Chapter 324

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. July 14, 1833.]

Dear M. the Hogarths are _delicate_. Perhaps it will amuse Emma to tell her, that, a day or two since, Miss Norris (Betsy) call'd to me on the road from London from a gig conveying her to Widford, and engaged me to come down this afternoon. I think I shall stay only one night; she would have been glad of E's accompaniment, but I would not disturb her, and Mrs. N. is coming to town on Monday, so it would not have suited. Also, C.V. Le Grice gave me a dinner at Johnny Gilpin's yesterday, where we talk'd of what old friends were taken or left in the 30 years since we had met.

I shall hope to see her on Tuesd'y.

To Bless you both

C.L.

Friday.

[Le Grice we have met. "Johnny Gilpin's" was The Bell at Edmonton.

Here should come another note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, in which Lamb says that he reached home safely and thanks her for three agreeable days. Also he sends some little books, which were, I take it, copies of Moxon's private reissue of _Poetry for Children_.

Mr. W.C. Hazlitt records that a letter from Lamb to Miss Norris was in existence in which the writer gave "minute and humorous instructions for his own funeral, even specifying the number of nails which he desired to be inserted in his coffin."]