The Sabbath too much what you have written before.

You are destined to shine in Sonnets, I tell you.

Shall we look for you Sunday, we did in vain Good Friday [April 5].

[A signature was added by Mrs. Moxon for Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson, evidently from another letter:—­]

Your truest friend

C. LAMB.

LETTER 574

CHARLES LAMB TO C.W.  DILKE

[No date.  April, 1833.]

D’r Sir, I read your note in a moment of great perturbation with my Landlady and chuck’d it in the fire, as I should have done an epistle of Paul, but as far as my Sister recalls the import of it, I reply.  The Sonnets (36 of them) have never been printed, much less published, till the other day,* save that a few of ’em have come out in Annuals.  Two vols., of poetry of M.’s, have been publish’d, but they were not these.  The “Nightingale” has been in one of the those gewgaws, the Annuals; whether the other I sent you has, or not, penitus ignoro.  But for heaven’s sake do with ’em what you like.

Yours

C.L.

The proof sheets only were in my hand about a fortnight ago.

[Moxon’s sonnets were reviewed, probably by Lamb, in The Athenaeum for April 13, 1833.  The sonnet to the nightingale (see above) was quoted.  This review will be found in Vol.  I. of the present edition.]

LETTER 575

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM AYRTON

[P.M.  April (16), 1833.]

Dear Mrs. Ayrton, I do not know which to admire most, your kindness, or your patience, in copying out that intolerable rabble of panegryc from over the Atlantic.  By the way, now your hand is in, I wish you would copy out for me the l3th l7th and 24th of Barrow’s sermons in folio, and all of Tillotson’s (folio also) except the first, which I have in Manuscript, and which, you know, is Ayrton’s favorite.  Then—­but I won’t trouble you any farther just now.  Why does not A come and see me?  Can’t he and Henry Crabbe concert it?  ’Tis as easy as lying is to me.  Mary’s kindest love to you both.

ELIA.

[The letter is accompanied by a note in the writing of William Scrope Ayrton, the son of William Ayrton, copied from Mrs. Ayrton’s Diary:—­

“March 17, 1833.—­Copied a critique upon Elia’s works from the Mirror of America a sort of news paper.”]

LETTER 576

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M.  April 25, 1833.]

My dear Moxon, We perfectly agree in your arrangement. It has quite set my sister’s mind at rest. She will come with you on Sunday, and return at eve, and I will make comfortable arrangem’ts with the Buffams.  We desire to have you here dining unWestwooded, and I will try and get you a bottle of choice port.  I have transferr’d the stock I told you to Emma.  The plan of the Buffams steers admirably between two niceties.  Tell Emma we thoroughly approve it.  As our damnd Times is a day after the fair, I am setting off to Enfield Highway to see in a morning paper (alas! the Publican’s) how the play ran.  Pray, bring 4 orders for Mr. Asbury—­undated.