Stood still to laugh in midst of sermon. As you jeer fishermen at Hastings. When the fly bit, like me, he leapt o'er all, P.S. I had forgot, at Small Bohemia * (Enquire the way of your maid, Euphemia) The prince and princess, the Novellos. C. L. * In prose, Little Bohemia, about a mile from Hastings in the Hollington Road, when you can get as far. This letter will introduce you, if 'tis agreeable. Take a donkey-'tis Novello the Composer and his wife, our very good friends. Dear Dib, I find relief in a word or two of prose. In truth my rhymes come slow. You have "routh of 'em." It gives us pleasure to find you keep your good spirits. Your letter did us good. Pray Heaven you are got out at last. Write quickly. Dear H.-The Quotidian came in as pleasantly as it was looked for at breakfast time yesterday. You have This last inter repaid my poor stanzas with interest. lineation is one of those instances of affectation rightly applied. Read the sentence without it, how bald it is! Your idea of "worsted in the dog-days" was capital. We are here so comfortable that I am confident we shall stay one month, from this date, most probably longer; so if you please, you can cut your out-of-town room for that time. I have sent up my petit farce altered; and Harley is at the theatre now. It cannot come out for some weeks. When it does, we think not of leaving her, but to borrow a bed of you for the night. I write principally to say that the 4th of August is coming,-Dogget's Coat and Badge Day on the water. You will find a good deal about him in Cibber's Apology, octavo, facing the window; and something haply in a thin blackish quarto among the plays, facing the fireside. You have done with mad dogs; else there is a print of Rowlandson's, or somebody's, of people in pursuit of one in a village, which might have come in Goldsmith's verses. Mary's kind remembrance. Mr. Hone, Colebrook Cottage, C. LAMB. also Islington. To J. B. DIBDIN. LETTER CCLXXXII.] Saturday, September 9, 1826. An answer is requested. Dear D.-I have observed that a Letter is never more acceptable than when received upon a rainy day, especially a rainy Sunday; which moves me to send you somewhat, however short. This will find you sitting after Breakfast, which you will have prolonged as far as you can with consistency to the poor handmaid that has the reversion of the Tea Leaves; making two nibbles of your last morsel of stale roll (you cannot have hot new ones on the Sabbath), and reluctantly coming to an end, because when that is done, what can you do till dinner? You cannot go to the Beach, for the rain is drowning the sea, turning rank Thetis fresh, taking the brine out of Neptune's pickles, while mermaids sit upon rocks with umbrellas, their ivory combs sheathed for spoiling in the wet of waters foreign to them. You cannot go to the Library, for it's shut. You are not religious enough to go to Church. O it is worth while to cultivate piety to the gods, to have something to fill the heart up on a wet Sunday. You cannot cast accounts, for your Ledger is being eaten up with moths in the Ancient Jewry. You cannot play at Draughts, for there is none to play with you, and besides there is not a draught-board in the house. You cannot go to market, for it closed last night. You cannot look into the shops, their backs are shut upon you. You cannot while away an hour with a friend, for you have no friend round that Wrekin. You cannot divert yourself with a stray acquaintance, for you have picked none up. You cannot bear the chiming of Bells, for they invite you to a banquet where you are no visitant. You cannot cheer yourself with the prospect of to-morrow's letter, for none come on Mondays. You cannot count those endless vials on the mantlepiece with any hope of making a variation in their numbers. You have counted your spiders: your Bastile is exhausted. You sit and deliberately curse your hard exile from all familiar sights and sounds. Old Ranking poking in his head unexpectedly would just now be as good to you as Grimaldi. Anything to deliver you from this intolerable weight of ennui. You are too ill to shake it off: not ill enough to submit to it, and to lie down as a Lamb under it. The Tyranny of sickness is nothing to the cruelty of Convalescence: 'tis to have Thirty Tyrants for one. That pattering rain drops on your brain. You'll be worse after dinner, for you must dine at one to-day that Betty may go to afternoon service. She insists upon having her chopped hay. And then when she goes out, who what an was something to you, something to speak to interminable afternoon you'll have to go thro'. You can't break yourself from your locality: you cannot say, "to-morrow morning I set off for Banstead," for you are booked for Wednesday. Foreseeing this, I thought a cheerful letter would come in opportunely. If any of the little topics for mirth I have thought upon should serve you in this utter extinguishment of sunshine, to make you a little merry, I shall have had my ends. I love to make things comfortable. . . . That, which is scratched out was the most material thing I had to say, but on maturer thoughts I defer it. P.S.-We are just sitting down to dinner with a pleasant party-Coleridge, Reynolds the dramatist, and Sam Bloxam to-morrow (that is, to-day), Liston and Wyat of the Wells, dine with us. May this find you as jolly and freakish as we mean to be. Addressed T. Dibdin, Esq., 4 Meadow Cottages, To BERNARD BARTON. LETTER CCLXXXIII.] C. LAMB. September 26, 1826. Dear B. B.-I don't know why I have delayed so long writing. 'Twas a fault. The under-current of excuse to my mind was that I had heard of the vessel in which Mitford's jars were to come; that it had been obliged to put into Batavia to refit (which accounts for its delay), but was daily expected. Days are past, and it comes not, and the mermaids may be drinking their tea out of his china for aught I know; but let's hope not. In the meantime I have paid £28, etc., for the freight and prime cost, which I a little expected he would have settled in London. But do not mention it. I was enabled to do it by a receipt of £30 from Colburn, with whom, however, I have done. I should else have run short; for I only just make ends meet. We will wait the arrival of the trinkets, and to ascertain their full expense, and then bring in the bill. Don't mention it, for I daresay 'twas mere thoughtlessness. I am sorry you and yours have any plagues about dross matters. I have been sadly puzzled at the defalcation of more than one-third of my income, out of which when entire I saved nothing. But cropping off wine, old books, etc. etc., in short, all that can be called pocket-money, I hope to be able to go on at the cottage. Remember, I beg of you not to say anything to Mitford, for if he be honest it will vex him if not, which I as little expect as that you should be, I have a hank still upon the jars. Colburn had something of mine in last month, which he has had in hand these seven months, and had lost, or couldn't find room for: I was used to different treatment in the London, and have forsworn periodicals. I am going thro' a course of reading at the Museum: the Garrick plays, out of part of which I formed my specimens. I have two thousand to go thro', and in a few weeks have despatched the tythe of 'em. office to me; hours, ten to four, the same. good. Man must have regular occupation, that has been used to it. It is a sort of It does me So A. K. keeps a school; she teaches nothing wrong, I'll answer for't. I have a Dutch print of a schoolmistress; little old-fashioned Fleminglings, with only one face among them. She a princess of a schoolmistress, wielding a rod for form more than use; the scene, an old monastic chapel, with a Madonna over her head, looking just as serious, as thoughtful, as pure, as gentle as herself. 'Tis a type of thy friend. Will you pardon my neglect? Mind, again I say, don't show this to M.; let me wait a little longer to know the event of his luxuries. I am sure he is a good fellow, tho' I made a serious Yorkshire lad stare when I said he was a clergyman. He is a pleasant layman |