th.

["That ugly paper" was "A Vision of Horns."

Hazlitt's _Spirit of the Age_ had just been published, containing
criticisms, among others, of Coleridge, Horne Tooke, and Lamb. Lamb was
very highly praised. Here is a passage from the article:--

How admirably he has sketched the former inmates of the South-Sea
House; what "fine fretwork he makes of their double and single
entries!" With what a firm yet subtle pencil he has embodied "Mrs.
Battle's Opinions on Whist!" How notably he embalms a battered
_beau_; how delightfully an amour, that was cold forty years ago,
revives in his pages! With what well-disguised humour he introduces
us to his relations, and how freely he serves up his friends!
Certainly, some of his portraits are _fixtures_, and will do to hang
up as lasting and lively emblems of human infirmity. Then there is
no one who has so sure an ear for "the chimes at midnight," not even
excepting Mr. Justice Shallow; nor could Master Silence himself take
his "cheese and pippins" with a more significant and satisfactory
air. With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the Inns and Courts of
law, the Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there
for the last two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with
the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or
writings! It is hard to say whether St. John's Gate is connected
with more intense and authentic associations in his mind, as a part
of old London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time out of mind) of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_. He hunts Watling Street like a gentle
spirit; the avenues to the play-houses are thick with panting
recollections; and Christ's Hospital still breathes the balmy breath
of infancy in his description of it!

"Your Gentleman Brother"--John Barton, Bernard's younger half-brother.

"The Author-mometer." I have not discovered to what Lamb refers.

"Dream on J. Bunyan." Probably a poem by Barton, but I have not traced
it.

"T. and H."--Taylor & Hessey.

"Poor Scott"--John Scott, who founded the _London Magazine_.

"Darley"--George Darley (1795-1846), author of _Sylvia; or, The May
Queen_, 1827.

"The Queen of the East Angles." Possibly Lucy Barton, possibly Anne
Knight, a friend of Barton's.]

LETTER 364

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

[Not dated. ? February, 1825.]

My dear M.,--You might have come inopportun