Chapter 14

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN TAYLOR

Margate, June 8, 1821.

Dear Sir,--I am extremely sorry to be obliged to decline the article proposed, as I should have been flattered with a Plate accompanying it. In the first place, Midsummer day is not a topic I could make anything of--I am so pure a Cockney, and little read, besides, in May games and antiquities; and, in the second, I am here at Margate, spoiling my holydays with a Review I have undertaken for a friend, which I shall barely get through before my return; for that sort of work is a hard task to me. If you will excuse the shortness of my first contribution-and I _know_ I can promise nothing more for July--I will endeavour a longer article for _our next_. Will you permit me to say that I think Leigh Hunt would do the article you propose in a masterly manner, if he has not outwrit himself already upon the subject. I do not return the proof--to save postage--because it is correct, with ONE EXCEPTION. In the stanza from Wordsworth, you have changed DAY into AIR for rhyme-sake: DAY is the right reading, and I IMPLORE you to restore it.

The other passage, which you have queried, is to my ear correct. Pray let it stand.

D'r S'r, yours truly, C. LAMB.

On second consideration, I do enclose the proof.

[John Taylor (1781-1864), the publisher, with Hessey, of the _London Magazine_ was, in 1813, the first publicly to identify Sir Philip Francis with Junius. Taylor acted as editor of the _London Magazine_ from 1821 to 1824, assisted by Thomas Hood. Later his interests were centred in currency questions.

"I am here at Margate." I do not know what review Lamb was writing. If written and published it has not been reprinted. It was on this visit to Margate that Lamb met Charles Cowden Clarke.

"My first contribution." The first number to bear Taylor & Hessey's name was dated July, but they had presumably acquired the rights in the magazine before then. Lamb's first contribution to the _London Magazine_ had been in August, 1820, "The South-Sea House."

The proof which Lamb returned was that of the _Elia_, essay on "Mackery End in Hertfordshire," printed in the July number of the _London Magazine_, in which he quoted a stanza from Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited":--

But thou, that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation.

Here should come a scrap from Lamb to Ayrton, dated July 17, 1821, referring to the Coronation. Lamb says that in consequence of this event he is postponing his Wednesday evening to Friday.]