n glason de poete
A l'aieul de mon pere obscurement s'arrete.
--Peut-etre nous viens-tu d'un timide pasteur,
Doux comme ses agneaux, raille pour sa douceur.
Mais peut-etre qu'aussi, moins commune origine,
Nous viens-tu d'un heros, d'un pieux paladin,
Qui croyant honorer ainsi l'Agneau divin,
Te prit en revenant des champs de Palestine.
Mais qu'importe apres tout ... qu'il soit illustre ou non,
Je ne ferai jamais une tache a ce nom.

Page 44. _To John Lamb, Esq._

John Lamb, Charles's brother, was born in 1763 and was thus by twelve
years his senior. At the time this poem appeared, in 1818, he was
accountant of the South-Sea House. He died on October 26, 1821 (see the
_Elia_ essays "My Relations" and "Dream Children").

* * * * *

Page 45. _To Martin Charles Burney, Esq._

Lamb prefixed this sonnet to Vol. II. of his _Works_, 1818. In Vol. I.
he had placed the dedication to Coleridge which we have already seen.
Martin Charles Burney was the son of Rear-Admiral James Burney, Lamb's
old friend, and nephew of Madame d'Arblay. He was a barrister by
profession; dabbled a little in authorship; was very quaint in some of
his ways and given to curiously intense and sudden enthusiasms; and was
devoted to Mary Lamb and her brother. When these two were at work on
their _Tales from Shakespear_ Martin Burney would sit with them and
attempt to write for children too. Lamb's letter of May 24, 1830, to
Sarah Hazlitt has some amusing stories of his friend, at whom (like
George Dyer) he could laugh as well as love. Lamb speaks of him on one
occasion as on the top round of his ladder of friendship. Writing to
Sarah Hazlitt, Lamb says:--"Martin Burney is as good, and as odd as
ever. We had a dispute about the word 'heir,' which I contended was
pronounced like 'air'; he said that might be in common parlance; or that
we might so use it, speaking of the 'Heir at Law,' a comedy; but that in
the law courts it was necessary to give it a full aspiration, and to say
_hayer_; he thought it might even vitiate a cause, if a counsel
pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he 'would consult Serjeant
Wilde,' who gave it against him. Sometimes he falleth into the water;
sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and insisted on reading
Virgil's 'Eneid' all through with me (which he did), because a Counsel
must know Latin. Another time he read out all the Gos