have observed this defect, or peculiarity, in my writings; else the delight would be incalculable in doing such a thing for Mathews, whom I greatly like—­and Mrs. Mathews, whom I almost greatlier like.  What a feast ’twould be to be sitting at the pictures painting ’em into words; but I could almost as soon make words into pictures.  I speak this deliberately, and not out of modesty.  I pretty well know what I can’t do.

My sister’s verses are homely, but just what they should be; I send them, not for the poetry, but the good sense and good-will of them.  I was beginning to transcribe; but Emma is sadly jealous of its getting into more hands, and I won’t spoil it in her eyes by divulging it.  Come to Enfield, and read it.  As my poor cousin, the bookbinder, now with God, told me, most sentimentally, that having purchased a picture of fish at a dead man’s sale, his heart ached to see how the widow grieved to part with it, being her dear husband’s favourite; and he almost apologised for his generosity by saying he could not help telling the widow she was “welcome to come and look at it”—­e.g. at his house—­“as often as she pleased.”  There was the germ of generosity in an uneducated mind.  He had just reading enough from the backs of books for the “nec sinit esse feros”—­had he read inside, the same impulse would have led him to give back the two-guinea thing—­with a request to see it, now and then, at her house.  We are parroted into delicacy.—­Thus you have a tale for a Sonnet.

Adieu! with (imagine both) our loves.  C. LAMB.

[The suggestion had been made to Lamb, through Barron Field, that he should write a descriptive catalogue of Charles Mathews’ collection of theatrical portraits; Lamb having already touched upon them in his “Old Actors” articles in the London Magazine (see Vol.  II. of this edition).  When they were exhibited, after Mathews’ death, at the Pantheon in Oxford Street, Lamb’s remarks were appended to the catalogue raisonne.  They are now at the Garrick Club.

“An imitator of me.”  P.G.  Patmore’s Rejected Articles, 1826, leads off with “An Unsentimental Journey” by Elia which is, except for a fitful superficial imitation of some of Lamb’s mannerisms, as unlike him as could well be.  The description of the butterwomen’s dress, to which Lamb refers, will illustrate the divergence between Elia and his parodist:—­

Her attire is fashioned as follows:  and it differs from all her tribe only in the relative arrangement of its colours.  On the body a crimson jacket, of a thick, solid texture, and tight to the shape; but without any pretence at ornament.  This is met at the waist (which is neither long, nor short, but exactly where nature placed it) by a dark blue petticoat, of a still thicker texture, so that it hangs in large plaits where it is gathered in behind.  Over this, in front, is tied tightly round the waist, so as to