Dear Allsop—­I have been very poorly and nervous lately, but am recovering sleep, &c.  I do not invite or make engagements for particular days; but I need not say how pleasant your dropping in any Sunday morn’g would be.  Perhaps Jameson would accompany you.  Pray beg him to keep an accurate record of the warning I sent by him to old Pan, for I dread lest he should at the 12 months’ end deny the warning.  The house is his daughter’s, but we took it through him, and have paid the rent to his receipts for his daughter’s.  Consult J. if he thinks the warning sufficient.  I am very nervous, or have been, about the house; lost my sleep, & expected to be ill; but slumbered gloriously last night golden slumbers.  I shall not relapse.  You fright me with your inserted slips in the most welcome Atlas.  They begin to charge double for it, & call it two sheets.  How can I confute them by opening it, when a note of yours might slip out, & we get in a hobble?  When you write, write real letters.  Mary’s best love & mine to Mrs. A.

Yours ever, C. LAMB.

[I cannot explain the business part of this letter.]

LETTER 447

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. (?  January, Sunday) 1828.]

Dear Moxon I have to thank you for despatching so much business for me.  I am uneasy respecting the enclosed receipts which you sent me and are dated Jan. 1827.  Pray get them chang’d by Mr. Henshall to 182_8_.  I have been in a very nervous way since I saw you.  Pray excuse me to the Hoods for not answering his very pleasant letter.  I am very poorly.  The “Keepsake” I hope is return’d.  I sent it back by Mrs. Hazlitt on Thursday.  ’Twas blotted outside when it came.  The rest I think are mine.  My heart bleeds about poor Hone, that such an agreeable book, and a Book there seem’d no reason should not go on for ever, should be given up, and a thing substituted which in its Nature cannot last.  Don’t send me any more “Companions,” for it only vexes me about the Table Book.  This is not weather to hope to see any body to day, but without any particular invitations, pray consider that we are at any time most glad to see you, You (with Hunt’s “Lord Byron” or Hazlitt’s “Napoleon” in your hand) or You simply with your switch &c.  The night was damnable and the morning is not too bless-able.  If you get my dates changed, I will not trouble you with business for some time.  Best of all rememb’ces to the Hoods, with a malicious congratulation on their friend Rice’s advancem’t.

Yours truly C. LAMB.

[Hone’s Table Book ceased with 1827:  it was succeeded by a reprint, in monthly parts, of Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes.

The Companion would be the periodical started by Leigh Hunt in 1828.

“Hazlitt’s ‘Napoleon.’” Of this work the first two volumes appeared in 1828, and the next two in 1830.