Emma has just died, choak’d with a Gerund in dum.  On opening her we found a Participle in rus in the pericordium.  The king never dies, which may be the reason that it always REIGNS here.

We join in loves.  C.L. his orthograph.

what a pen!

the Umberella is cum bak.

LETTER 429

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

[P.M.  September 18, 1827.]

My dear, and now more so, JOHN—­

How that name smacks! what an honest, full, English, and yet withal holy and apostolic sound it bears, above the methodistical priggish Bishoppy name of Timothy, under which I had obscured your merits!

What I think of the paternal verses, you shall read within, which I assure you is not pen praise but heart praise.

It is the gem of the Dibdin Muses.

I have got all my books into my new house, and their readers in a fortnight will follow, to whose joint converse nobody shall be more welcome than you, and any of yours.

The house is perfection to our use and comfort.

Milton is come.  I wish Wordsworth were here to meet him.  The next importation is of pots and saucepans, window curtains, crockery and such base ware.

The pleasure of moving, when Becky moves for you.  O the moving Becky!

I hope you will come and warm the house with the first.

From my temporary domicile, Enfield.

ELIA, that “is to go.”—­

[The paternal verses were probably a contribution by Charles Dibdin the Younger for Emma Isola’s album.  The Lambs were just moving to Enfield for good, as they hoped (see next letter), Milton was the portrait.]

LETTER 430

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD

Tuesday [September 18, 1827],

Dear Hood,

If I have any thing in my head, I will send it to Mr. Watts.  Strictly speaking he should have had my Album verses, but a very intimate friend importund me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar Souvenir.  Jamieson conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble, he will not be in town before the 27th.  Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have finally torn ourselves out right away from Colebrooke, where I had no health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have experienced good.

Lord what good hours do we keep! 
How quietly we sleep!