[Miss Kelly was then giving an entertainment called
“Dramatic Recollections” at the Strand
Theatre.]
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. ? Spring, 1833.]
One o Clock.
This instant receiv’d, this instant I answer
your’s—Dr. Cresswell has one copy,
which I cannot just now re-demand, because at his desire
I have sent a “Satan” to him, which when
he ask’d for, I frankly told him, was imputed
a lampoon on HIM!!! I have sent it him, and cannot,
till we come to explanation, go to him or send—
But on the faith of a Gentleman, you shall have it
back some day for another. The 3 I send.
I think 2 of the blunders perfectly immaterial.
But your feelings, and I fear pocket, is every
thing. I have just time to pack this off by the
2 o Clock stage. Yours till me meet
At all events I behave more gentlemanlike than Emma
did, in returning the copies.
Yours till we meet—DO COME.
Bring the Sonnets—
Why not publish ’em?—or let another
Bookseller?
[Dr. Cresswell was vicar of Edmonton. Having
married the daughter of a tailor—or so
Mr. Fuller Russell states in his account of a conversation
with Lamb in Notes and Queries—he
was in danger of being ribaldly associated with Satan’s
matrimonial adventures in Lamb’s ballad.
I cannot explain to what book Lamb refers: possibly
to the Last Essays of Elia, which Moxon, having
found errors in, wished to withdraw, substituting
another. The point probably cannot be cleared
up. The sonnets would be Moxon’s own, which
he had printed privately (see a later letter).]
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. March 30, 1833.]
D’r M. Emma and we are delighted with
the Sonnets, and she with her nice Walton. Mary
is deep in the novel. Come as early as you can.
I stupidly overlookd your proposal to meet you in
Green Lanes, for in some strange way I burnt my
leg, shin-quarter, at Forster’s;* it is laid
up on a stool, and Asbury attends. You’ll
see us all as usual, about Taylor, when you come.
Yours ever
C.L.
Or the night I came home, for I felt it not bad
till yesterday. But I scarce can hobble across
the room.
I have secured 4 places for night: in haste.
Mary and E. do not dream of any thing we have discussed.
[I fancy that the last sentence refers to an offer
for Miss Isola’s hand which Moxon had just made
to Lamb.]
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. Spring, 1833.]
