who were travelling in Syria, and outrunning their credit. He frequently received a score of letters by a single post, and could no more have absented himself from England than a horse harnessed to a mill-wheel can go for a pleasant roll in the meadows. Noblemen have their troubles like other people, only the Duke of Courthope just now had forgotten his, for he had lunched delightfully, and besides he was naturally courteous and kind, so that he really liked to give pleasure to those about him. It was a very ingenious compliment to assure them that they were bound upon a voyage which he, the Duke of Courthope, would not disdain to make himself.

The Minister of State fell back and made way, the general commanding in chief of an army in war time stood aside, the naval veteran of a dozen sea-fights got up and held his arm in the form of a bannister, the boat's crew lifted their oars aloft again in salute, and then the Duke of Courthope rose from his place of honor at the long-boat's stern, a smile and kind word on his lips, and stepped on board the East Indiaman, followed at a respectful distance by

his gallant company. The shrill

whistle of the boatswain of the Tanjore piped out its honors to the great nobleman, in correct man-of-war's notes, as his foot touched the vessel's plank, for there, too, the captain had notions of discipline, and was also a naval officer, who had been pinched out of his country's service to make way for the son of a distinguished yarn-contractor, aforetime in office.

66

Mowledy!" Colonel Oakes called hastily out aside to the curate, "bring up

young Brown's mother. She seems a decent-looking body, and the duke is very good-natured — perhaps he'll take notice of her. He's always doing kind things, and the general is with him, which is better still.'

The curate turned to look for Madge and found her leaning against the bulwarks of the ship, deadly pale, and cowering as if she had been struck down. Her large blue eyes, almost starting out of her head, were fixed upon the handsome figure of the Duke of Courthope, who stood with his head thrown back, and a winning smile upon his lips, paying royal sorts of compliments to the captain of the Indiaman on the state of the Tanjore.

"Mrs. Brown!" said the curate, gently taking her arm and trying to rouse her, "that tall gentleman just come on board is the Duke of Courthope, and standing near him is his son, the Marquis of Kinsgear, William's captain. Colonel Oakes has promised to say a good word for your son; and you had better stand near me in case they should wish to ask you any ques tions about him."

But Madge was far beyond questions and answers for a while; the

fixed and rigid look upon her poor startled face had gradually relaxed, her eyes closed as if to shut the sight of some evil thing that had haunted them, and she fainted, so that the good-natured intentions of Colonel Oakes and the curate were frustrated.

"What's the matter, Oakes?" inquired the duke, seeing the two gentlemen look a little vexed.

She is

"Only a woman fainted. the mother of one of my raw recruits in Lord Kinsgear's troop, and my old friend the parson here wanted to present her to him," answered the colonel.

“Bless my soul! Woman fainted! Benbow, do you happen to have your medicine-chest in the boat? exclaimed the duke, speaking rather thickly, for the reaction of the wine and sea air was overtaking him. "Where is she?" and his Grace strode to the place where Madge lay deprived of consciousness by some sudden emotion stronger than her powers of resistance. Her husband was seated on an officer's bullocktrunk behind her, and supported her head upon his coarse knees, gnarled and knotted by a lifetime of labor. He looked up with blinking, puzzled eyes at the stately noble, so straight and tall, so condescending and impatient of grief or sickness.

"Is there any danger?" inquired the curate of the ship's doctor and the surgeon of the 1st, who had both hurried benevolently to offer their services at the first call for them.

66

"Oh dear, no!" said the duke, overriding disease and pain with his high-pitched strident voice, which brooked no contradiction. 'It is only the heat of the weather and excitement, and that kind of thing." His Grace never would admit that anybody was in danger till they were dead. His mind had no place for pity in it, it was so full of grandeur.

She is very weak, poor thing," remarked the surgeon of the 1st compassionately, "and that hectic flush, which looked so pretty half an hour ago upon her cheeks, does not promise her a long life." As he spoke, and administered some simple cordial to her, Madge slowly opened her eyes, and the color which had attracted the army surgeon's attention came back to her wan cheeks and lit them up again. The Duke of Courthope passed his hand across his forehead, as if he was trying to remember something he had forgotten. Then he turned very pale; an anxious expression came into his countenance, and it

from that which bore the Duke of Courthope ever farther and farther in an opposite direction, the band of the 1st struck up the old soldier tune of "The Girl I left behind me," in which generation after generation of our troopers have said good-by to home and country when they went away to the wars. Then from boat and from terrace and balcony in the town - on the pier, and along the pleasant shores of the Hampshire coast, there went up prayers to God from fervent lips and over-burdened hearts. White kerchiefs fluttered out their kisses and blessings that the wind might bear them ever farther farther than speech, farther than sound.

The crew of the Osprey's longboat, and the clumsy fleet of barges from the town, having got clear of the troop-ship's mighty draught, rested on their oars to see the last of her. The Duke of Courthope stood erect and proud, waving his hat to Lord Kinsgear, who might be plainly seen a prominent figure on the quarterdeck between General Violet and the colonel of his regiment. Madge also stood up, supported on the one side by her husband, and the other by the curate of her village, straining her fond eyes towards the spot where only a mother's vision could discern her boy among the crowd of soldiers who leant cheering or weeping tearlessly over the ship's side, about the forecastle. At last the huge paddles of the East Indiaman turned heavily round with a mighty thud, the sails of the Tanjore swelled, flapped and swelled again steadily, bellying to their work; and as women wailed with sharp cries, and strong men hid their faces from each other, the Union Jack was hoisted, and the crowded transport stood out to sea.

CHAPTER V. MRS. BROWN.

THAT was the last time Madge ever saw the Duke of Courthope; and she died soon afterwards. She had met him once at the commencement of her life, and she now met him again at its close. Nothing had ever effaced the image of the handsome nobleman from the poor ignorant woman's memory. She had been married; she was a contented wife and a faithful mother, but he had taken the bloom and joy from her existence, nevertheless. He had given her ten pounds, intending to come again and again, when at leisure, till he had stolen her simple heart away, and all her sweet maidenhood was at his mercy. It was a notable project, and such an one as hath been often formed and executed by wealth and idleness at a loss for a day's amusement. But it so chanced that his Grace had been caught up and whirled away by a vortex of pleasure. had lost a fortune at a horse-race, and won another, then hurried away to Paris to spend it before it melted in

He

So

his purse. Then he had had adventures, had gambled, fought duels, had married and been separated by chance or inclination once or twice, and had then fallen into a sea full of sharks and difficulties, having had ever since to swim for his life with the sharks after him as we have seen. that he had forgotten poor Madge till Mr. Sharpe had all at once recalled her existence to him by the strange tidings that she was heiress of those great estates which had been brought into the Courthope family by the good duchess, mother of the late duke, now long since dead and buried. Then he had sometimes thought of her with a sort of terror, and had dreaded lest she should some day start up with a dreadful solicitor behind her, and put him in grave peril or to grievous charges.

(To be continued.

SOME LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB;

WITH REMINISCENCES OF HIMSELF AWAKENED THEREBY.

BY MARY COWDEN CLARKE.

THE other day, in looking over some long-hoarded papers, I came across the following letters, which struck me as being too intrinsically delightful to be any more withheld from general enjoyment. The time when they were written while they had all the warm life of affectionate intercourse that refers to current personal events, inspiring the wish to treasure them in privacy - has faded into the shadow of the past. Some of the persons addressed or referred to have left this earth; others have survived to look back upon their young former selves with the same kindliness of consideration with which Charles Lamb himself confessed to looking back upon "the child Elia that other me,' there, in the background," and cherishing its remembrance. Even the girl, then known among her friends by the second of her baptismal names, before and not long after she had exchanged her maiden name of Mary Victoria Novello for the married one with which she signs her present communication, can feel willing to share with her more recent friends and readers the pleasure derived from dear and honored Charles Lamb's sometimes playful, sometimes earnest allusions to her identity.

The first letter is, according to his frequent wont, undated; and the post-mark is so much blurred as to be undecipherable; but it is addressed "V. Novello, Esqre., for C. C. Clarke, Esqre.":

"MY DEAR SIR, Your letter has lain in a drawer of my desk, upbraiding me every time I open the said drawer, but it is almost impossible to answer such a letter in such a place, and I am out of the habit of replying to epistles otherwhere than at office. You express yourself concerning H. like a true friend, and have made me feel that I have somehow neglected him, but without knowing very well how to rectify it. I live so remote from him by Hackney-that he is almost out of the pale of visitation at Hampstead. And I come but seldom to Covt Gard" this summer time- and when I do, am sure to pay for the late hours and pleasant Novello suppers which I incur. I also am an invalid. But I will hit upon some way that you shall not have cause for your reproof in future. But do not think I take the hint unkindly. When I shall be brought low by any sickness or untoward circumstance, write just such a letter to some tardy friend of mine- or come up yourself with and that will be better. I your friendly Henshaw face shall not forget in haste our casual day at Margate. May we bave many such there or elsewhere! God bless you your kindness to H., which I will remember. But do not show N. this, for the flouting infidel doth mock when Christians cry God bless us. Yours and his, too, and all our little circle's most affect C. LAMB.

66

Mary's love included."

for

ENFIELD, 25 Feb "MY DEAR CLARKE, You have been accumulating on me such a heap of pleasant obligations that I feel uneasy in writing as to a Benefactor. Your smaller contributions, the little weekly rills, are refreshments in the Desart, but your large books were feasts. I hope Mrs. Hazlitt, to whom I encharged it, has taken Hunt's Lord B. to the Novellos. His picture of Literary Lordship is as pleasant as a disagreeable subject can be made, his own poor man's Education at dear Christ's is as good and hearty as the subject. Hazlitt's speculative episodes are capital; I skip the Battles. But how did I deserve to have the Book? The Companion has too much of Madame Pasta. Theatricals have ceased to be popular attractions. His walk home after the Play is as good as the best of the old Indicators. The watchmen are emboxed in a niche of fame, save the skaiting one that must be still fugitive. I wish I could send a scrap for good will. But I have been most seriously unwell and nervous a long long time. I have scarce mustered courage to begin this short note, but conscience duns me.

"I had a pleasant letter from your sister, greatly overacknowledging my poor sonnet. I think I should have replied to it, but tell her I think so. Alas for sonnetting, 'tis as the nerves are; all the summer I was dawdling among green lanes, and verses came as thick as fancies. I am sunk winterly below prose and zero.

"But I trust the vital principle is only as under snow. That I shall yet laugh again.

"I suppose the great change of place affects me, but I could not have lived in Town, I could not bear company. "I see Novello flourishes in the Del Capo line, and dedications are not forgotten. I read the Atlas. When I pitched on the Ded" I looked for the Broom of Cowden knows' to be harmonized, but 'twas summat of Rossini's.

"I want to hear about Hone, does he stand above water, how is his son? I have delayed writing to him, till it seems impossible. Break the ice for me.

"The wet ground here is intolerable, the sky above clear and delusive, but under foot quagmires from night showers, and I am cold-footed and moisture-abhorring as a cat; nevertheless I yesterday tramped to Waltham Cross; perhaps the poor bit of exertion necessary to scribble this was owing to that unusual bracing.

"If I get out, I shall get stout, and then something will out I mean for the Companion — you see I rhyme insensibly.

"Traditions are rife here of one Clarke a schoolmaster, and a run-a-way pickle named Holmes, but much obscurity hangs over it. Is it possible they can be any relations?

"Tis worth the research, when you can find a sunny day, with ground firm, etc. Master Sexton is intelligent, and for half-a-crown he'll pick you up a Father.

"In truth we shall be most glad to see any of the Novellian circle, middle of the week such as can come, or Sunday as can't. But Spring will burgeon out quickly, and then, we'll talk more.

"You'd like to see the improvements on the Chase, the new Cross in the market place, the Chandler's shop from whence the rods were fetch'd. They are raised a farthing since the spread of Education. But perhaps you don't care to be reminded of the Holofernes' days, and nothing remains of the old laudable profession, but the clear firm impossible-to-be-mistaken schoolmaster text hand with which is subscribed the ever welcome name of Charles Cowden C. Let me crowd in both our loves to all. C. L. [Added on the fold-down of the letter:] Let me never be forgotten to include in my remembces my good friend and whilom correspondent Master Stephen.

"How, especially, is Victoria?

"I try to remember all I used to meet at Shacklewell.

The little household, cake-producing, wine-bringing out, Emma the old servant that didn't stay, and ought to have stayed, and was always very dirty and friendly, and Miss H., the counter-tenor with a fine voice, whose sister married Thurtell. They all live in my mind's eye, and Mr. N's and Holmes's walks with us half back after supper. Troja fuit!"

His hearty yet modestly rendered thanks for lent and given books; his ever-affectionate mention of Christ's Hospital; his enjoyment of Hazlitt's "Life of Napoleon," minus "the battles; "his cordial commendation of Leigh Hunt's periodical, "The Companion" (with the witty play on the word "fugitive"), and his wish that he could send the work a contribution from his own pen; his touching reference to the susceptibility of his nervous system; the sportive misuse of musical terms when alluding to his musician-friend Vincent Novello, immortalized in Elia's celebrated" Chapter on Ears; " his excellent pun in the word "insensibly;" his humorous mode of touching upon the professional avocation of his clerkly correspondent's father and self- the latter having been usher in the school kept some years previously at Enfield by the former - while conveying a genuine compliment to the handwriting which at eighty-five is still the "clear firm impossible-to-be-mistaken schoolmaster text hand that it was at forty-one, when Lamb wrote these words; the genial mention of the hospitable children; the whimsically wrong-circumstanced recollection of the "countertenor" lady; the allusion to the night walks "half back" home; and the classically quoted words of regret all wonderfully characteristic of beautiful-minded Charles Lamb.

are

In connection with the juvenile hospitality may be mentioned an incident that illustrates his words. When William Etty returned as a young artist student from Rome, and called at the Novellos' house, it chanced that the parents were from home; but the children, who were busily employed in fabricating a treat of home-made hardbake (or taffy), made the visitor welcome by offering him a piece of their just finished sweetmeat, as an appropriate refection after his long walk; and he declared that it was the most veritable piece of spontaneous hospitality he had ever met with, since the children gave him what they thought most delicious and best worthy of acceptance. Charles Lamb so heartily shared this opinion of the subsequently renowned painter, that he brought a choice condiment in the shape of a jar of preserved ginger for the little Novellos' delectation; and when some officious elder suggested that it was lost upon children, therefore had better be reserved for the grown-up people, Lamb would not hear of the transfer, but insisted that children were excellent judges of good things, and that they must and should have the cate in question. He was right; for long . did the remembrance remain in the family of that delicious rarity, and of the mode in which "Mr. Lamb" stalked up and down the passage with a mysterious harbingering look and stride, muttering something that sounded like conjuration, holding the precious jar under his arm, and feigning to have found it stowed away in a dark chimney somewhere near.

Another characteristic point is recalled by a concluding sentence of this letter. On one occasion when Charles Lamb and his admirable sister Mary Lamb had been accompanied "half back after supper" by Mr. and Mrs. Novello, Edward Holmes, and Charles Cowden Clarke, between Shacklewell Green and Colebrooke Cottage, beside the New River at Islington, where the Lambs then lived, the whole party interchanging lively brightest talk as they walked along the road that they had all to themselves at that late hour-he, as usual, was the noblest of the talkers. Arrived at the usual parting-place, Lamb and his sister walked on a few steps; then, suddenly turning, he shouted out after his late companions in a tone that startled the midnight silence: "You're very nice people!" sending them on their way home in happy laughter at his friendly oddity.

The third is addressed to "C. C. Clarke, Esqre.," without date; but it must have been written in 1828:

as if the

"DEAR CLARKE, - We did expect to see you with Victoria and the Novellos before this, and do not quite understand why we have not. Mrs. N. and V. [Vincent] promised us after the York expedition; a day being named before, which fail'd. 'Tis not too late. The autumn leaves drop gold, and Enfield is beautifuller to a common eye-than when you lurked at the Greyhound. Benedicts are close, but how I so totally missed you at that time, going for my morning cup of ale duly, is a mystery. 'Twas stealing a match before one's face in earnest. But certainly we had not a dream of your appropinquity. I instantly prepared an Epithalamium, in the form of a Sonata which I was sending to Novello to compose-but Mary forbid it me, as too light for the occasion subject required anything heavy — so in a tiff with her, I sent no congratulation at all. Tho' I promise you the wedding was very pleasant news to me indeed. Let your reply name a day this next week, when you will come as many as a coach will hold; such a day as we had at Dulwich. My very kindest love and Mary's to Victoria and the Novellos. The inclosed is from a friend nameless, but highish in office, and a man whose accuracy of statement may be relied on with implicit confidence. He wants the exposé to appear in a newspaper as the greatest piece of legal and Parliamentary villany he ever rememba,' and he has had experience in both; and thinks it would answer afterwards in a cheap pamphlet printed at Lambeth in 80 sheet, as 16,000 families in that parish are interested. I know not whether the present Examiner keeps up the character of exposing abuses, for I scarce see a paper now. If so, you may ascertain Mr. Hunt of the strictest truth of the statement at the peril of my head. But if this won't do, transmit it me back, I beg, per coach, or better, bring it with you. "Yours unaltered, C. LAMB."

This letter quaintly rebukes, yet, at the same time, most affectionately congratulates, the friend addressed for silently making honey-moon quarters of the spot where Charles Lamb then resided. But lovely Enfield a very beau-ideal of an English village was the birthplace of Charles Cowden Clarke; and the Greyhound was a simple hostelry kept by an old man and his daughter, where there was a pretty, white-curtained, quiet room, with a window made green by bowering vine leaves, combining much that was tempting as an unpretending retirement for a town-dweller to take his young new-made wife to. The invitation to name a day this next week" was cordially responded to by a speedy visit; and very likely it was on that occasion Charles Lamb told the wedded pair of another bridal couple who, he said, when they arrived at the first stage of their marriage tour, found each other's company so tedious that they called the landlord up-stairs to enliven them by his conversation. The "Epithalamium," here called a 66 Sonata," is the "Serenata" tained in the next letter, addressed to "Vincent Novello, Esqre."

con

"MY DEAR NOVELLO,- I am afraid I shall appear rather tardy in offering my congratulations, however sincere, upon your daughter's marriage. The truth is, I had put together a little Serenata upon the occasion, but was prevented from sending it by my sister, to whose judgment I am apt to defer too much in these kind of things; so that, now I have her consent, the offering, I am afraid, will have lost the grace of seasonableness. Such as it is, I send it. She thinks it a little too old-fashioned in the manner, too much like what they wrote a century back. But I cannot write in the modern style, if I try ever so hard. I have attended to the proper divisions for the music, and you will have little difficulty in composing it. If I may advise, make Pepusch your model, or Blow. It will be necessary to have a good second voice, as the stress of the melody lies there:

1 Which marriage took place 5th July, 1828.

"To so great a master as yourself I have no need to suggest that the peculiar tone of the composition demands sprightliness, occasionally checked by tenderness, as in the second air,

She smiles, she yields, she loves;

"Again, you need not be told that each fifth line of the two first recitatives requires a crescendo.

"And your exquisite taste will prevent your falling into the error of Purcell, who at a passage similar to that in my first air,

Drops his bow, and stands to hear,

directed the first violin thus: Here the first violin must drop his bow.

"But, besides the absurdity of disarming his principal performer of so necessary an adjunct to his instrument, in such an emphatic part of the composition too, which must have had a droll effect at the time, all such minutiæ of adaptation are at this time of day very properly exploded, and Jackson of Exeter very fairly ranks them under the head of puns.

"Should you succeed in the setting of it, we propose having it performed (we have one very tolerable second voice here, and Mr. Holmes, I dare say, would supply the minor parts) at the Greyhound. But it must be a secret to the young couple till we can get the band in readiness. "Believe me, dear Novello, "Yours truly,

"ENFIELD, 6 Nov., '29."

66

C. LAMB.

Peculiarly Elian is the humor throughout this last letter. The advice to "make Pepusch your model, or Blow;" the affected "divisions" of "Duetto,' Recitative," "Air,” "First Voice," "Second Voice," "First and Second," "Both," etc.; the antiquated stiffness of the lines themselves, the burlesque "Love and Hymen's triumph sing; the grotesque stiltedness of "the brave Cowdenio's heart," and "a Hero is the glorious prize;" the ludicrous absurdity of hailing a peaceful man of letters (who, by the way, adopted as his crest and motto an oak-branch with Algernon Sydney's words, "Placidam sub libertate quietem ") by "In courts, in camps, thro' distant realms renown'd Cowdenio comes!" the adulatory pomp of styling a young girl, nowise distinguished for anything but homeliest simplicity, as "the Fair," "the Nymph," in whom "the Graces all conspire;" the droll illustrative instructions, suggesting "sprightliness, occasionally checked by tenderness," in setting lines purposely dull and heavy with oldfashioned mythological trappings; the grave assumption of technicality in the introduction of the word "crescendo; " the pretended citation of "Purcell" and "Jackson of Exeter;" the comic prohibition as to the too literal" minutiæ of adaptation "in such passages as "Drops his bow, and stands to hear; " the pleasant play on the word in "the minor parts;" the mock earnestness as to keeping the proposed performance "a secret to the young couple; are all in the very spirit of fun that swayed Elia when a sportive vein ran through his Essays.

The next letter is to Charles Cowden Clarke; though it has neither address, signature, date, nor postmark :

"MY DEAR THREE C's, The way from Southgate to Colney Hatch thro' the unfrequentedest Blackberry paths that ever concealed their coy bunches from a truant Citizen, we have accidentally fallen upon the giant Tree by Cheshunt we have missed, but keep your chart to go by, unless you will be our conduct- at present I am disabled from further flights than just to skirt round Clay Hill, with a peep at the fine back woods, by strained tendons, got by skipping a skipping rope at fifty-three-hei mihi non sum qualis but do you know, now you come to talk of walks, a ramble of four hours or so- there and back- - to the willow and lavender plantations at the south corner of Northaw Church by a well dedicated to Saint Claridge, with the clumps of finest moss rising hillock fashion, which I counted to the number of two hundred and sixty, and are called Claridge's covers' the tradition being that that saint entertained so many angels or hermits there, upon occasion of blessing the waters? The legends have set down the fruits spread upon that occasion, and in the Black Book of St. Albans some are named which are not supposed to have been introduced into this island till a century later. But waiving the miracle, a sweeter spot is not in ten counties round; you are knee deep in clover, that is to say, if you are not above a middling man's height

from this paradise, making a day of it, you go to see the ruins of an old convent at March Hall, where some of the painted glass is yet whole and fresh.

"If you do not know this, you do not know the capabilities of this country, you may be said to be a stranger to Enfield. I found it out one morning in October, and so

delighted was I that I did not get home before dark, well a-paid.

"I shall long to show you the clump meadows, as they are called; we might do that, without reaching March Hall when the days are longer, we might take both, and come home by Forest Cross, so skirt over Pennington and the cheerful little village of Churchley to Forty Hill.

"But these are dreams till summer; meanwhile we should be most glad to see you for a lesser excursion say, Sunday next, you and another, or if more, best on a week-day with a notice, but o' Sundays, as far as a leg of mutton goes, most welcome. We can squeeze out a bed. Edmonton coaches run every hour, and my pen has run out its quarter. Heartily farewell."

Charles Lamb's enjoyment of a long ramble, and his (usually) excellent powers of walking are here denoted. He was so proud of his pedestrian feats and indefatigability, that he once told the Cowden Clarkes a story of a dog possessed by a pertinacious determination to follow him day by day when he went forth to wander in the Enfield lanes and fields; until, unendurably teased by the pertinacity of this obtrusive animal, he determined to get rid of him by fairly tiring him out! So he took him a circuit of many miles, including several of the loveliest spots round Enfield, coming at last to a by-road with an interminable vista of up-hill distance, where the dog turned tail, gave the matter up, and laid down beneath a hedge, panting, exhausted, thoroughly worn out and dead beat; while his defeater walked freshly home, smiling and triumphant.

--

Knowing Lamb's fashion of twisting facts to his own humorous view of them, those who heard the story well understood that it might easily have been wryed to represent the narrator's real potency in walking, while serving to cover his equally real liking for animals under the semblance of vanquishing a dog in a contested foot-race. Far more probable that he encouraged its volunteered companionship, amusing his imagination the while by picturing the wild impossibility of any human creature attempting to tire out a dog- of all animals! As an instance of Charles Lamb's sympathy with dumb beasts, his two friends here named once saw him get up from table, while they were dining with him and his sister at Enfield, open the street-door, and give admittance to a stray donkey into the front strip of garden, where there was a grass-plot, which he said seemed to possess more attraction for the creature than the short turf of the common on Chase-side, opposite to the house where the Lambs then dwelt. This mixture of the humorous in manner and the sympathetic in feeling always more or less tinged the sayings and the doings of beloved Charles Lamb; there was a constant blending of the overtly whimsical expression or act with betrayed inner kindliness and even pathos of sentiment. Beneath this sudden opening of his gate to a stray donkey that it might feast on his garden grass while he himself ate his dinner, possibly lurked some stung sense of wanderers unable to get a meal they hungered for when others revelled in plenty, -a kind of pained fancy finding vent in playful deed or speech, that frequently might be traced by those who enjoyed his society.

The next letter is addressed "C. C. Clarke, Esqre.," with the postmark (much defaced) "Edmonton, Fe. 2, 1829:"

"DEAR COWDEN, Your books are as the gushing of streams in a desert. By the way, you have sent no autobiographies. Your letter seems to imply you had. Nor do I want any. Cowden, they are of the books which I give away. What damn'd Unitarian skewer-soul'd things the general biographies turn out. Rank and Talent you shall have when Mrs. May has done with 'em. Mary likes Mrs. Bedinfield much. For me I read nothing but Astrea it has turn'd my brain - I go about with a switch turn'd up at the end for a crook; and Lambs being too old, the butcher tells me, my cat follows me in a green ribband. Becky and her cousin are getting pastoral

The book he refers to as "Astrea" was one of those tall folio romances of the Sir Philip Sidney or Mme. de Scudéry order, inspiring him with the amusing rhapsody that follows its mention; the ingeniously equivocal “Lambs being too old;" the familiar mingling of "Becky" (their maid)" and her cousin" with himself and sister in "pastoral dresses," to "go about Arcadizing;" the abrupt bursting forth into the Philip-Sidneyan style of antithetical rapturizing and euphuism; the invented Arcadian titles of "the Black Shepherd" and "Cowden with the Tuft" are all in the tone of madcap spirits which were occasionally Lamb's. The latter name (“Cowden with the Tuft ") slyly implies the smooth baldness with scant curly hair distinguishing the head of the friend addressed, and which seemed to strike Charles Lamb so forcibly that one evening, after gazing at it for some time, he suddenly broke forth with the exclamation, 'Gad, Clarke! what whiskers you have behind your head!"

He was fond of trying the dispositions of those with whom he associated by an odd speech such as this; and if they stood the test pleasantly and took it in good part he liked them the better ever after. One time that the Novellos and Cowden Clarkes went down to see the Lambs at Enfield, and he was standing by his book-shelves talking with them in his usual delightful cordial way, showing them some precious volume lately added to his store, a neighbor chancing to come in to remind Charles Lamb of an appointed ramble he excused himself by saying: "You see I have some troublesome people just come down from town, and I must stay and entertain them; so we'll take our walk together to-morrow." Another time, when the Cowden Clarkes were staying a few days at Enfield with Charles Lamb and his sister, they, having accepted an invitation to spend the evening and have a game of whist at a lady-schoolmistress's house there, took their guests with them. Charles Lamb, giving his arm to "Victoria," left her husband to escort Mary Lamb, who walked rather more slowly than her brother.

On arriving first at the house of the somewhat prim and formal hostess, Charles Lamb, bringing his young visitor into the room, introduced her by saying: "Mrs. -, I've brought you the wife of the man who mortally hates your husband;" and when the lady replied by a polite inquiry after "Miss Lamb," hoping she was quite well, Charles Lamb said: "She has a terrible fit o' toothache, and was obliged to stay at home this evening; so Mr. Cowden Clarke remained there to keep her company." Then, the lingerers entering, he went on to say, "Mrs. Cowden Clarke has been telling me, as we came along, that she hopes you have prats for supper this evening." The bewildered glance of the lady of the house at Mary Lamb and her walking-companion, her politely stifled dismay at the mention of so vulgar a dish, contrasted with Victoria's smile of enjoyment at his whimsical words, were precisely the kind of things that Charles Lamb liked and chuckled over. On another occasion he was charmed by the equanimity and even gratification with which the same guests and Miss Fanny Kelly (the skilled actress whose combined artistic and feminine attractions inspired him with the beautiful sonnet beginning

You are not, Kelly, of the common strain,

and whose performance of "The Blind Boy" caused him to address her in that other sonnet beginning