Lamb's early Merchant Taylors' verses have been lost, but two epigrams that he wrote many years later for the sons of Hessey, the publisher, have been preserved (see the letter to Southey, May 10, 1830).]

LETTER 115

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS POOLE

[Dated at end: Feb. 14, 1804.]

Dear Sir--I am sorry we have not been able to hear of lodgings to suit young F. but we will not desist in the enquiry. In a day or two something may turn up. Boarding houses are common enough, but to find a family where he would be safe from impositions within & impositions without is not so easy.--

I take this opportunity of thanking you for your kind attentions to the Lad I took the liberty of recommending. _His_ mother was disposed to have taken in young F. but could not possibly make room.

Your obliged &c

C. LAMB.

Temple, 14 Feb., 1804.

[I do not know to what lads the note refers, but probably young F. was young Fricker, the brother of Mrs. Coleridge and Mrs. Southey. The note is interesting only as giving another instance of Lamb's willing helpfulness to others.]

LETTER 116

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[P.M. March 10, 1804.]

Dr C. I blunderd open this letter, its weight making me conjecture it held an inclosure; but finding it poetry (which is no man's ground, but waste and common) I perused it. Do you remember that you are to come to us to-night?

C. L.

To Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Tobin's, Barnards Inn, Holborn.

[This is written on the back of a paper addressed (to save postage) to Mr. Lamb, India House, containing a long extract from "Madoc" in Southey's hand.

Coleridge, having been invited by Stoddart to Malta, was now in London on his way thither. Tobin was probably James Webbe Tobin, brother of John Tobin, the solicitor and dramatist.

Between this letter and the next comes a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated at the end March 13, 1804, in which Lamb congratulates Robert Lloyd on his approaching marriage to Hannah Hart. The wedding was celebrated on August 2, 1804.]

LETTER 117

MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART

[No date. ? March, 1804.]

My dearest Sarah,--I will just write a few hasty lines to say Coleridge is setting off sooner than we expected; and I every moment expect him to call in one of his great hurrys for this. Charles intended to write by him, but has not: most likely he will send a letter after him to Portsmouth: if he does, you will certainly hear from him soon. We rejoiced with exceeding joy to hear of your safe arrival: I hope your brother will return home in a few years a very rich man. Seventy pounds in one fortnight is a pretty beginning--

I envy your brother the pleasure of seeing Coleridge drop in unexpectedly upon him; we talk--but it is but wild and idle talk--of following him: he is to get my brother some little snug place of a thousand a year, and we are to leave all, and come and live among ye.

What a pretty dream.

Coleridge is very ill. I dread the thought of his long voyage--write as soon as he arrives, whether he does or not, and tell me how he is.

Jamaica bodies... [_words illegible_].

He has got letters of recommendation to Governor Ball, and G.o.d knows who; and he will talk and talk, and be universally admired. But I wish to write for him a _letter of recommendation_ to Mrs. Stoddart, and to yourself, to take upon ye, on his first arrival, to be kind affectionate nurses; and mind, now, that you perform this duty faithfully, and write me a good account of yourself. Behave to him as you would to me, or to Charles, if we came sick and unhappy to you.

I have no news to send you; Coleridge will tell you how we are going on.

Charles has lost the newspaper; but what we dreaded as an evil has proved a great blessing, for we have both strangely recovered our health and spirits since this has happened; and I hope, when I write next, I shall be able to tell you Charles has begun something which will produce a little money; for it is not well to be _very poor_--which we certainly are at this present writing.

I sit writing here, and thinking almost you will see it tomorrow; and what a long, long time it will be ere you receive this--When I saw your letter, I fancy'd you were even just then in the first bustle of a new reception, every moment seeing new faces, and staring at new objects, when, at that time, every thing had become familiar to you; and the strangers, your new dancing partners, had perhaps become gossiping fireside friends. You tell me of your gay, splendid doings; tell me, likewise, what manner of home-life you lead--Is a quiet evening in a Maltese drawing room as pleasant as those we have pa.s.sed in Mitre Court and Bell yard?--Tell me all about it, every thing pleasant, and every thing unpleasant, that befalls you.

I want you to say a great deal about yourself. _Are you happy? and do you not repent going out?_ I wish I could see you for one hour only.

Remember me affectionately to your sister and brother; and tell me, when you write, if Mrs. Stoddart likes Malta, and how the climate agrees with her and with thee.

We heard you were taken prisoners, and for several days believed the tale.

How did the pearls, and the fine court finery, bear the fatigues of the voyage, and how often have they been worn and admired?

Rickman wants to know if you are going to be married yet--satisfy him in that little particular when you write.

The Fenwicks send their love, and Mrs. Reynolds her love, and the little old lady her best respects.

Mrs. Jefferies, who I see now and then, talks of you with tears in her eyes, and, when she heard you was taken prisoner, Lord! how frightened she was. She has heard, she tells me, that Mr. Stoddart is to have a pension of two thousand a year, whenever he chuses to return to England.

G.o.d bless you, and send you all manner of comforts and happinesses.

Your most affectionate friend, MARY LAMB.

How-do? how-do? No time to write. S.T.C. going off in a great hurry. CH.

LAMB.

[Miss Stoddart was now in Malta. Governor Ball was Sir Alexander Ball, to whom Coleridge was to act as private secretary and of whom he wrote some years later in _The Friend_.

"Charles has lost the newspaper"--his work on the _Morning Post_. Lamb's princ.i.p.al period on this paper had begun after Stuart sold it in September, 1803, and it lasted until February, 1804 (see notes in Vol.

II. of this edition).

"We heard you were taken prisoners"--by the French.