Chapter 289

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[Late 1832.]

A poor mad usher (and schoolfellow of mine) has been pestering me _through you_ with poetry and petitions. I have desired him to call upon you for a half sovereign, which place to my account.

I have buried Mrs. Reynolds at last, who has _virtually at least_ bequeath'd me a legacy of £32 per Ann., to which add that my other pensioner is safe housed in the workhouse, which gets me £10.

Richer by both legacies £42 per Ann.

For a loss of a loss is as good as a gain of a gain.

But let this be _between ourselves_, specially keep it from A----- or I shall speedily have candidates for the Pensions.

Mary is laid up with a cold.

Will you convey the inclosed by hand?

When you come, if you ever do, bring me one _Devil's Visit_, I mean _Southey's_; also the Hogarth which is complete, Noble's I think. Six more letters to do. Bring my bill also. C.L.

[I do not identify the usher. Mrs. Reynolds, Lamb's first schoolmistress, we have met. The other pensioner I do not positively identify; presumably it was Morgan, Coleridge's old friend, to whom Lamb and Southey had each given ten pounds annually from 1819.

A----- I cannot positively identify. Perhaps the philanthropic Allsop.

Southey's "Devil's Visit" was a new edition of _The Devil's Walk_ illustrated by Thomas Landseer.

Noble's "Hogarth." Noble was the engraver.]