Chapter 351

CHARLES LAMB TO MR. CHILDS

Monday. Church Street, EDMONTON (not Enfield, as you erroneously direct yours). [? Dec., 1834.]

Dear Sir,--The volume which you seem to want, is not to be had for love or money. I with difficulty procured a copy for myself. Yours is gone to enlighten the tawny Hindoos. What a supreme felicity to the author (only he is no traveller) on the Ganges or Hydaspes (Indian streams) to meet a smutty Gentoo ready to burst with laughing at the tale of Bo-Bo! for doubtless it hath been translated into all the dialects of the East. I grieve the less, that Europe should want it. I cannot gather from your letter, whether you are aware that a second series of the Essays is published by Moxon, in Dover-street, Piccadilly, called "The Last Essays of Elia," and, I am told, is not inferior to the former. Shall I order a copy for you, and will you accept it? Shall I _lend_ you, at the same time, my sole copy of the former volume (Oh! return it) for a month or two? In return, you shall favour me with the loan of one of those Norfolk-bred grunters that you laud so highly; I promise not to keep it above a day. What a funny name Bungay is! I never dreamt of a correspondent thence. I used to think of it as some Utopian town or borough in Gotham land. I now believe in its existence, as part of merry England!

[_Some lines scratched out._]

The part I have scratched out is the best of the letter. Let me have your commands.

CH. LAMB, _alias_ ELIA.

[Talfourd thus explains this letter: "In December, 1834, Mr. Lamb received a letter from a gentleman, a stranger to him--Mr. Childs of Bungay, whose copy of _Elia_ had been sent on an Oriental voyage, and who, in order to replace it, applied to Mr. Lamb." Mr. Childs was a printer. His business subsequently became that of Messrs. R.&R. Clark, which still flourishes.

This letter practically disposes of the statement made by more than one bibliographer that a second edition of Elia was published in 1833. The tale of Bo-Bo is in the "Dissertation on Roast Pig."

Lamb sent Mr. Childs a copy of _John Woodvil_, in which he wrote:--]