'tis a poem I envy-that and Montgomery's "Last Man:" I envy the writers, because I feel I could have done something like them.

C. L.

The following contains Lamb's characteristic acknowledgment of a payment on account of these contributions.

DEAR M.,

TO MR. MOXON.

Your letter's contents pleased me. I am only afraid of taxing you. Yet I want a stimulus, or I think I should drag sadly. I shall keep the monies in trust, till I see you fairly over the next 1st January. Then I shall look upon 'em as earned. No part of your letter gave me more pleasure (no, not the 107., tho' you may grin) than that you will revisit old Enfield, which I hope will be always a pleasant idea to you.

Yours, very faithfully,

C. L.

The magazine, although enriched with Lamb's

articles, and some others of great merit, did not meet with a success so rapid as to requite the proprietor for the labour and anxiety of its production. The following is Lamb's letter, in reply to one announcing a determination to discontinue its publication

TO MR. MOXON.

To address an abdicated monarch is a nice point of breeding. To give him his lost titles is to mock him; to withhold them is to wound him. But his minister, who falls with him, may be gracefully sympathetic. I do honestly feel for your diminution of honours, and regret even the pleasing cares which are part and parcel of greatness. Your magnanimous submission, and the cheerful tone of your renunciation in a letter, (which, without flattery, would have made an "ARTICLE," and which, rarely as I keep letters, shall be preserved,) comfort me a little. Will it please or plague you, to say that when your parcel came, I cursed it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending you to-morrow, the last day

you gave me? Now any one calling in, or a letter coming, puts an end to my writing for the day. Little did I think that the mandate had gone out, so destructive to my occupation, so relieving to the apprehensions of the whole body of R.A's.; so you see I had not quitted the ship while a plank was remaining.

To drop metaphors, I am sure you have done wisely. The very spirit of your epistle speaks that you have a weight off your mind. I have one on mine; the cash in hand, which, as

of

less truly says, burns in my pocket. I feel queer at returning it, (who does not?) you feel awkward at retaking it, (who ought not?)-is there no middle way adjusting this fine embarrassment? I think I have hit upon a medium to skin the sore place over, if not quite to heal it. You hinted that there might be something under 107., by and by, accruing to me-Devil's money;* (you are sanguine; say 77.10s.); that I entirely renounce, and abjure all future interest in I insist upon it, and, "by him I will not name," I won't touch a penny of it. That

*

Alluding to a little extravagance of Lamb's-scarcely worth recollecting-in emulation of the "Devil's Walk" of Southey and Co.

will split your loss, one half, and leave me conscientious possessor of what I hold. Less than your assent to this, no proposal will I accept of. The Rev. Mr. whose name you have left illegible (is it Seagull?) never sent me any book on Christ's Hospital, by which I could dream that I was indebted to him for a dedication. Did G. D. send his penny tract to me, to convert me to Unitarianism? Dear, blundering soul! why I am as old a Unitarian as himself. Or did he think his cheap publication would bring over the Methodists over the way here?* However, I'll give it to the pew-opener, in whom I have a little interest, to hand over to the clerk, whose wife she sometimes drinks tea with, for him to lay before the deacon, who exchanges the civility of the hat with him, to transmit to the minister, who shakes hands with him out of chapel, and he, in all odds, will light his pipe with it.

I wish very much to see you. I leave it to you to come how you will; we shall be very glad (we need not repeat) to see your sister, or sisters, with you; but for you, individually, I will just hint that a dropping in to tea, unlooked for, about five,

* Referring to a chapel opposite his lodging at Enfield.

stopping bread-and-cheese and gin-and-water, is worth a thousand Sundays. I am naturally miserable on a Sunday; but a week-day evening and supper is like old times. Set out now, and give no time to deliberation.

P.S.-The second volume of "Elia" is delightful (ly bound, I mean), and quite cheap. Why, man, 'tis a unique!

If I write much more I shall expand into an article, which I cannot afford to let you have so cheap. By the by, to show the perverseness of human will, while I thought I must furnish one of those accursed things monthly, it seemed a labour above Hercules' "Twelve" in a year, which were evidently monthly contributions. Now I am emancipated, I feel as if I had a thousand Essays swelling within me. False feelings both!

Your ex-Lampoonist, or Lamb-punnist, from Enfield, October 24, or "last day but one for receiving articles that can be inserted."

The following was addressed, soon after,