Chapter 177

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. CLARKSON

(_Added to same letter_)

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 says they are well there, and in good spirits & that he has not been so well for a long time.

The Prospectus is of a weekly paper of a miscellaneous nature to be call'd the Friend & to come out, the first number, the first Saturday in January. Those who remember _The Watchman_ will not be very sanguine in expecting a regular fulfillment of this Prophecy. But C. writes in delightful spirits, & _if ever_, he may _now_ do this thing. I suppose he will send you a Prospectus. I had some thought of inclosing mine. But I want to shew it about. My kindest remembrance to Mr. C. & thanks for the turkey.

C. LAMB.

[Coleridge, after delivering his lectures, had gone to Bury on a visit to the Clarksons. He then passed on to Grasmere, to Wordsworth's new house, Allan Bank, and settled down to project _The Friend_.

Tom Clarkson, with whom Mary Lamb robbed a cherry tree, became a metropolitan magistrate. He died in 1837.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated February 25, 1809. It tells Lloyd where to look for Lamb when he reached town--at 16 Mitre Court Buildings, which he is leaving at Lady Day, or at 2 or 4 Inner Temple Lane. "Drury Lane Theatre is burnt to the ground." Robert Lloyd spent a short while in London in the spring of 1809 and saw the Lambs, Godwin, Captain Burney, James White and other persons. His letters to his wife describing these experiences, printed in _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, are amusingly fresh and enthusiastic.]