Heigh-ho! 
                Little Barrow!—­

Emma knows him,—­and prevailed on to spend the day at his sister’s, where was an album, and (O march of intellect!) plenty of literary conversation, and more acquaintance with the state of modern poetry than I could keep up with.  I was positively distanced.  Knowles’ play, which, epilogued by me, lay on the PIANO, alone made me hold up my head.  When I came home I read your letter, and glimpsed at your beautiful sonnet,

“Fair art them as the morning, my young bride,”

and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but determined not to open them till next day, being in a state not to be told of at Chatteris.  Tell it not in Gath, Emma, lest the daughters triumph!  I am at the end of my tether.  I wish you could come on Tuesday with your fair bride.  Why can’t you!  Do.  We are thankful to your sister for being of the party.  Come, and bring a sonnet on Mary’s birthday.  Love to the whole Moxonry, and tell E. I every day love her more, and miss her less.  Tell her so from her loving uncle, as she has let me call myself.  I bought a fine embossed card yesterday, and wrote for the Pawnbrokeress’s album.  She is a Miss Brown, engaged to a Mr. White.  One of the lines was (I forget the rest—­but she had them at twenty-four hours’ notice; she is going out to India with her husband):—­

“May your fame
And fortune, Frances, WHITEN with your name!”

Not bad as a pun.  I wil expect you before two on Tuesday.  I am well and happy, tell E.

[Moxon subsequently published his Sonnets, in two parts, one of which was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth.  There are several to his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last lines were to be altered.  Mrs. Moxon’s first album was an extract book in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.

I quote one of Moxon’s many sonnets to Emma Moxon:—­

        Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride! 
          Her freshness is about thee; like a river
          To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever
        Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide,
        Humanity a livelier aspect wears. 
          Fair art thou as the morning of that land
          Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned
        Thy grandsire oft.  Thou hast not many tears,
          Save such as pity from the heart will wring,
        And then there is a smile in thy distress! 
          Meeker thou art than lily of the spring,
        Yet is thy nature full of nobleness! 
          And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so,
          That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know!

“Heigh-ho!  Little Barrow!” I cannot identify this acquaintance.

“Knowles’s play”—­“The Wife.”  Prologued by Lamb too.

“At Chatteris.”  I cannot say who were the teetotal, or abstinent, Philistines.