Chapter 113

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY COLBURN (?)

[Dated at end: June 14 (? 1825).]

Dear Sir,

I am quite ashamed, after your kind letter, of having expressed any disappointment about my remuneration. It is quite equivalent to the value of any thing I have yet sent you. I had Twenty Guineas a sheet from the London; and what I did for them was more worth that sum, than any thing, I am afraid, I can now produce, would be worth the lesser sum. I used up all my best thoughts in that publication, and I do not like to go on writing worse & worse, & feeling that I do so. I want to try something else. However, if any subject turns up, which I think will do your Magazine no discredit, you shall have it at _your_ price, or something between _that_ and my old price. I prefer writing to seeing you just now, for after such a letter as I have received from you, in truth I am ashamed to see you. We will never mention the thing again.

Your obliged friend & Serv't

C. LAMB.

June 14.

[In the absence of any wrapper I have assumed this note to be addressed to Colburn, the publisher of the _New Monthly Magazine_. Lamb's first contribution to that periodical was "The Illustrious Defunct" (see Vol. I. of this edition) in January, 1825. A year later he began the "Popular Fallacies," and continued regularly for some months.]