pel of St. John,
because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a Court of Justice. A
third time, he would carve a fowl, which he did very ill-favouredly,
because 'we did not know how indispensable it was for a barrister to do
all those sort of things well? Those little things were of more
consequence than we supposed.' So he goes on, harassing about the way to
prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong
one----harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He
deserves one: may be, he has tired him out."

Martin Burney, of whom another glimpse is caught in the _Elia_ essay
"Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading," died in 1860. At Mary Lamb's
funeral he was inconsolable.

* * * * *

Page 46. CHARLES LAMB'S _ALBUM VERSES_, 1830.

The publication of this volume, in 1830, was due more to Lamb's kindness
of heart than to any desire to come before the world again as a poet.
But Edward Moxon, Lamb's young friend, was just starting his publishing
business, with Samuel Rogers as a financial patron; and Lamb, who had
long been his chief literary adviser, could not well refuse the request
to help him with a new book. _Album Verses_ became thus the first of the
many notable books of poetry which Moxon was to issue between 1830 and
1858, the year of his death. Among them Tennyson's _Poems_, 1833 and
1842; _The Princess_, 1847; _In Memoriam_, 1850; _Maud_, 1855; and
Browning's _Sordello_, 1840, and _Bells and Pomegranates_, 1843-1846.

The dedication of _Album Verses_ tells the story of its being:--

"DEDICATION

"TO THE PUBLISHER

"DEAR MOXON,

"I do not know to whom a Dedication of these Trifles is more properly
due than to yourself. You suggested the printing of them. You were
desirous of exhibiting a specimen of the _manner_ in which Publications,
entrusted to your future care, would appear. With more propriety,
perhaps, the 'Christmas,' or some other of your own simple, unpretending
Compositions, might have served this purpose. But I forget--you have bid
a long adieu to the Muses. I had on my hands sundry Copies of Verses
written for _Albums_--

"Those Books kept by modern young Ladies for show,
Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know--

"or otherwise floating about in Periodicals; which you have chosen in
this manner to embody. I feel little interest in their publication. They
are simply--_Advertisement Verses_.

"It i