self, without mousetraps and timetraps. By my new plan I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more than Mohammedan paradise, London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented alley, and her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. Oh! her lamps of a night! her rich goldsmiths, printshops, toyshops, mercers, hardwaremen, pastry cooks! St. Paul's churchyard, the Strand! Exeter Change! Charing Cross, with the man upon a black horse! These are thy gods, oh London! An't you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had you not better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference. All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you. At least, I know an alchymy that turns her mud into that metal-a mind that loves to be at home in crowds. ""Tis half past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be abed. "C. LAMB (as you may guess)." The following letters appear to have been written during Coleridge's visit to Wordsworth. TO MR. COLERIDGE. แ "By some fatality, unusual list of books which you want. supply me with another? with me, I have mislaid the Can you, from memory, easily "I confess to Statius, and I detained him wilfully, out of a reverend regard to your style. Statius, they tell me, is turgid. As to that other Latin book, since you know neither its name nor subject, your wants (I crave leave to apprehend) cannot be very urgent. Meanwhile, dream that it is one of the lost Decades of Livy. "Your particularity to me has led you to form an erroneous opinion as to the measure of delight you suppose me to take in obliging. Pray be careful that it spread no farther. "Tis one of those heresies that is very pregnant. Pray rest more satisfied with the portion of learning which you have got, and disturb my peaceful ignorance as little as possible with such sort of commissions. "Did you never observe an appearance well known by the name of the man in the moon? Some scandalous old maids have set on foot a report that it is Endymion. "Your theory about the first awkward step a man makes being the consequence of learning to dance, is not universal. We have known many youths bred up in Christ's who never learned to dance, yet the world imputes to them no very graceful motions. I remember there was little Hudson, the immortal precentor of St. Paul's, to teach us our quavers; but, to the best of my recollection, there was no master of notions when we were at Christ's. "Dear Wordsworth-I have not forgot your commissions. But the truth is-and why should I not confess it?—I am not plethorically abounding in cash at this present. Merit, Heaven knows, is very little rewarded; but it does not become me to speak of myself. My motto is, 'contented with little, yet wishing for more.' Now the books you wish for would require some pounds, which, I am sorry to say, I have not by me; so I will say at once, if you will give me a draught upon your town banker for any sum you propose to lay out, I will dispose of it to the very best of my skill in choice old books, such as my own soul loveth. In fact, I have been waiting for the liquidation of a debt to enable myself to set about your commission handsomely; for it is a scurvy thing to cry, 'Give me the money first,' and I am the first of the family of the Lambs that have done it for many centuries; but the debt remains as it was, and my old friend that I accommodated has generously forgot it! The books which you want I calculate at about £8. Ben Jonson is a guinea book. Beaumont and Fletcher, in folio, the right folio not now to be met with; the octavoes are about £3. As to any other dramatists, I do not know where to find them, except what are in Dodsley's old plays, which are about £3 also. Massinger I never saw but at one shop, but it is now gone; but one of the editions of Dodsley contains about a fourth (the best) of his plays. Congreve, and the rest of King Charles's moralists, are cheap and accessible. The works on Ireland I will inquire after, but I fear Spenser's is not to be had apart from his poems; I never saw it. But you may depend upon my sparing no pains to furnish you as complete a library of old poets and dramatists as will be prudent to buy; for I suppose you do include the £20 edition of Hamlet, single play, which Kemble has. Marlow's plays and poems are totally vanished; only one edition of Dodsley retains one, and the other two of his plays; but John Ford is the man after Shakspeare. Let me know your will and pleasure soon, for I have observed, next to the pleasure of buying a bargain for one's self is the pleasure of persuading a friend to buy it. It tickles one with the image of an imprudency, without the penalty usually annexed. "C. LAMB." CHAPTER VI. [1800.]* Letters to Manning, after Lamb's removal to the Temple. In the year 1800, Lamb carried into effect his purpose of removing to Mitre-court Buildings, Temple. During this time he wrote only a few small poems, which he transmitted to Manning. In his letters to Manning a vein of wild humour breaks out, of which there are but slight indications in the correspondence with his more sentimental friends; as if the very opposition of Manning's more scientific power to his own force of sympathy provoked the sallies which the genial kindness of the mathematician fostered. The prodigal and reckless humour of some of these letters forms a striking contrast to the deep feeling of the earlier letters to Coleridge. His 'Essays of Elia' show the harmonious union of both. The following letter contains Lamb's description of his new abode. TO MR. MANNING. "I was not aware that you owed me anything besides that guinea; but I dare say you are right. I live at No. 16 Mitrecourt Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres.' You must introduce me to the baron. I think we should suit one another mainly. He lives on the ground floor, for convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air! He keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring the baron and me together. N.B. when you come to see me, mount up to the top of the stairs-I hope you are not asthmatical-and come in flannel, for it's pure airy up there. And bring your glass, and I will show you the Surrey Hills. My bed faces the river, so as by perking up upon my haunches, and supporting my carcass with my elbows, without much wrying my neck, I can see the white sails glide by the bottom of the King's Bench walks as I lie in my bed. An excellent tiptoe prospect in the best room; casement windows, with small panes, to look more like a cottage. Mind, I have got no bed for you, that's flat; sold it to pay expenses of moving. The very bed on which Manning lay; the friendly, the mathematical Manning! How forcibly does it remind me of the interesting Otway! The very bed which on thy marriage. night gave thee into the arms of Belvidera, by the coarse hand of ruffians' (upholsterers' men), &c. My tears will not give me leave to go on. But a bed I will get you, Manning, on condition you will be my day guest. "I have been ill more than a month with a bad cold, which comes upon me (like a murderer's conscience) about midnight, and vexes me for many hours. I have successively been drugged with Spanish licorice, opium, ipecacuanha, paregoric, and tincture of foxglove (tinctura purpuræ digitalis of the ancients). I am afraid I must leave off drinking." Lamb then gives an account of his visit to an exhibition of snakes of a frightful vividness and interesting-as all details of these fascinating reptiles are, which we at once loathe and long to look upon, as the old enemies and tempters of our race. TO MR. MANNING. "Dear Manning-Had you written one week before you did, I certainly should have obeyed your injunction; you should have seen me before my letter. I will explain to you my situation. There are six of us in one department. Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe fevers; and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to have marching orders on Friday. Now six are absolutely necessary. I have already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the feverites; and, with the other prospect before me, you may believe I cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and I do promise, with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of sinner Peter if I fail) that I will come the very first spare week, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish you had made London in your way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have escaped your genius-a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of them such We walked as no remedy has been discovered for their bite. into the middle, which is formed by a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes-whip-snakes, thunder-snakes, pie-nose-snakes, American vipers, and this monster. He lies curled up in folds; and, immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the family, and sees them play at cards), he sets up a rattle like a watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the midst of these folds, like, a toad, and shook his head, and showed every sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his big mouth, which would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened me so much that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 'tis incredible how such a monster can be confined in small gauzy-looking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to Heaven you could see it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and just behind, a little devil, not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon taught better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of terror; but this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the rest. He opened his cursed mouth when he made at me as wide as his head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my body with the fright. "I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of 'The Farmer's Boy.' I thought it rather childish. No doubt there is originality in it (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models, in a scarcity of books, and forming their taste on them), but no selection. All is described. 66 Mind, I have only heard read one book. "Philo-Snake, "C. L." The following are fragments from a letter chiefly on per sonal matters, the interest of which is gone by:— TO MR. MANNING. "And now, when shall I catch a glimpse of your honest face-to-face countenance again? Your fine dogmatical, skepti |