The Works Of Charles And Mary Lamb Volume 5 The Letters Of Char

With Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed. I had not presumed to expect any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why the poem is alone sufficient to redeem the character...

Dear Field,--Captain Ogilvie, who conveys this note to you, and is now paying for the first time a visit to your remote shores, is the brother of a Gentleman intimately connecte...

I am in such violent pain with the head ach that I am fit for nothing but transcribing, scarce for that. When I get your poems, and the Joan of Arc, I will exercise my presumpti...

I am completely reconciled to that second strophe, and wa[i]ve all objection. In spite of the Grecian Lyrists, I persist on [in] thinking your brief personification of Madness u...

Sunday Morning.--You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc into a pot girl. You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most splendid ornament of Southey's poem all this...

A letter from G. Dyer will probably accompany this. I wish I could convey to you any notion of the whimsical scenes I have been witness to in this fortnight past. 'Twas on Tuesd...

Dear Missionary,--Your letters from the farthest ends of the world have arrived safe. Mary is very thankful for your remembrance of her, and with the less suspicion of mercenari...

Manning, your letter dated Hottentots, August the what-was-it? came to hand. I can scarce hope that mine will have the same luck. China-- Canton--bless us--how it strains the im...

Not a sentence, not a syllable of Trismegistus, shall be lost through my neglect. I am his word-banker, his storekeeper of puns and syllogisms. You cannot conceive (and if Trism...

My dearest friend, your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects are somewhat brighter. My poor dear dearest sis...

UNFURNISHED at present with any sheet-filling subject, I shall continue my letter gradually and journal-wise. My second thoughts entirely coincide with your comments on "Joan of...

In truth, Coleridge, I am perplexed, & at times almost cast down. I am beset with perplexities. The old hag of a wealthy relation, who took my aunt off our hands in the beginnin...

My dear Sarah,--I have heard that Coleridge was lately going through Sicily to Rome with a party, but that, being unwell, he returned back to Naples. We think there is some mist...

Dear Wordsworth, having a Guinea of your sister's left in hand, after all your commissions, and as it does not seem likely that you will trouble us, as the phrase is, for some t...

My dear Wordsworth (or Dorothy rather, for to you appertains the biggest part of this answer by right.)--I will not again deserve reproach by so long a silence. I have kept delu...

Thanks for your Letter and Present. I had already borrowed your second volume. What most please me are, the Song of Lucy.... _Simon's sickly daughter_ in the Sexton made me _cry...

DEAR C---- make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill, when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all the purposes of a single life, so give...

Your poem is altogether admirable--parts of it are even exquisite--in particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses any thing of the sort in Southey. I perceived al...

My dear Mrs. Wordsworth, I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it, but she having failed, I consider myself an...

The conclusion of this epistle getting gloomy, I have chosen this part to desire our kindest Loves to Mrs. Wordsworth and to _Dorothea_. Will none of you ever be in London again?

Dear Wordsw'th. The more I read of your two last volumes, the more I feel it necessary to make my acknowledgm'ts for them in more than one short letter. The Night Piece to which...

I have delay'd writing thus long, not having by me my copy of your poems, which I had lent. I am not satisfied with all your intended omissions. Why omit 40: 63: 84: above all,...

Dear Manning,--When I last wrote to you, I was in lodgings. I am now in chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I should be happy to see you any evening. Bring any of your fri...

7. Whether the Vision Beatific be anything more or less than a perpetual representment to each individual Angel of his own present attainments and future capabilities, somehow i...

Dear Coleridge,--I congratulate you on the appearance of "The Friend." Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfil the promise. I had...

Your success in the higher species of the Ode is such, as bespeaks you born for atchievements of loftier enterprize than to linger in the lowly train of songsters and sonneteurs...

[Sidenote: Vide 3d page of this epistle.] { With better hopes, I trust, from Avon's vales { This other "minstrel" cometh Youth endear'd no { God & good Angels guide thee on thy...

My head is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals. It has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is beginning "Turn again, Whittington." B...

Dear Wordsworth--I have seen the Books which you ordered, booked at the White Horse Inn, Cripplegate, by the Kendal waggon this day 1st Feb'y. 1806; you will not fail to see aft...

Dear Wordsworth, I received a copy of Peter Bell a week ago, and I hope the author will not be offended if I say I do not much relish it. The humour, if it is meant for humour,...

I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I beg you to present in my name, with my respect and love, to Wordsworth and his sister. You blame us for giving your direction to Mis...

My dear Friend, I am not ignorant that to be a partaker of the Divine Nature is a phrase to be met with in Scripture: I am only apprehensive, lest we in these latter days, tinct...

I am hugely pleased with your "Spider," "your old freemason," as you call him. The three first stanzas are delicious; they seem to me a compound of Burns and Old Quarles, those...

My dear Sarah,--No intention of forfeiting my promise, but mere want of time, has prevented me from continuing my _journal_. You seem pleased with the long, stupid one I sent, a...

Carissime--Scribis, ut nummos scilicet epistolarios solvam et postremo in Tartara abeam: immo tu potius Tartaricum (ut aiunt) deprehendisti, qui me vernaculâ meâ linguâ pro scri...

Dear Resuscitate,--there comes to you by the vehicle from Lad Lane this day a volume of German; what it is I cannot justly say, the characters of those northern nations having b...

My dear Wordsworth, It seems an age since we have corresponded, but indeed the interim has been stuffd out with more variety than usually checquers my same-seeming existence.--M...

It is very long since I have met with such an agreeable surprise as the sight of your letter, my kind young friend, afforded me. Such a nice letter as it is too. And what a pret...

Dear Hazlitt,--I was very glad to hear from you, and that your journey was so _picturesque_. We miss you, as we foretold we should. One or two things have happened, which are be...

Dear Wordsworth, We acknowlege with pride the receit of both your hand writings, and desire to be ever had in kindly remembrance by you both and by Dorothy. Miss Hutchinson has...

My dear W. I have scarce time or quiet to explain my present situation, how unquiet and distracted it is.... Owing to the absence of some of my compeers, and to the deficient st...

I can have no objection to your printing "Mystery of God" with my name and all due acknowledgments for the honour and favour of the communication; indeed, 'tis a poem that can d...

My dear friend, It is less fatigue to me to write upon lines, and I want to fill up as much of my paper as I can in gratitude for the pleasure your very kind letter has given me...

Your kind offer I will not a second time refuse. You shall send me a packet and I will do them into English with great care. Is not there one about W'm. Tell, and would not that...

My dear Manning,--Since the date of my last letter, I have been a traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My first impulse was to go and see Paris. It w...

Dear W. I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting the Revise of the Poems and letter. I hope they will come out faultless. One blunder I saw and shuddered at. The hal...

Dear Wordsworth--We got the six pounds safe in your sister's letters--are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news of Mrs. W.--hope all is well over by this time. "A fine bo...

My dearest Sarah,--Your letter, which contained the news of Coleridge's arrival, was a most welcome one; for we had begun to entertain very unpleasant apprehensions for his safe...

You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered none of them. I don't deserve your attentions. An unnatural indifference has been creeping on me since my last misfortune...

My dear Sarah,--You say truly that I have sent you too many make-believe letters. I do not mean to serve you so again, if I can help it. I have been very ill for some days past...

My dear Wordsworth, you cannot imagine how proud we are here of the DEDICATION. We read it twice for once that we do the poem--I mean all through--yet Benjamin is no common favo...

I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made me alive again: my last night's...

My dearest friend--White or some of my friends or the public papers by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only giv...

Not the facetious epilogue could save us. For, as the editor of the "Morning Post," quick-sighted gentleman! hath this morning truly observed, (I beg pardon if I falsify his _wo...

Dear Friends,--It is with infinite regret I inform you that the pleasing privilege of receiving letters, by which I have for these twenty years gratified my friends and abused t...

My dear friend, I have procured a frank for this day, and having been hindered all the morning have no time left to frame excuses for my long and inexcusable silence, and can on...

Charles and Hazlitt are going to Sadler's Wells, and I am amusing myself in their absence with reading a manuscript of Hazlitt's; but have laid it down to write a few lines, to...

My dear Sarah,--I have deferred answering your last letter, in hopes of being able to give you some intelligence that might be useful to you; for I every day expected that Hazli...

My Brother, my Friend,--I am distrest for you, believe me I am; not so much for your painful, troublesome complaint, which, I trust, is only for a time, as for those anxieties w...

My dear Miss Wordsworth--We rejoice with exceeding great joy to hear the delightful tidings you were so _very_ kind to remember to send us--I hope your dear sister is perfectly...

My dear Miss Wordsworth--After I had put my letter in the post yesterday I was uneasy all the night because of some few expressions relative to poor Coleridge--I mean, in saying...

How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to...

My dear Sarah,--Certainly you are the best letter-writer (besides writing the best hand) in the world. I have just been reading over again your two long letters, and I perceive...

You masters of logic ought to know (logic is nothing more than a knowledge of _words_, as the Greek etymon implies), that all words are no more to be taken in a literal sense at...

My dear Sarah, I returned home from my visit yesterday, and was much pleased to find your letter; for I have been very anxious to hear how you are going on. I could hardly help...

Dear Wordsworth, I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receit of the great Armful of Poetry which you have sent me, and to get it before the rest of the world too! I have g...

The first moment I can come I will, but my hopes of coming yet a while yet hang on a ticklish thread. The coach I come by is immaterial as I shall so easily by your direction fi...

I do not know that I much prefer this Eclogue [Lamb has received 'The Last of the Flock'] to the last ['The Wedding']; both are inferior to the former ['The Ruined Cottage'].

My dear Manning,--The general scope of your letter afforded no indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. For God's sake don't think any more of "Inde...

Dear Coleridge,--I have taken to-day, and delivered to Longman and Co., _Imprimis_: your books, viz., three ponderous German dictionaries, one volume (I can find no more) of Ger...

Dear Sir,--Nothing runs in my head when I think of your story, but that you should make it as like the life of Savage as possible. That is a known and familiar tale, and its eff...

I have received your letter _this moment_, not having been at the office. I have just time to scribble down the epilogue. To your epistle I will just reply, that I will certainl...

Dear Manning,--I sent you a long letter by the ships which sailed the beginning of last month, accompanied with books, &c. Since I last wrote, Holcroft is dead. He died on Thurs...

My dear Miss Wordsworth--I thank you, my kind friend, for your most comfortable letter. Till I saw your own handwriting, I could not persuade myself that I should do well to wri...

Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where I shall put all the noble present...

Alas! how am I changed! where be the tears, The sobs and forced suspensions of the breath, And all the dull desertions of the heart With which I hung o'er my dear mother's corse...

My dear Sarah--I thank you a thousand times for the beautiful work you have sent me, I received the parcel from a strange gentleman yesterday. I like the patterns very much, you...

My dear Wordsworth, if Gilpin's statement has afforded you any satisfaction, I can assure you that he was most explicit in giving it, and even seemed anxious (interrupting me) t...

Dear old friend and absentee,--This is Christmas-day 1815 with us; what it may be with you I don't know, the 12th of June next year perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated...

Dear W. your experience about tailors seems to be in point blank opposition to Burton, as much as the author of the Excursion does toto coelo differ in his notion of a country l...

Dear Manning,--I have forborne writing so long (and so have you, for the matter of that), until I am almost ashamed either to write or to forbear any longer. But as your silence...

My dear Manning--I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when...

_Ecquid meditatur Archimedes?_ What is Euclid doing? What has happened to learned Trismegist?--Doth he take it in ill part, that his humble friend did not comply with his courte...

I heard that you were going to China, with a commission from the Wedgwoods to collect hints for their pottery, and to teach the Chinese _perspective_. But I did not know that Lo...

My dear Coleridge,--The date of my last was one day prior to the receipt of your letter, full of foul omens. I explain, lest you should have thought mine too light a reply to su...

Dear Manning,--Olivia is a good girl, and if you turn to my letter, you will find that this very plea you set up to vindicate Lloyd I had made use of as a reason why he should n...

Hard is the heart, that does not melt with Ruth When care sits cloudy on the brow of Youth, When bitter griefs the _female_ bosom swell And Beauty meditates a fond farewell To h...

My dear Miss Wordsworth, Your long kind letter has not been thrown away (for it has given me great pleasure to find you are all resuming your old occupations, and are better) bu...

Dear Southey,--I thank you heartily for the Eclogue; it pleases me mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's...

My dear Sarah,--I have made many attempts at writing to you, but it has always brought your troubles and my own so strongly into my mind, that I have been obliged to leave off,...

My dear Sarah--The dear, quiet, lazy, delicious month we spent with you is remembered by me with such regret, that I feel quite discontent & Winterslow-sick. I assure you, I nev...

Dr W.--I forwarded the Letter which you sent to me, without opening it, to your Sister at Binfield. She has returned it to me, and begs me to tell you that she intends returning...

Dear Miss Wordsworth, you will think me negligent, but I wanted to see more of Willy, before I ventured to express a prediction. Till yesterday I had barely seen him--Virgilium...

DR. C.,--I do confess that I have not sent your books as I ought to be [have] done; but you know how the human freewill is tethered, and that we perform promises to ourselves no...

Dr R.--My Brother whom you have met at my rooms (a plump good looking man of seven and forty!) has written a book about humanity, which I transmit to you herewith. Wilson the Pu...

Dear Manning,--I am going to ask a favour of you, and am at a loss how to do it in the most delicate manner. For this purpose I have been looking into Pliny's Letters, who is no...

I am ashamed that I have not thanked you before this for the "Joan of Arc," but I did not know your address, and it did not occur to me to write through Cottle. The poem delight...

My dear M.,--I want to know how your brother is, if you have heard lately. I want to know about you. I wish you were nearer. How are my cousins, the Gladmans of Wheathamstead, a...

My dear Barren,--The bearer of this letter so far across the seas is Mr. Lawrey, who comes out to you as a missionary, and whom I have been strongly importuned to recommend to y...

Dear Wordsworth, I told you my Review was a very imperfect one. But what you will see in the Quarterly is a spurious one which Mr. Baviad Gifford has palm'd upon it for mine. I...

I stared with wild wonderment to see thy well-known hand again. It revived many a pleasing recollection of an epistolary intercourse, of late strangely suspended, once the pride...

I saw a famous fountain in my dream, Where shady pathways to a valley led; A weeping willow lay upon that stream, And all around the fountain brink were spread Wide branching tr...

My dear Sarah,--I have taken a large sheet of paper, as if I were going to write a long letter; but that is by no means my intention, for I only have time to write three lines t...

Dear Southey,--I have received your little volume, for which I thank you, though I do not entirely approve of this sort of intercourse, where the presents are all one side. I ha...

Dear Coleridge,--Your offer about the German poems is exceedingly kind; but I do not think it a wise speculation, because the time it would take you to put them into prose would...

My dear Manning,--Although something of the latest, and after two months' waiting, your letter was highly gratifying. Some parts want a little explication; for example, "the god...

At length George Dyer's phrenesis has come to a crisis; he is raging and furiously mad. I waited upon the heathen, Thursday was a se'nnight; the first symptom which struck my ey...

Dr. Southey,--Lloyd will now be able to give you an account of himself, so to him I leave you for satisfaction. Great part of his troubles are lightened by the partial recovery...

Dear Manning,--I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been partially relieved by an odd accide...

Dear Miss Kelly,--We had the pleasure, _pain_ I might better call it, of seeing you last night in the new Play. It was a most consummate piece of Acting, but what a task for you...

Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. Genius of the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand through all this valley of weeping,...

My dear Friend,--Since we heard of your sad sorrow, you have been perpetually in our thoughts; therefore, you may well imagine how welcome your kind remembrance of it must be. I...

Dear Coleridge,--I have but this moment received your letter, dated the 9th instant, having just come off a journey from Wiltshire, where I have been with Mary on a visit to Haz...

Dear Hazlitt,--Godwin went to Johnson's yesterday about your business. Johnson would not come down, or give any answer, but has promised to open the manuscript, and to give you...

Let the hungry soul rejoice: there is corn in Egypt. Whatever thou hast been told to the contrary by designing friends, who perhaps inquired carelessly, or did not inquire at al...

Dear Godwin,--You never made a more unlucky and perverse mistake than to suppose that the reason of my not writing that cursed thing was to be found in your book. I assure you m...

I am scarcely yet so reconciled to the loss of you, or so subsided into my wonted uniformity of feeling, as to sit calmly down to think of you and write to you. But I reason mys...

Dear Wordsworth--Thanks for the books you have given me and for all the Books you mean to give me. I will bind up the Political Sonnets and Ode according to your Suggestion. I h...

My dearest Sarah,--I will just write a few hasty lines to say Coleridge is setting off sooner than we expected; and I every moment expect him to call in one of his great hurrys...

My dear Sarah,--Do not be very angry that I have not written to you. I have promised your brother to be at your wedding, and that favor you must accept as an atonement for my of...

Dear Miss Wordsworth, the task of letter-writing in my family falls to me; you are the organ of correspondence in yours, so I address you rather than your brother. We are all se...

I had need be cautious henceforward what opinion I give of the "Lyrical Ballads." All the North of England are in a turmoil. Cumberland and Westmoreland have already declared a...

Dear Coleridge,--A Letter written in the blood of your poor friend would indeed be of a nature to startle you; but this is nought but harmless red ink, or, as the witty mercanti...

Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for that spirit of confidence and friendship which dictated your last letter. May your soul find peace at last in your cottage life! I...

I am requested by Lloyd to excuse his not replying to a kind letter received from you. He is at present situated in most distressful family perplexities, which I am not at liber...

Observe, there comes to you, by the Kendal waggon to-morrow, the illustrious 5th of November, a box, containing the Miltons, the strange American Bible, with White's brief note,...

Dear Manning,--You needed not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) discourse most eloquent music in yo...

My dear Miss Wordsworth, Your kind letter has given us very great pleasure,--the sight of your hand writing was a most welcome surprize to us. We have heard good tidings of you...

My dearest friend, I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling no where. Is it an untoward fatality (...

My dear Sarah,--I hear of you from your brother; but you do not write yourself, nor does Hazlitt. I beg that one or both of you will amend this fault as speedily as possible, fo...

Dear Manning,--Following your brother's example, I have just ventured one letter to Canton, and am now hazarding another (not exactly a duplicate) to St. Helena. The first was f...

My dear Sarah,--I am two letters in your debt; but it has not been so much from idleness, as a wish first to see how your comical love affair would turn out. You know, I make a...

George Dyer is an Archimedes, and an Archimagus, and a Tycho Brahé, and a Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their wandering babe also! We take tea...

My dear Wordsworth, the subject of your letter has never been out of our thoughts since the day we first heard of it, and many have been our impulses towards you, to write to yo...

Dear Southey,--Robinson is not on the circuit, as I erroneously stated in a letter to W. W., which travels with this, but is gone to Brussels, Ostend, Ghent, etc. But his friend...

Dear Manning,--Having suspended my correspondence a decent interval, as knowing that even good things may be taken to satiety, a wish cannot but recur to learn whether you be st...

The following is a second Extract from my Tragedy _that is to be_,--'tis narrated by an old Steward to Margaret, orphan ward of Sir Walter Woodvil;--this, and the Dying Lover I...

My dear Sarah,--After a very feverish night, I writ a letter to you; and I have been distressed about it ever since. In the first place, I have thought I treated too lightly you...

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 situat...

My dear Coleridge,--Things have gone on better with me since you left me. I expect to have my old housekeeper home again in a week or two. She has mended most rapidly. My health...

I shall be glad to come home and talk these matters over with you. I have read your scheme very attentively. That Arabella has been mistress to King Charles is sufficient to all...

Dear Manning,--I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and Sophia to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now it fortunately happens (which is so seldom the ca...

Dear Godwin,--The giant's vomit was perfectly nauseous, and I am glad you pointed it out. I have removed the objection. To the other passages I can find no other objection but w...

Dear Manning,--I am living in a continuous feast. Coleridge has been with me now for nigh three weeks, and the more I see of him in the quotidian undress and relaxation of his m...

My dear Mrs. Clarkson--I feel myself greatly indebted to Mr. Clarkson for his care about our direction, since it has procured us the pleasure of a line from you. Why are we all,...

Dear Col,--You have learnd by this time, with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so unlooked for are not ill expressed in what...

My dear friend--My brother's letter, which I did not see, I am sure has distressed you sadly. I was then so ill as to alarm him exceedingly, and he thought me quite incapable of...

Your last letter was dated the 10th February; in it you promised to write again the next day. At least, I did not expect so long, so unfriend-like, a silence. There was a time,...

Dear H.--Godwin has just been here in his way from Johnson's. Johnson has had a fire in his house; this happened about five weeks ago; it was in the daytime, so it did not burn...

My dear Mrs. Coleridge--I have had a letter written ready to send to you, which I kept, hoping to get a frank, and now I find I must write one entirely anew, for that consisted...

Dear Coleridge,--Soon after I wrote to you last, an offer was made me by Gutch (you must remember him? at Christ's--you saw him, slightly, one day with Thomson at our house)--to...

Dear Sir--My friend whom you have obliged by the loan of your picture, having had it very exactly copied (and a very spirited Drawing it is, as every one thinks that has seen it...

Dear Hazlitt--I sent you on Saturday a Cobbett, containing your reply to the _Edinburgh Review_, which I thought you would be glad to receive as an example of attention on the p...

Dear Sir,--I have performed my office in a slovenly way, but judge for me. I sat down at 6 o'clock, and never left reading (and I read out to Mary) your play till 10. In this si...

Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the Geographers used to cram monsters in the voids of their maps & call it Terra Incognita. She has told you how...

My dear Manning,--I must positively write, or I shall miss you at Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute hand (I lie; _that_ does not _sit_), and being myself the exponent o...

We have book'd off from Swan and Two Necks, Lad Lane, this day (per Coach) the Tales from Shakespear. You will forgive the plates, when I tell you they were left to the directio...

Dear Southey,--I have but just got your letter, being returned from Herts, where I have passed a few red-letter days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to you, as y...

My dear Sarah,--I have sent your letter and drawing off to Wm. Hazlitt's father's in Shropshire, where I conjecture Hazlitt is. He left town on Saturday afternoon, without telli...

You may write to Hazlitt, that I will _certainly_ go to Winterslough, as my Father has agreed to give me 5l. to bear my expences, and has given leave that I may stop till that i...

My dear friend, Before I end,-- Have you any More orders for Don Giovanni To give Him that doth live Your faithful Zany? Without raillery I mean Gallery Ones: For I am a person...

Dear Southey,--Your friend John May has formerly made kind offers to Lloyd of serving me in the India house by the interest of his friend Sir Francis Baring--It is not likely th...

Dear Manning,--I suppose you have heard of Sophia Lloyd's good fortune, and paid the customary compliments to the parents. Heaven keep the new-born infant from star-blasting and...

Dear H.--I am a little surprised at no letter from you. This day week, to wit, Saturday, the 8th of March, 1806, I booked off by the Wem coach, Bull and Mouth Inn, directed to _...

My dear Wordsworth, I yesterday wrote you a very unsatisfactory letter. To day I have not much to add, but it may be some satisfaction to you that I have seen Gilpin, and thanke...

Queries. Whether the best conclusion would not be a solemn judicial pleading, appointed by the king, before himself in person of Antonio as proxy for Roderigo, and Guzman for hi...

Dear Coleridge,--I thought of not writing till we had performed some of our commissions; but we have been hindered from setting about them, which yet shall be done to a tittle....

Dear Coleridge,--Now I write, I cannot miss this opportunity of acknowledging the obligations myself, and the readers in general of that luminous paper, the "Morning Post," are...

I hope by this time you are prepared to say the "Falstaf's letters" are a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humours, of any these juice-drained latter times have spa...

I hate the pedantry of expressing that in another language which we have sufficient terms for in our own. So in plain English I very much wish you to give your vote to-morrow at...

Dear [Montagu],--I have turned and twisted the MSS. in my head, and can make nothing of them. I knew when I took them that I could not; but I do not like to do an act of ungraci...

My dear Coleridge,--I have been in a state of incessant hurry ever since the receipt of your ticket. It found me incapable of attending you, it being the night of Kenney's new c...

C.L.'s moral sense presents her compliments to Doctor Manning, is very thankful for his medical advice, but is happy to add that her disorder has died of itself.

Dear Miss Wordsworth, Here we are, transplanted from our native soil. I thought we never could have been torn up from the Temple. Indeed it was an ugly wrench, but like a tooth,...

Dr Miss Betham,--All this while I have been tormenting myself with the thought of having been ungracious to you, and you have been all the while accusing yourself. Let us absolv...

My dear Sir,--I am quite ashamed of not having acknowledged your kind present earlier, but that unknown something, which was never yet discovered, though so often speculated upo...

Dear Gutch,--I did not see your brother, who brought me Wither; but he understood, he said, you were daily expecting to come to town: this has prevented my writing. The books ha...

My dear Friend, Miss Monkhouse left town yesterday, but I think I am able to answer all your enquiries. I saw her on Sunday evening at Mrs. Montagu's. She looked very well & sai...

I am going off to Birmingh'm. I find my books, whatever faculty of selling they may have (I wish they had more for {_your/my_} sake), are admirably adapted for giving away. You...

But the truth is, and why should I not confess it? I am not plethorically abounding in Cash at this present. Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded; but it does not become me...

Dear Miss Hutchinson, I subscribe most willingly to all my sister says of her Enjoyment at Cambridge. She was in silent raptures all the while _there_ and came home riding thro'...

Dear Wordsworth, I have this moment received this letter from Gilpin in reply to 3 or 4 short questions I put to him in my letter before yours for him came. He does not notice h...

I was not aware that you owed me anything beside that guinea; but I dare say you are right. I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres'. You must in...

Poor Charles Lloyd came to me about a fortnight ago. He took the opportunity of Mr. Hawkes coming to London, and I think at his request, to come with him. It seemed to me, and h...

Pray, are the Winterslow Estates entailed? I am afraid lest the young dog when he grows up should cut down the woods, and leave no groves for widows to take their lonesome solac...

Dear Miss H.--I am forced to be the replier to your Letter, for Mary has been ill and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. She has left me very lonely and very miserable....

My dear Miss Wordsworth--I writ a letter immediately upon the receipt of yours, to thank you for sending me the welcome tidings of your little niece's birth, and Mrs. Wordsworth...

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Clarkson, you will wish to know how we performed our journey. My sister was tolerably quiet until we got to Chelmsford, where she began to be very bad indeed, as...

My dear Matilda,--Coleridge has given me a very chearful promise that he will wait on Lady Jerningham any day you will be pleased to appoint; he offered to write to you; but I f...

Dear Gutch, Anderson is not come home, and I am almost afraid to tell you what has happen'd, lest it should seem to have happened by my fault in not writing for you home sooner.--

Dear Manning, I am a letter in your debt, but I am scarcely rich enough (in spirits) to pay you.--I am writing at an inn on the Ware road, in the neighbourhood of which I am goi...

Did you seize the grand opportunity of seeing Kosciusko while he was at Bristol? I never saw a hero; I wonder how they look. I have been reading a most curious romance-like work...

Dear Wordsworth, upon the receipt of your last letter before that which I have just received, I wrote myself to Gilpin putting your questions to him; but have yet had no answer....

Dear Rickman,--I send you some papers about a salt-water soap, for which the inventor is desirous of getting a parliamentary reward, like Dr. Jenner. Whether such a project be f...

I confess to Statius, and I detained him wilfully, out of a reverent regard to your style. Statius, they tell me, is turgid. As to that other Latin book, since you know neither...

Dear Wilson.--I am extremely sorry that any serious difference should subsist between us on account of some foolish behaviour of mine at Richmond; you knew me well enough before...

Dear Manning,--The particular kindness, even up to a degree of attachment, which I have experienced from you, seems to claim some distinct acknowledgment on my part. I could not...

Dear Southey,--I have at last been so fortunate as to pick up Wither's Emblems for you, that "old book and quaint," as the brief author of "Rosamund Gray" hath it; it is in a mo...

Dear Rickman,--I enclose you a wonder, a letter from the shades. A dead body wants to return, and be inrolled _inter vivos_. 'Tis a gentle ghost, and in this Galvanic age it may...

Sir,--I am truly concerned that any mistake of mine should have caused you uneasiness, but I hope we have got a clue to William's absence, which may clear up all apprehensions....

Dear Southey,--I am pleased with your friendly remembrances of my little things. I do not know whether I have done a silly thing or a wise one; but it is of no great consequence...

Dear Dyer,--Coleridge is not so bad as your fears have represented him; it is true that he is Bury'd, altho' he is not dead; to understand this quibble you must know that he is...

We are in a pickle. Mary from her affectation of physiognomy has hired a stupid big country wench who looked honest, as she thought, and has been doing her work some days but wi...

Dear Coleridge--I have read your silly, very silly, letter, and between laughing and crying I hardly know how to answer it. You are too serious and too kind a vast deal, for we...

I have read your Eclogue ["The Wedding"] repeatedly, and cannot call it bald, or without interest; the cast of it, and the design are completely original, and may set people upo...

So was he lifted gently from the ground, And with their freight homeward the shepherds moved Through the dull mist, I following--when a step, A single step, that freed me from t...

My dear Miss Hutchinson, I had intended to write you a long letter, but as my frank is dated I must send it off with a bare acknowledgment of the receipt of your kind letter. On...

Dear J. P. C.,--I know how zealously you feel for our friend S. T. Coleridge; and I know that you and your family attended his lectures four or five years ago. He is in bad heal...

I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have solider fare than a _Letter_. We are pretty stout about it, have had plenty of condoling friends, b...

Dear Manning, I send you some verses I have made on the death of a young Quaker you may have heard me speak of as being in love with for some years while I lived at Pentonville,...

Dear Rickman,--You do not happen to have any place at your disposal which would suit a decayed Literatus? I do not much expect that you have, or that you will go much out of the...

Dr C. Your sonnet is capital. The Paper ingenious, only that it split into 4 parts (besides a side splinter) in the carriage. I have transferred it to the common English Paper,...

Dear Manning,--I sent to Brown's immediately. Mr. Brown (or Pijou, as he is called by the moderns) denied the having received a letter from you. The one for you he remembered re...

My dear Coleridge--I don't know why I write, except from the propensity misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty died on Friday night, about eleven o'clock, after eight days' illnes...

Dear Manning,--I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry and the kind honest prose which it...

My dear Miss Betham,--My brother and myself return you a thousand thanks for your kind communication. We have read your poem many times over with increased interest, and very mu...

Dear Sarah,--Mary is a little cut at the ill success of "Mr. H.," which came out last night and _failed_. I know you'll be sorry, but never mind. We are determined not to be cas...

We have this moment received a very chearful letter from Coleridge, who is now at Grasmere. It contains a prospectus for a new weekly publication to be called _The Friend_. He s...

Dear H.,--Epistemon is not well. Our pleasant excursion has ended sadly for one of us. You will guess I mean my sister. She got home very well (I was very ill on the journey) an...

Dear Miss W.--There can be none to whom the last volume of W. W. has come more welcome than to me. I have traced the Duddon in thought and with repetition along the banks (alas!...

There came this morning a printed prospectus from S.T. Coleridge, Grasmere, of a weekly paper, to be called The Friend--a flaming prospectus--I have no time to give the heads of...

Dr Sargus--This is to give you notice that I have parted with the Cottage to Mr. Grig Jun'r. to whom you will pay rent from Michaelmas last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas...

My dear Sarah,--I have been a long time anxiously expecting the happy news that I have just received. I address you because, as the letter has been lying some days at the India...

Dear Miss Betham,--That accursed word trill has vexed me excessively. I have referred to the MS. and certainly the printer is exonerated, it is much more like a _tr_ than a _k_....

My dear fellow (_N.B._ mighty familiar of late!) for me to come to Cambridge now is one of God Almighty's impossibilities. Metaphysicians tell us, even He can work nothing which...

My dear Miss Stoddart,--Mary has written so fully to you, that I have nothing to add but that, in all the kindness she has exprest, and loving desire to see you again, I bear my...

Dear Sir,--Wordsworth breakfasts with me on Tuesday morning next; he goes to Mrs. Clarkson the next day, and will be glad to meet you before he goes. Can you come to us before n...

Dear Godwin,--I have found it for several reasons indispensable to my comfort, and to my sister's, to have no visitors in the forenoon. If I cannot accomplish this I am determin...

Dear T. We are at Mr. Bays's, Hatter, Trumpington Street, Cambridge. Can you come down? You will be with us, all but Bed, which you can get at an Inn. We shall be most glad to s...

Dear Sir--Mrs. Collier has been kind enough to say that you would endeavour to procure a reporter's situation for W. Hazlitt. I went to consult him upon it last night, and he ac...

Dear Sir--It is so long since I have seen or heard from you, that I fear that you will consider a request I have to make as impertinent. About three years since, when I was one...

"'Gentleman' said I." On another occasion Lamb, asked to give a toast, gave the best he knew--woodcock on toast. See also his toasts at Haydon's dinner. I do not know when or wh...

Dear Miss Kelly,--_Your injunctions shall be obeyed to a tittle_. I feel myself in a lackadaisacal no-how-ish kind of a humour. I believe it is the rain, or something. I had tho...

Dear Sir--I can get the insertions into the British Press without any difficulty at all. I am only sorry that I have no interest in the M. Post, having so much greater circulati...

I discern a possibility of my paying you a visit next week. May I, can I, shall I, come so soon? Have you _room_ for me, _leisure_ for me, and are you all pretty well? Tell me a...

My dear C.--I but just received your commission-abounding letter. All shall be done. Make your European heart easy in Malta, all shall be performed. You say I am to transcribe o...

Dear Southey,--You were the last person from whom we heard of Dyer, and if you know where to forward the news I now send to him, I shall be obliged to you to lose no time. D.'s...

Dear Mrs. H.: Sally who brings this with herself back has given every possible satisfaction in doing her work, etc., but the fact is the poor girl is oppressed with a ladylike m...

What if the jaded Steer, who all day long Had borne the heat and labour of the plough, When Evening came and her sweet cooling hour, Should seek to trespass on a neighbour copse...

Dear Archimedes,--Things have gone on badly with thy ungeometrical friend; but they are on the turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of convalescence, and will shortly resume...

I repent. Can that God whom thy votaries say that thou hast demolished expect more? I did indite a splenetic letter, but did the black Hypocondria never gripe _thy_ heart, till...

Dear Mrs. C.--This note will be given to you by a young friend of mine, whom I wish you would employ: she has commenced business as a mantua-maker, and, if you and my girls woul...

Dear Sir,--I send this speedily after the heels of Cooper (O! the dainty expression) to say that Mary is obliged to stay at home on Sunday to receive a female friend, from whom...

My dear Sir,--I have been sitting down for three or four days successively to the review, which I so much wished to do well, and to your satisfaction. But I can produce nothing...

Dear Mrs. G.,--Having observed with some concern that Mr. Godwin is a little fastidious in what he eats for supper, I herewith beg to present his palate with a piece of dried sa...

There--don't read any further, because the Letter is not intended for you but for Coleridge, who might perhaps not have opened it directed to him suo nomine. It is to invite C....

Dear Manning,--Certainly you could not have called at all hours from two till ten, for we have been only out of an evening Monday and Tuesday in this week. But if you think you...

Dear Miss Betham,--I have sent your _very pretty lines_ to Southey in a frank as you requested. Poor S. what a grievous loss he must have had! Mary and I rejoice in the prospect...

Dear Sir,--I expected a good deal of pleasure from your company to-morrow, but I am sorry I must beg of you to excuse me. I have been confined ever since I saw you with one of t...

Dear Sir,--Would you be so kind as, when you go to the Times office, to see about an Advertisement which My Landlady's Daughter left for insertion about ten days since and has n...

Dear Tom, Do not come to us on Thursday, for we are moved into country lodgings, tho' I am still at the India house in the mornings. See Marshall and Captain Betham _as soon as...

As I began with the beginning of this month, I will if you please call upon you for _your part of the engagement_ (supposing I shall have performed mine) on the 1st of March nex...

Dr C. I blunderd open this letter, its weight making me conjecture it held an inclosure; but finding it poetry (which is no man's ground, but waste and common) I perused it. Do...

Dear Sir--I am sorry we have not been able to hear of lodgings to suit young F. but we will not desist in the enquiry. In a day or two something may turn up. Boarding houses are...

Dear Sir,--Doctor Christy's Brother and Sister are come to town, and have shown me great civilities. I in return wish to requite them, having, _by God's grace_, principles of ge...

[The first letter that has been preserved to Haydon, the painter. Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) was then principally known by his "Judgment of Solomon": he was at this time...

Dear Rickman,--The enclosed letter explains itself. It will save me the danger of a corporal interview with the man-eater who, if very sharp-set, may take a fancy to me, if you...

Dear Miss Betham,--I am very sorry, but I was pre-engaged for this evening when Eliza communicated the contents of your letter. She herself also is gone to Walworth to pass some...

Dear Sir, I do not know whose fault it is we have not met so long. We are almost always out of town. You must come and beat up our quarters there, when we return from Cambridge....

Dear Sir, We beg to convey our kindest acknowledgements to Mr. Arnold for the very pleasant privilege he has favoured us with. My yearly holidays end with next week, during whic...

Sir, I am sorry to seem to go off my agreement, but very particular circumstances have happened to hinder my fulfillment of it at present. If any single Essays ever occur to me...

Dear Sir--I have no sort of connexion with the Morning Post at present, nor acquaintance with its late Editor (the present Editor of the Courier) to ask a favour of him with pro...

Dear Miss B.--I send you three Tickets which will serve the first course of C.'s Lectures, six in number, the first begins tomorrow. Excuse the cover being not _or fa_, is not t...