knowledging
Lamb's sonnet, Samuel Rogers wrote the following letter, which Lamb
described to Barton (July 3, 1829) as the prettiest he ever read.

Many, many thanks. The verses are beautiful. I need not say with
what feelings they were read. Pray accept the grateful
acknowledgements
of us all, and believe me when I say that nothing could have been
a greater cordial to us in our affliction than such a testimony from such
a quarter. He was--for none knew him so well--we were born within a
year or two of each other--a man of a very high mind, and with less
disguise than perhaps any that ever lived. Whatever he was, _that_ we
saw. He stood before his fellow beings (if I may be forgiven for saying
so) almost as before his Maker: and God grant that we may all bear
as severe an examination. He was an admirable scholar. His Dante
and his Homer were as familiar to him as his Alphabets: and he had
the tenderest heart. When a flock of turkies was stolen from his farm,
the indignation of the poor far and wide was great and loud. To me he
is the greatest loss, for we were nearly of an age; and there is now no
human being alive in whose eyes I have always been young.

Yours most gratefully,

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Another sonnet to Rogers will be found on p. 100.

* * * * *

Page 61. _The Gipsy's Malison_.

First printed in _Blackwood's Magazine_, January, 1829. Lamb had sent it
to _The Gem_, but, as he told Procter in a letter on January 22, 1829:
"The editors declined it, on the plea that it would _shock all mothers;_
so they published the 'Widow' [Hood's parody of Lamb] instead. I am born
out of time. I have no conecture about what the present world calls
delicacy. I thought _Rosamund Gray_ was a pretty modest thing. Hessey
assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow into
an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed,
'Hang[27] the age, I will write for Antiquity!'"

In another letter to Procter, Lamb tells the sonnet's history:--

"_January_ 29, 1829.

"When Miss Ouldcroft (who is now Mrs. Beddam [Badams], and Bed-dam'd to
her!) was at Enfield, which she was in summer-time, and owed her health
to its suns and genial influences, she visited (with young lady-like
impertinence) a poor man's cottage that had a pretty baby (O the
yearnling!), gave it fine caps and sweetmeats. On a day, broke into the
parlour our two mai