eu. C. LAMB.

E.I.H.

19 July [1824].

[Marter was an old India House clerk; we do not meet with him again. The
sonnet had been printed in _The Examiner_ in 1819. Lamb, who was fond of
it, reprinted it in _Album Verses_, 1830.]

LETTER 349

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

[P.M. July 28, 1824.]

My dear Sir--I must appear negligent in not having thanked you for the
very pleasant books you sent me. Arthur, and the Novel, we have both of
us read with unmixed satisfaction. They are full of quaint conceits, and
running over with good humour and good nature. I naturally take little
interest in story, but in these the manner and not the end is the
interest; it is such pleasant travelling, one scarce cares whither it
leads us. Pray express our pleasure to your father with my best thanks.

I am involved in a routine of visiting among the family of Barren Field,
just ret'd, from Botany Bay--I shall hardly have an open Evening before
TUESDAY next. Will you come to us then?

Yours truly, C. LAMB.

Wensday

28 July 24.

[_Arthur_ and the Novel were two books by Charles Dibdin the Younger,
the father of Lamb's correspondent. Arthur was _Young Arthur; or, The
Child of Mystery: A Metrical Romance_, 1819, and the novel was _Isn't It
Odd?_ three volumes of high-spirited ramblings something in the manner
of _Tristram Shandy_, nominally written by Marmaduke Merrywhistle, and
published in 1822.

Barron Field had returned from his Judgeship in New South Wales on June
18.]

LETTER 350

(_Possibly incomplete_)

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD [P.M. August 10, 1824.]

And what dost thou at the Priory? _Cucullus non facit Monachum_. English
me that, and challenge old Lignum Janua to make a better.

My old New River has presented no extraordinary novelties lately; but
there Hope sits every day, speculating upon traditionary gudgeons. I
think she has taken the fisheries. I now know the reason why our
forefathers were denominated East and West Angles. Yet is there no lack
of spawn; for I wash my hands in fishets that come through the pump
every morning thick as motelings,--little things o o o like _that_, that
perish untimely, and never taste the brook. You do not tell me of those
romantic land bays that be as thou goest to Lover's Seat: neither of
that little churchling in the midst of a wood (in the opposite
direction, nine furlongs from the town), t