CHARLES LAMB TO B.W.  PROCTER

Enfield, Monday.

Dear P——­, I have more than L30 in my house, and am independent of quarter-day, not having received my pension.

Pray settle, I beg of you, the matter with Mr. Taylor.  I know nothing of bills, but most gladly will I forward to you that sum for him, for Mary is very anxious that M[oxon] may not get into any litigation.  The money is literally rotting in my desk for want of use.  I should not interfere with M——­, tell M——­ when you see him, but Mary is really uneasy; so lay it to that account, not mine.

Yours ever and two evers,

C.L.

Do it smack at once, and I will explain to M——­ why I did it.  It is simply done to ease her mind.  When you have settled, write, and I’ll send the bank notes to you twice, in halves.

Deduct from it your share in broken bottles, which, you being capital in your lists, I take to be two shillings.  Do it as you love Mary and me.  Then Elia’s himself again.

LETTER 567

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE

[March 6, 1833.]

Dear Friend—­Thee hast sent a Christian epistle to me, and I should not feel clear if I neglected to reply to it, which would have been sooner if that vain young man, to whom thou didst intrust it, had not kept it back.  We should rejoice to see thy outward man here, especially on a day which should not be a first day, being liable to worldly callers in on that day.  Our little book is delayed by a heathenish injunction, threatened by the man Taylor.  Canst thou copy and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse which in my younger days I wrote on friend Aders’ pictures?  Thou wilt find it in the book called the Table Book.

Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom the world calleth Mary and Emma, greet you with me.

CH.  LAMB.

6th of 3d month 4th day.

[On this letter is written by Hone in pencil:  “This acknowledges a note from me to C.L. written in January preceding and sent by young Will Hazlitt.  Received in my paralysis.  March, 1833.”

On this day Lamb gave Hone two books with the same inscription in each—­very tipsily written.]

LETTER 568

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M.  March 19, 1833.]

I shall expect Forster and two Moxons on Sunday, and hope for
Procter.

I am obliged to be in town next Monday.  Could we contrive to make a party (paying or not is immaterial) for Miss Kelly’s that night, and can you shelter us after the play, I mean Emma and me?  I fear, I cannot persuade Mary to join us.

N.B. I can sleep at a public house.

Send an Elia (mind, I insist on buying it) to T. Manning Esq. at Sir
G. Tuthill’s Cavendish Square.

DO WRITE.