The Progress of Infidelity," Southey had a reference to
_Elia_ in the following terms:--

"Unbelievers have not always been honest enough thus to express their
real feelings; but this we know concerning them, that when they have
renounced their birthright of hope, they have not been able to divest
themselves of fear. From the nature of the human mind this might be
presumed, and in fact it is so. They may deaden the heart and stupify
the conscience, but they cannot destroy the imaginative faculty. There
is a remarkable proof of this in _Elia's Essays_, a book which wants
only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is
original."

And then Southey went on to draw attention to the case of Thornton Hunt,
the little child of Leigh Hunt, the (to Southey) notorious free-thinker,
who, as Lamb had stated in the essay "Witches and Other Night Fears,"
would wake at night in terror of images of fear.

"I will not retort." Lamb, as we shall see, changed his mind.

"Almost at a stop before." _Elia_ was never popular until long after
Lamb's death. It did not reach a second edition until 1836. There are
now several new editions every year.]

LETTER 323

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[July, 1823.]

D'r A.--I expect Proctor and Wainwright (Janus W.) this
evening; will you come? I suppose it is but a comp't
to ask Mrs. Alsop; but it is none to say that we should be
most glad to see her. Yours ever. How vexed I am at your
Dalston expedit'n. C.L.
Tuesday.

[Mrs. Allsop was a daughter of Mrs. Jordan, and had herself been an
actress.]

LETTER 324

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[Dated at end: 2 September (1823).]

Dear B.B.--What will you say to my not writing? You cannot say I do not
write now. Hessey has not used your kind sonnet, nor have I seen it.
Pray send me a Copy. Neither have I heard any more of your Friend's MS.,
which I will reclaim, whenever you please. When you come London-ward you
will find me no longer in Cov't Gard. I have a Cottage, in Colebrook
row, Islington. A cottage, for it is detach'd; a white house, with 6
good rooms; the New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a
moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house;
and behind is a spacious garden, with vines (I assure you), pears,
strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart
of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining