ou just now, for after such a letter as I have received from you, in
truth I am ashamed to see you. We will never mention the thing again.

Your obliged friend & Serv't

C. LAMB.

June 14.

[In the absence of any wrapper I have assumed this note to be addressed
to Colburn, the publisher of the _New Monthly Magazine_. Lamb's first
contribution to that periodical was "The Illustrious Defunct" (see Vol.
I. of this edition) in January, 1825. A year later he began the "Popular
Fallacies," and continued regularly for some months.]

LETTER 376

CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE

[P.M. July 2, 1825.]

Dear C.--We are going off to Enfield, to Allsop's, for a day or 2, with
some intention of succeeding them in their lodging for a time, for this
damn'd nervous Fever (vide Lond. Mag. for July) indisposes me for seeing
any friends, and never any poor devil was so befriended as I am. Do you
know any poor solitary human that wants that cordial to life a--true
friend? I can spare him twenty, he shall have 'em good cheap. I have
gallipots of 'em--genuine balm of cares--a going--a going--a going.
Little plagues plague me a 1000 times more than ever. I am like a
disembodied soul--in this my eternity. I feel every thing entirely, all
in all and all in etc. This price I pay for liberty, but am richly
content to pay it. The Odes are 4-5ths done by Hood, a silentish young
man you met at Islinton one day, an invalid. The rest are Reynolds's,
whose sister H. has recently married. I have not had a broken finger in
them.

They are hearty good-natured things, and I would put my name to 'em
chearfully, if I could as honestly. I complimented them in a Newspaper,
with an abatement for those puns you laud so. They are generally an
excess. A Pun is a thing of too much consequence to be thrown in as a
make-weight. You shall read one of the addresses over, and miss the
puns, and it shall be quite as good and better than when you discover
'em. A Pun is a Noble Thing per se: O never lug it in as an accessory. A
Pun is a sole object for reflection (vide _my_ aids to that recessment
from a savage state)--it is entire, it fills the mind: it is perfect as
a Sonnet, better. It limps asham'd in the train and retinue of Humour:
it knows it should have an establishment of its own. The one, for
instance, I made the other day, I forget what it was.

Hood will be gratify'd, as much as I am, by your mistake. I liked
'Grimaldi' the best; it is true pain