The part I have scratched out is the best of the letter.  Let me have your commands.

CH.  LAMB, alias ELIA.

[Talfourd thus explains this letter:  “In December, 1834, Mr. Lamb received a letter from a gentleman, a stranger to him—­Mr. Childs of Bungay, whose copy of Elia had been sent on an Oriental voyage, and who, in order to replace it, applied to Mr. Lamb.”  Mr. Childs was a printer.  His business subsequently became that of Messrs. R.&R.  Clark, which still flourishes.

This letter practically disposes of the statement made by more than one bibliographer that a second edition of Elia was published in 1833.  The tale of Bo-Bo is in the “Dissertation on Roast Pig.”

Lamb sent Mr. Childs a copy of John Woodvil, in which he wrote:—­]

LETTER 613

FROM THE AUTHOR

In great haste, the Pig was faultless,—­we got decently merry after it and chirpt and sang “Heigh!  Bessy Bungay!” in honour of the Sender.  Pray let me have a line to say you got the Books; keep the 1st vol.—­two or three months, so long as it comes home at last.

LETTER 614

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. GEORGE DYER

Dec. 22nd, 1834.

Dear Mrs. Dyer,—­I am very uneasy about a Book which I either have lost or left at your house on Thursday.  It was the book I went out to fetch from Miss Buffam’s, while the tripe was frying.  It is called Phillip’s Theatrum Poetarum; but it is an English book.  I think I left it in the parlour.  It is Mr. Cary’s book, and I would not lose it for the world.  Pray, if you find it, book it at the Swan, Snow Hill, by an Edmonton stage immediately, directed to Mr. Lamb, Church-street, Edmonton, or write to say you cannot find it.  I am quite anxious about it.  If it is lost, I shall never like tripe again.

With kindest love to Mr. Dyer and all,

Yours truly,

C. LAMB.

[In the life of H.F.  Cary by his son we read:  “He [Lamb] had borrowed of my father Phillips’s Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum, which was returned by Lamb’s friend, Mr. Moxon, with the leaf folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sydney.”  Mr. Cary acknowledged the receipt of the book by the following

LINES TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES LAMB

  So should it be, my gentle friend;

Thy leaf last closed at Sydney’s end. 
Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given
The water, thirsting and near heaven;
Nay were it wine, fill’d to the brim,
Thou hadst look’d hard, but given, like him.

  And art thou mingled then among

Those famous sons of ancient song? 
And do they gather round, and praise
Thy relish Of their nobler lays? 
Waxing in mirth to hear thee tell
With what strange mortals thou didst dwell! 
At thy quaint sallies more delighted,
Than any’s long among them lighted!