me to-night. Can you come and eat grouse? 'Tis not often
I offer at delicacies.

Yours most kindly, C. LAMB.

LETTER 387

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES OLLIER

January, 1826.

Dear O.,--We lamented your absence last night. The grouse were piquant,
the backs incomparable. You must come in to cold mutton and oysters some
evening. Name your evening; though I have qualms at the distance. Do you
never leave early? My head is very queerish, and indisposed for much
company; but we will get Hood, that half Hogarth, to meet you. The scrap
I send should come in AFTER the "Rising with the Lark."

Yours truly.

Colburn, I take it, pays postages.

[The scrap was the Fallacy "That we Should Lie Down with the Lamb,"
which has perhaps the rarest quality of the series.

Here perhaps should come two further notes to Ollier, referring to some
articles on Chinese jests by Manning.

Here should come a letter to Mr. Hudson dated February 1, 1826,
recommending a nurse for a mental case. Given in the Boston Bibliophile
edition.]

LETTER 388

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. February 7, 1826.]

My kind remembrances to your daughter and A.K. always.

Dear B.B.--I got your book not more than five days ago, so am not so
negligent as I must have appeared to you with a fortnight's sin upon my
shoulders. I tell you with sincerity that I think you have completely
succeeded in what you intended to do. What is poetry may be disputed.
These are poetry to me at least. They are concise, pithy, and moving.
Uniform as they are, and unhistorify'd, I read them thro' at two
sittings without one sensation approaching to tedium. I do not know that
among your many kind presents of this nature this is not my favourite
volume. The language is never lax, and there is a unity of design and
feeling, you wrote them _with love_--to avoid the cox-_combical_ phrase,
con amore. I am particularly pleased with the "Spiritual Law," page
34-5. It reminded me of Quarles, and Holy Mr. Herbert, as Izaak Walton
calls him: the two best, if not only, of our devotional poets, tho' some
prefer Watts, and some _Tom Moore_.

I am far from well or in my right spirits, and shudder at pen and ink
work. I poke out a monthly crudity for Colburn in his magazine, which I
call "Popular Fallacies," and periodically crush a proverb or two,
setting up my folly against the wisdom of nations. Do you see the "New
Monthly"?

One wo