living beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know where to look for relief. Mary will get better again, but her constantly being liable to such relapses is dreadful; nor is it the least of our evils that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are in a manner marked. Excuse my troubling you, but I have nobody by me to speak to me. I slept out last night, not being able to endure the change and the stillness. But I did not sleep well, and I must come back to my own bed. I am going to try and get a friend to come and be with me to-morrow. I am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. wish that Mary were dead.-God bless you. Sara and Hartley.

"Monday."

I almost

Love to

"C LAMB.

The prospect of obtaining a residence more suited to the peculiar exigencies of his situation than that which he then occupied at Pentonville, gave Lamb comfort, which he expressed in the following short letter :—

TO MR. MANNING.

"DEAR MANNING,

"1800.

"I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry and the kind honest prose which it contained. It was just such a letter as I should have expected from Manning.

"I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last.

me.

I have had a very eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. He will have rooms to let at midsummer, by which time I hope my sister will be well enough to join It is a great object to me to live in town, where we shall be much more private, and to quit a house and a neighbourhood where poor Mary's disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort of marked people. We can be nowhere private except in the midst of London. We shall be in a family where we visit very frequently; only my landlord and I have not yet come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am still on the tremble, for I do not know where we could go into lodgings that would not be, in many respects, highly exceptionable. Only God send Mary well again, and I hope all will be well! The prospect, such as it is, has made me quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it will give you pleasure.-Farewell. "C. LAMB."

This hope was accomplished, as appears from the following letter:

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

"1800.

"DEAR COLERIDGE,

"Soon after I wrote to you last, an offer was made me by Gutch (you must remember him, at Christ's, -you saw him, slightly, one day with Thomson at our house) to come and lodge with him, at his house in Southampton Buildings, Chancery-lane.

This was a

my

very comfortable offer to me, the rooms being at a reasonable rent, and including the use of an old servant, besides being infinitely preferable to ordinary lodgings in our case, as you must perceive. As Gutch knew all our story and the perpetual liability to a recurrence in sister's disorder, probably to the end of her life, I certainly think the offer very generous and very friendly. I have got three rooms (including servant) under 341. a year. Here I soon found myself at home; and here, in six weeks after, Mary was well enough to join me. So we are once more settled. I am afraid we are not placed out of the reach of future interruptions. But I am determined to take what snatches of pleasure we can between the acts of our distressful drama. I have passed two days at Oxford, on a visit which I have long put off, to Gutch's family. The sight of the Bodleian Library, and, above all, a fine bust of Bishop Taylor, at All Souls', were particularly gratifying to me; unluckily, it was not a family where I could take Mary with me, and I am afraid there is something of dishonesty in any pleasures I take without her. She never goes anywhere. I do not know what I can add to this letter. I hope you are better by this time; and I desire to be affectionately remembered to Sara and Hartley.

"I expected before this to have had tidings of another little philosopher. Lloyd's wife is on the point of favouring the world.

Have you seen the new edition of Burns? his posthumous works and letters? I have only been able to procure the first volume, which contains his life-very confusedly and badly written, and interspersed with dull

pathological and medical discussions. It is written by a Dr. Currie. Do you know the well-meaning doctor? Alas, ne sutor ultra crepidam !

I hope to hear again from you very soon. is gone to Ireland on a visit to Grattan.

Godwin Before he

went I passed much time with him, and he has showed me particular attention: N.B. A thing I much like. Your books are all safe; only I have not thought it necessary to fetch away your last batch, which I understand are at Johnson's, the bookseller, who has got quite as much room, and will take as much care of them as myself and you can send for them immediately from him.

"I wish you would advert to a letter I sent you at Grassmere about Christabel, and comply with my request contained therein.

"Love to all friends round Skiddaw.

"C. LAMB."

CHAPTER IV.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS TO MANNING, COLERIDGE, AND

WORDSWORTH, FROM 1800 To 1805.

Ir would seem from the letters of 1800, that the natural determination of Lamb "to take what pleasure he could between the acts of his distressful drama," had led him into a wider circle of companionship, and had prompted sallies of wilder and broader mirth, which afterwards softened into delicacy, retaining all its whim. The following passage, which concludes a letter to Manning, else occupied with merely personal details, proves that his apprehensions for the diminution of his reverence for sacred things were not wholly unfounded; while, amidst its grotesque expressions, may be discerned the repugnance to the philosophical infidelity of some of his companions he retained through life. The passage, may, perhaps, be regarded as a sort of desperate compromise between a wild gaiety and religious impressions obscured but not effaced; and intimating his disapprobation of infidelity, with a melancholy sense of his own unworthiness seriously to express it.