1822,
referring to the writer's "drunken caput" and loss of memory.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Mrs. James Kenney, dated Sept.
11, 1822, in which Lamb says that Mary Lamb had reached home safely from
France, and that she failed to smuggle Crabb Robinson's waistcoat. He
adds that the Custom House people could not comprehend how a waistcoat,
marked Henry Robinson, could be a part of Miss Lamb's wearing apparel.
At the end of the letter is a charming note to Mrs. Kenney's little
girl, Sophy, whom Lamb calls his dear wife. He assures her that the few
short days of connubial felicity which he passed with her among the
pears and apricots of Versailles were some of the happiest of his life.]

LETTER 290

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

India House, 11 Sept. 1822.

Dear Sir--You have misapprehended me sadly, if you suppose that I meant
to impute any inconsistency (in your writing poetry) with your religious
profession. I do not remember what I said, but it was spoken sportively,
I am sure. One of my levities, which you are not so used to as my older
friends. I probably was thinking of the light in which your so indulging
yourself would appear to _Quakers_, and put their objection in my own
foolish mouth. I would eat my words (provided they should be written on
not very coarse paper) rather than I would throw cold water upon your,
and my once, harmless occupation. I have read Napoleon and the rest with
delight. I like them for what they are, and for what they are not. I
have sickened on the modern rhodomontade & Byronism, and your plain
Quakerish Beauty has captivated me. It is all wholesome cates, aye, and
toothsome too, and withal Quakerish. If I were George Fox, and George
Fox Licenser of the Press, they should have my absolute IMPRIMATUR. I
hope I have removed the impression.

I am, like you, a prisoner to the desk. I have been chained to that
gally thirty years, a long shot. I have almost grown to the wood. If no
imaginative poet, I am sure I am a figurative one. Do "Friends" allow
puns? _verbal_ equivocations?--they are unjustly accused of it, and I
did my little best in the "imperfect Sympathies" to vindicate them.

I am very tired of clerking it, but have no remedy. Did you see a sonnet
to this purpose in the Examiner?--

"Who first invented Work--and tied the free
And holy-day rejoycing spirit down
To the ever-haunting importunity
Of business, in the green field