxon, who is flaunting it about à la Parisienne, with his new bride, our Emma, much to his satisfaction, and not a little to our dulness. We shall be quite well by the time you return from Worcestershire, and

The turn of the leaf presented the follow-most, most (observe the repetition) glad to ing from Miss Lamb :see you here, or anywhere.

"My dear Emma and Edward Moxon,Accept my sincere congratulations, and imagine more good wishes than my weak nerves will let me put into good set words. The dreary blank of unanswered questions which I ventured to ask in vain, was cleared up on the wedding-day by Mrs. W.* taking a glass of wine, and, with a total change of countenance, begging leave to drink Mr. and Mrs. Moxon's health. It restored me from

"I will take my time with Darley's act. I wish poets would write a little plainer; he begins some of his words with a letter which is unknown to the English typography. "Yours, most truly, C. LAMB.

"P.S.-Pray let me know when you return. We are at Mr. Walden's, Church-street, Edmonton; no longer at Enfield. You will be amused to hear that my sister and I have, with the aid of Emma, scrambled through the 'Inferno,' by the blessed furtherance of • The wife of the landlord of the house at Edmonton. your polar-star translation. I think we

scarce left anything unmadeout. But our partner has left us, and we have not yet resumed. Mary's chief pride in it was that she should some day brag of it to you. Your 'Dante' and Sandys' 'Ovid' are the only helpmates of translations. Neither of you shirk a word.

"Fairfax's 'Tasso' is no translation at all. It's better in some places, but it merely observes the number of stanzas; as for images, similes, &c., he finds 'em himself, and never 'troubles Peter for the matter.'

TO MR. MOXON.

"Nov. 29th, 1833.

"Mary is of opinion with me, that two of these Sonnets are of a higher grade than any poetry you have done yet. The one to Emma is so pretty! I have only allowed myself to transpose a word in the third line. Sacred shall it be from any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg that you will make four lines in the room of the four last. Read 'Darby and Joan,' in Mrs. Moxon's first album. There you'll see how beautiful in age the looking back to youthful years in an old couple is. But it is a violence to the feelings to anticipate that time in youth. I "Has M. sent you 'Elia,' second volume? hope you and Emma will have many a quarrel if not he shall."

"In haste, dear Cary, yours ever,

"C. LAMB.

Miss Lamb did not escape all the cares of housekeeping by the new arrangement: the following little note shows the grotesque uses to which Lamb turned the smaller household anxieties:

TO MR. MOXON.

"1833.

"Dear M.,-Mary and I are very poorly. We have had a sick child, who, sleeping or not sleeping, next me, with a pasteboard partition between, killed my sleep. The little bastard is gone. My bedfellows are cough and cramp; we sleep three in a bed. Domestic arrangements (baker, butcher, and all) devolve on Mary. Don't come yet to this house of pest and age! We propose, when you and E. agree on the time, to come up and meet you at the B-'s, say a week hence, but do you make the appointment. "Mind, our spirits are good, and we are happy in your happinesses. C. L.

"Our old and ever loves to dear Emma.”

and many a make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation!) before the dark days shall come, in which ye shall say 'there is small comfort in them.' You have begun a sort of character of Emma in them, very sweetly; carry it on, if you can through the last lines.

"I love the sonnet to my heart, and you shall finish it, and I'll be hanged if I furnish a line towards it. So much for that. The next best is to the Ocean.

'Ye gallant winds, if e'er your LUSTY CHEEKS
Blew longing lover to his mistress' side,
O, puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide,'

is spirited. The last line I altered, and have re-altered it as it stood. It is closer. These two are your best. But take a good deal of time in finishing the first. How proud should Emma be of her poets!

'Perhaps 'O Ocean' (though I like it) is too much of the open vowels, which Pope objects to. 'Great Ocean!' is obvious. То save sad thoughts I think is better (though not good) than for the mind to save herself. But 'tis a noble Sonnet. 'St. Cloud' I have no fault to find with.

"If I return the Sonnets, think it no disrespect, for I look for a printed copy. You have done better than ever. And now for a reason I did not notice 'em earlier. Wednesday they came, and on Wednesday I

On

The following is Lamb's reply to a welcome communication of Sonnets, addressed by the bridegroom to the fair object of Lamb's regard--beautiful in themselves was a-gadding. Mary gave me a holiday, and endeared to Lamb by honoured memories and generous hopes :

and I set off to Snow Hill. From Snow Hill I deliberately was marching down, with noble Holborn before me, framing in mental cogi-, tation a map of the dear London in prospect

thinking to traverse Wardour-street, &c., when, diabolically, I was interrupted by

Heigh-ho!

Little Barrow !

TO MR. ROGERS.

"Dec. 1833.

"My dear Sir,-Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of your publisher, has Emma knows him—and prevailed on to spend reached me thus early. I have not opened the day at his sister's, where was an album, it, nor will till to-morrow, when I promise and (O, march of intellect !) plenty of lite- myself a thorough reading of it. The rary conversation, and more acquaintance Pleasures of Memory' was the first schoolwith the state of modern poetry than I could present I made to Mrs. Moxon; it has those keep up with. I was positively distanced. nice woodcuts, and I believe she keeps it Knowles' play, which, epilogued by me, lay still. Believe me, that all the kindness you on the PIANO, alone made me hold up my have shown to the husband of that excellent head. When I came home, I read your person seems done unto myself. I have tried letter, and glimpsed at your beautiful sonnet, my hand at a sonnet in the 'Times.' But the turn I gave it, though I hoped it would not 'Fair art thou as the morning, my young bride,' displease you, I thought might not be equally and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but agreeable to your artist. I met that dear old determined not to open them all next day, man at poor Henry's, with you, and again at being in a state not to be told of at Chatteris. Cary's, and it was sublime to see him sit, Tell it not in Gath, Emma, lest the daughters deaf, and enjoy all that was going on in mirth triumph! I am at the end of my tether. I with the company. He reposed upon the wish you could come on Tuesday with your many graceful, many fantastic images he had fair bride. Why can't you! Do. We are created; with them he dined, and took wine. thankful to your sister for being of the party. I have ventured at an antagonist copy of Come, and bring a sonnet on Mary's birth- verses, in the 'Athenæum,' to him, in which day. Love to the whole Moxonry, and tell he is as everything, and you as nothing. He E. I every day love her more, and miss her is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. less. Tell her so, from her loving uncle, as But I am jealous of the combination of the she has let me call myself. I bought a fine sister arts. Let them sparkle apart. What embossed card yesterday, and wrote for the injury (short of the theatres) did not BoyPawnbrokeress's album. She is a Miss dell's Shakspeare Gallery do me with ShakBrown, engaged to a Mr. White. One of the speare? to have Opie's Shakspeare, Northlines was (I forgot the rest-but she had cote's Shakspeare, light-headed Fuseli's Shakthem at twenty-four hours' notice; she is speare, heavy-headed Romney's Shakspeare, going out to India with her husband) :— wooden-headed West's Shakspeare (though he did the best in Lear), deaf-headed Reynolds's Shakspeare, instead of my, and everybody's Shakspeare; to be tied down to an authentic face of Juliet ! to have Imogen's portrait! to confine the illimitable! I like you and Stothard (you best), but 'out upon this half-faced fellowship!' Sir, when I have read the book, I may trouble you, through Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not the flatteringest compliment in a letter to an author to say, you have not read his book yet. But the devil of a reader he must be, who prances through it in five minutes; and no longer have I received the parcel. It was a little tantalising to me to receive a letter from Landor, Gebir Landor, from Florence, to say he was just sitting down to read my 'Elia,' just received; but

"May your fame,

And fortune, Frances, WHITEN with your name! Not bad as a pun. I will expect you before two on Tuesday. I am well and happy, tell E."

The following is Lamb's letter of acknowledgment to the author of the "Pleasures of Memory," for an early copy of his "Illustrated Poems," of a share in the publication of which, Mr. Moxon was "justly vain." The artistical allusions are to Stothard; the allusions to the poet's own kindnesses need no explanation to those who have been enabled by circumstances, which now and then transpire, to guess at the generous course of his life.

the letter was to go out before the reading. of names and things that never would have There are calamities in authorship which dawned upon me again, and thousands from only authors know. I am going to call on the ten years she lived before me. What Moxon on Monday, if the throng of carriages took place from early girlhood to her coming in Dover-street, on the morn of publication, of age principally, lives again (every important do not barricade me out. thing, and every trifle) in her brain, with the "With many thanks, and most respectful vividness of real presence. For twelve hours remembrances to your sister,

incessantly she will pour out without intermission, all her past life, forgetting nothing, pouring out name after name to the Waldens, as a dream; sense and nonsense; truths and errors huddled together; a medley between inspiration and possession. What things we are! I know you will bear with me, talking of these things. It seems to ease me, for I have nobody to tell these things to now.

"My sister is papering up the book-care- Emma, I see, has got a harp! and is learning ful soul !"

Lamb and his sister were now, for the last year of their united lives, always together. What his feelings were in this companionship, when his beloved associate was deprived of reason, will be seen in the following most affecting letter, to an old schoolfellow and very dear friend of Mrs. Moxon's-since dead-who took an earnest interest in their welfare.

TO MISS FRYER.

"Feb. 14, 1834.

to play. She has framed her three Walton pictures, and pretty they look. That is a book you should read; such sweet religion in it, next to Woolman's! though the subject be baits, and hooks, and worms, and fishes. She has my copy at present, to do two more from.

"Very, very tired! I began this epistle, having been epistolising all the morning, and very kindly would I end it, could I find adequate expressions to your kindness. We did set our minds on seeing you in spring. One of us will indubitably. But I am not skilled in almanac learning, to know when spring precisely begins and ends. Pardon my blots; I am glad you like your book. I wish it had been half as worthy of your acceptance as John Woolman. But 'tis a good-natured book."

A few days afterwards Lamb's passionate desire to serve a most deserving friend broke out in the following earnest little letter:

:

"Dear Miss Fryer,-Your letter found me just returned from keeping my birthday (pretty innocent!) at Dover-street. I see them pretty often. I have since had letters of business to write, or should have replied earlier. In one word, be less uneasy about me; I bear my privations very well; I am not in the depths of desolation, as heretofore. Your admonitions are not lost upon me. Your kindness has sunk into my heart. Have faith in me! It is no new thing for me to be left to my sister. When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me "Church-street, Edmonton, than the sense and sanity of this world. "February 22, 1834. Her heart is obscured, not buried; it breaks "Dear Wordsworth,-I write from a house out occasionally; and one can discern a of mourning. The oldest and best friends I strong mind struggling with the billows that have left are in trouble. A branch of them have gone over it. I could be nowhere hap- (and they of the best stock of God's creatures, pier than under the same roof with her. I believe) is establishing a school at Carlisle ; Her memory is unnaturally strong; and her name is L M- ·; her address, 75, from ages past, if we may so call the earliest Castle-street, Carlisle; her qualities (and records of our poor life, she fetches thousands her motives for this exertion) are the most

TO MR. WORDSWORTH.

1

1

A quiet dinner at the British Museum with Mr. Cary once a month, to which Lamb looked forward with almost boyish eager. ness, was now almost his only festival. In a little note to his host about this time, he hints at one of his few physical tastes.—“We are thinking," he says, "of roast shoulder of mutton with onion sauce, but I scorn to prescribe to the hospitalities of mine host." The following, after these festivities had been LAMB'S interrupted by Mr. Cary's visit to the Continent, is their last memorial: