Though I'm no ill sight
Neither,
By candle-light

And in some kinds of weather.
You might pit me
For height
Against Kean;

But in a grand tragic scene
I'm nothing:

It would create a kind of loathing
To see me act Hamlet;
There'd be many a damn let
Fly

At my presumption,

If I should try,

Being a fellow of no gumption.

By the way, tell me candidly how you relish This, which they call

The lapidary style?
Opinions vary.

The late Mr. Mellish

Could never abide it;

He thought it vile,

And coxcombical.
My friend the poet laureat,
Who is a great lawyer at
Anything comical,

Was the first who tried it;

But Mellish could never abide it; But it signifies very little what Mellish said, Because he is dead.

For who can confute
A body that's mute?

Or who would fight

With a senseless sprite?

Or think of troubling

An inpenetrable old goblin,
That's dead and gone,

And stiff as stone,

To convince him with arguments pro and con,
As if some live logician,

Bred up at Merton,

Or Mr. Hazlitt, the metaphysician;—

Hey, Mr. Ayrton !

With all your rare tone.

For tell me how should an apparition
List to your call,

Though you talk'd for ever,
Ever so clever :

When his ear itself,

By which he must hear, or not hear at all,
Is laid on the shelf?

Or put the case
(For more grace),

It were a female spectre-
How could you expect her

To take much gust

In long speeches,
With her tongue as dry as dust,
In a sandy place,

Where no peaches,

Nor lemons, nor limes, nor oranges hang,
To drop on the drought of an arid harangue,
Or quench,

With their sweet drench,

The fiery pangs which the worms inflict,
With their endless nibblings,
Like quibblings,

Which the corpse may dislike, but can ne'er contradict? Hey, Mr. Ayrton !

With all your rare tone.

I am,

C. LAMB.

To MR. BARRON FIELD.

LETTER CLXIV.]

August 31, 1817. My dear Barron-The bearer of this letter so far across the seas is Mr. Lawrey, who comes out to you as a missionary, and whom I have been strongly importuned to recommend to you as a most worthy creature by Mr. Fenwick, a very old, honest friend of mine; of whom, if my memory does not deceive me, you have had some knowledge heretofore as editor of the Statesman; a man of talent, and patriotic. If you can show him any facilities in his arduous undertaking, you will oblige us much. Well, and how does the land of thieves use you? and how do you pass your time, in your extra-judicial intervals? Going about the streets with a lantern, like Diogenes, looking for an honest man? You may look long enough, I fancy. Do give me some notion of the manners of the inhabitants where you are. They don't thieve all day long, do they? No human property could stand such continuous battery. And what do they do when they an't stealing?

Have you got a theatre? What pieces are performed? Shakspeare's, I suppose; not so much for the poetry, as for his having once been in danger of leaving his country on account of certain "small deer."

Have you poets among you? Damn'd plagiarists, I fancy, if you have any. I would not trust an idea, or a pocket-handkerchief of mine, among 'em. You are almost competent to answer Lord Bacon's problem, whether a nation of atheists can subsist together. You are practically in one :—

"So thievish 'tis, that the eighth commandment itself
Scarce seemeth there to be."

Our old honest world goes on with little perceptible variation. Of course you have heard of poor Mitchell's death, and that G. Dyer is one of Lord Stanhope's

residuaries. I am afraid he has not touched much of the residue yet. He is positively as lean as Cassius. Barnes is going to Demerara, or Essequibo, I am not quite certain which. Alsager is turned actor. He came out in genteel comedy at Cheltenham this season, and has hopes of a London engagement.

For my own history, I am just in the same spot, doing the same thing (videlicet, little or nothing) as when you left me; only I have positive hopes that I shall be able to conquer that inveterate habit of smoking which you may remember I indulged in. I think of making a beginning this evening, viz. Sunday, 31st Aug. 1817, not Wednesday, 2d Feb. 1818, as it will be perhaps when you read this for the first time. There is the difficulty of writing from one end of the globe (hemispheres, I call 'em) to another! Why, half the truths I have sent you in this letter will become lies before they reach you, and some of the lies (which I have mixed for variety's sake, and to exercise your judgment in the finding of them out) may be turned into sad realities before you shall be called upon to detect them. Such are the defects of going by different chronologies. Your "now" is not my "now";

and again, your "then" is not my "then"; but my

now may be your "then," and vice versa. head is competent to these things?

Whose

How does Mrs. Field get on in her geography? Does she know where she is by this time? I am not sure sometimes you are not in another planet; but then I don't like to ask Capt. Burney, or any of those that know anything about it, for fear of exposing my ignorance.

Our kindest remembrances, however, to Mrs. F., if she will accept of reminiscences from another planet, or at least another hemisphere. C. L.

MARY LAMB TO MISS WORDSWORTH.

LETTER CLXV.]

November 21, 1817.

My dear Miss Wordsworth-Your kind letter has given us very great pleasure; the sight of your handwriting was a most welcome surprise to us. We have heard good tidings of you by all our friends who were so fortunate as to visit you this Summer, and rejoice to see it confirmed by yourself. You have quite the advantage, in volunteering a letter; there is no merit in replying to so welcome a stranger.

We have left the Temple. I think you will be sorry to hear this. I know I have never been so well satisfied with thinking of you at Rydal Mount, as when I could connect the idea of you with your own Grasmere Cottage. Our rooms were dirty and out of repair, and the inconveniences of living in chambers became every year more irksome, and so, at last, we mustered up resolution enough to leave the good old place, that so long had sheltered us, and here we are, living at a brazier's shop, No. 20, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, a place all alive with noise and bustle; Drury Lane Theatre in sight from our front, and Covent Garden from our back windows. The hubbub of the carriages returning from the play does not annoy me in the least; strange that it does not, for it is quite tremendous. I quite enjoy looking out of the window, and listening to the calling up of the carriages, and the squabbles of the coachmen and linkboys. It is the oddest scene to look down upon; I am sure you would be amused with it. It is well I am in a cheerful place, or I should have many misgivings about leaving the Temple. I look forward with great pleasure to the prospect of seeing my good friend, Miss Hutchinson. I wish Rydal Mount, with all its inhabitants enclosed, were to be transplanted with her, and to remain stationary in the midst of Covent Garden.