Sketches.”  But would not a poem be more consecutive than a string of sonnets?  You have no martyrs quite to the fire, I think, among you, but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions.  Think of it; it would be better than a series of sonnets on “Eminent Bankers.”  I like a hit at our way of life, though it does well for me,—­better than anything short of all one’s time to one’s self; for which alone I rankle with envy at the rich.  Books are good, and pictures are good, and money to buy them therefore good; but to buy time,—­in other words, life!

The “compliments of the time” to you, should end my letter; to a Friend, I suppose, I must say the “sincerity of the season:”  I hope they both mean the same.  With excuses for this hastily penned note, believe me, with great respect,

C. LAMB.

LXXIII.

TO MISS WORDSWORTH.

Mary perfectly approves of the appropriation of the feathers, and wishes them peacock’s for your fair niece’s sake.

Christmas, 1822.

Dear Miss Wordsworth,—­I had just written the above endearing words when Monkhouse tapped me on the shoulder with an invitation to cold goose pie, which I was not bird of that sort enough to decline.  Mrs. Monkhouse, I am most happy to say, is better Mary has been tormented with a rheumatism, which is leaving her, I am suffering from the festivities of the season.  I wonder how my misused carcase holds it out.  I have played the experimental philosopher on it, that’s certain.  Willy shall be welcome to a mince-pie and a bout at commerce whenever he comes.  He was in our eye.  I am glad you liked my new year’s speculations; everybody likes them, except the author of the “Pleasures of Hope.”  Disappointment attend him!  How I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!  They flatter me in magazines, newspapers, and all the minor reviews; the Quarterlies hold aloof.  But they must come into it in time, or their leaves be waste paper.  Salute Trinity Library in my name.  Two special things are worth seeing at Cambridge,—­a portrait of Cromwell at Sidney, and a better of Dr. Harvey (who found out that blood was red) at Dr. Davy’s; you should see them.  Coleridge is pretty well; I have not seen, him, but hear often of him, from Allsop, who sends me hares and pheasants twice a week; I can hardly take so fast as he gives.  I have almost forgotten butcher’s meat as plebeian.  Are you not glad the cold is gone?  I find winters not so agreeable as they used to be “when winter bleak had charms forme,” I cannot conjure up a kind similitude for those snowy flakes.  Let them keep to twelfth-cakes!