The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 705 pages of information about The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6.

The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 705 pages of information about The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6.

LETTER 326

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[P.M.  Sept. 9, 1823.]

My dear A.—­I am going to ask you to do me the greatest favour which a man can do to another.  I want to make my will, and to leave my property in trust for my sister. N.B. I am not therefore going to die.—­Would it be unpleasant for you to be named for one?  The other two I shall beg the same favor of are Talfourd and Proctor.  If you feel reluctant, tell me, and it sha’n’t abate one jot of my friendly feeling toward you.

Yours ever, C. LAMB.

E.I.  House, Aug. [i.e., Sept.] 9, 1823.

LETTER 327

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[P.M.  September 10, 1823.]

My dear A.—­Your kindness in accepting my request no words of mine can repay.  It has made you overflow into some romance which I should have check’d at another time.  I hope it may be in the scheme of Providence that my sister may go first (if ever so little a precedence), myself next, and my good Ex’rs survive to remembr us with kindness many years.  God bless you.

I will set Proctor about the will forthwith.  C. LAMB.

[Here should come another note to Allsop dated Sept. 16, 1823, saying that Mary Lamb is still ill at Fulham.  Given in the Boston Bibliophile edition.]

LETTER 328

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[September, 1823.]

Dear A.—­Your Cheese is the best I ever tasted; Mary will tell you so hereafter.  She is at home, but has disappointed me.  She has gone back rather than improved.  However, she has sense enough to value the present, for she is greatly fond of Stilton.  Yours is the delicatest rain-bow-hued melting piece I ever flavoured.  Believe me.  I took it the more kindly, following so great a kindness.

Depend upon’t, yours shall be one of the first houses we shall present ourselves at, when we have got our Bill of Health.

Being both yours and Mrs. Allsop’s truly.  C.L. & M.L.

[Allsop and Procter may have been named as executors of Lamb’s will at one time, but when it came to be proved the executors were Talfourd and Ryle, a fellow-clerk in the India House.]

LETTER 329

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M.  September 17, 1823.]

Dear Sir—­I have again been reading your stanzas on Bloomfield, which are the most appropriate that can be imagined, sweet with Doric delicacy.  I like that

Our more chaste Theocritus—­

just hinting at the fault of the Grecian.  I love that stanza ending with

Words phrases fashions pass away;
But Truth and nature live through all.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.