The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb

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[Miss Kelly was then giving an entertainment called “Dramatic Recollections” at the Strand Theatre.]

LETTER 569

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).]

LETTER 570

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.]