the moral character of C. I endeavoured to enlighten him on the subject, till having driven him out of some of his holds, he stopt my mouth at once by appealing to me whether it was not very well known that C. “at that very moment was living in a state of open a------y with Mrs. * * * * * at Highgate?” Nothing I could say serious or bantering after that could remove the deep inrooted conviction of the whole company assembled that such was the case!  Of course you will keep this quite close, for I would not involve my poor blundering friend, who I dare say believed it all thoroughly.  My interference of course was imputed to the goodness of my heart, that could imagine nothing wrong &c.  Such it is if Ladies will go gadding about with other people’s husbands at watering places.  How careful we should be to avoid the appearance of Evil.  I thought this Anecdote might amuse you.  It is not worth resenting seriously; only I give it as a specimen of orthodox candour.  O Southey, Southey, how long would it be before you would find one of us Unitarians propagating such unwarrantable Scandal!  Providence keep you all from the foul fiend Scandal, and send you back well and happy to dear Gloster Place.  C.L.

[Thomas Monkhouse, who was in a decline, had been ordered to Torquay.  Crabb Robinson had been in Normandy for some weeks.  The too credulous clergyman at Hertford was Frederick William Franklin, Master of the Blue Coat school there (from 1801 to 1827), who was at Christ’s Hospital with Lamb.

“Mrs. * * * * * *.”  Mrs. Gillman.]

LETTER 357

CHARLES LAMB TO LEIGH HUNT

[No date. ?  November, 1824.]

ILLUSTREZZIMO Signor,—­I have obeyed your mandate to a tittle.  I accompany this with a volume.  But what have you done with the first I sent you?—­have you swapt it with some lazzaroni for macaroni? or pledged it with a gondolierer for a passage?  Peradventuri the Cardinal Gonsalvi took a fancy to it:—­his Eminence has done my Nearness an honour.  ’Tis but a step to the Vatican.  As you judge, my works do not enrich the workman, but I get vat I can for ’em.  They keep dragging me on, a poor, worn mill-horse, in the eternal round of the damn’d magazine; but ’tis they are blind, not I. Colburn (where I recognise with delight the gay W. Honeycomb renovated) hath the ascendency.

I was with the Novellos last week.  They have a large, cheap house and garden, with a dainty library (magnificent) without books.  But what will make you bless yourself (I am too old for wonder), something has touched the right organ in Vincentio at last.  He attends a Wesleyan chapel on Kingsland Green.  He at first tried to laugh it off—­he only went for the singing; but the cloven foot—­I retract—­the Lamb’s trotters—­are at length apparent.  Mary Isabella attributes it to a lightness induced by his headaches.  But I think I see in it a less accidental influence.