Major Butterworth in a letter to Notes and Queries, March 24, 1906, thus explains the reference to Battin:—­

“In lately going over the pages of The New Monthly Magazine for 1826 I came across a paragraph in the June number, extracted from a daily newspaper, in which the following occurs:  ’Great merit is due to Mr. Lamb junior for his exertions to relieve the weavers of Norwich.’...

“As his ‘Reminiscences of Juke Judkins, Esq.,’ was printed in the same number of the Magazine, Lamb’s attention would no doubt be arrested by the remarks about his namesake, which would probably be retained in his memory, to be used subsequently, as occasion served, in mystifying his friend.”

Tuthill, whom we have met, was one of the physicians at St. Luke’s Hospital for the insane.

“He squinted out....”  Irving had sight only in one eye, an obliquity caused, it is suggested, by lying when a baby in a wooden cradle, the sides of which prevented the other from gathering light.

“To the same in Greek.”  An atrocious pun, which I leave to the reader to discover.  Gillman was a doctor.]

LETTER 506

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM AYRTON

Mr. Westwood’s, Chase Side, Enfield,

14th March, 1830.

My dear Ayrton,—­Your letter, which was only not so pleasant as your appearance would have been, has revived some old images; Phillips (not the Colonel), with his few hairs bristling up at the charge of a revoke, which he declares impossible; the old Captain’s significant nod over the right shoulder (was it not?); Mrs. Burney’s determined questioning of the score, after the game was absolutely gone to the devil, the plain but hospitable cold boiled-beef suppers at sideboard; all which fancies, redolent of middle age and strengthful spirits, come across us ever and anon in this vale of deliberate senectitude, ycleped Enfield.

You imagine a deep gulf between you and us; and there is a pitiable hiatus in kind between St. James’s Park and this extremity of Middlesex.  But the mere distance in turnpike roads is a trifle.  The roof of a coach swings you down in an hour or two.  We have a sure hot joint on a Sunday, and when had we better?  I suppose you know that ill health has obliged us to give up housekeeping; but we have an asylum at the very next door—­only twenty-four inches further from town, which is not material in a country expedition—­where a table d’hote is kept for us, without trouble on our parts, and we adjourn after dinner, when one of the old world (old friends) drops casually down among us.  Come and find us out, and seal our judicious change with your approbation, whenever the whim bites, or the sun prompts.  No need of announcement, for we are sure to be at home.

I keep putting off the subject of my answer.  In truth I am not in spirits at present to see Mr. Murray on such a business; but pray offer him my acknowledgments and an assurance that I should like at least one of his propositions, as I have so much additional matter for the SPECIMENS, as might make two volumes in all, or ONE (new edition) omitting such better known authors as Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson, &c.