rd I must object to in your little book, and it recurs
more than once--FADELESS is no genuine compound; loveless
is, because love is a noun as well as verb, but what is a
fade?--and I do not quite like whipping the Greek drama upon
the back of "Genesis," page 8. I do not like praise handed
in by disparagement: as I objected to a side censure on Byron,
etc., in the lines on Bloomfield: with these poor cavils excepted,
your verses are without a flaw. C. LAMB.

[Barton's new book was _Devotional Verses: founded on, and illustrative
of Select Texts of Scripture_, 1826. See the Appendix for "The Spiritual
Law."

"Holy Mr. Herbert." Writing to Lady Beaumont in 1826 Coleridge says: "My
dear old friend Charles Lamb and I differ widely (and in point of taste
and moral feeling this is a rare occurrence) in our estimate and liking
of George Herbert's sacred poems. He greatly prefers Quarles--nay, he
dislikes Herbert."

Barton whipped the Greek drama on the back of Genesis in the following
stanza, referring to Abraham's words before preparing to sacrifice
Isaac:--

Brief colloquy, yet more sublime,
To every feeling heart,
Than all the boast of classic time,
Or Drama's proudest art:
Far, far beyond the Grecian stage,
Or Poesy's most glowing page.

For Lamb's reference to Byron, see above.]

LETTER 389

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES OLLIER

[P.M. March 16, 1826.]

D'r Ollier if not too late, pray omit the last paragraph in "Actor's
Religion," which is clumsy. It will then end with the word Mugletonian.
I shall not often trouble you in this manner, but I am suspicious of
this article as lame.

C. LAMB.

["The Religion of Actors" was printed in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for
April, 1826. The essay ends at "Muggletonian." See Vol. I. of this
edition.]

LETTER 390

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. March 20, 1826.]

Dear B.B.--You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For the
former, I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend whose
stationary is a permanent perquisite; for folding, I shall do it neatly
when I learn to tye my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends by
writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pothooks and
hangers. Sealing wax, I have none on my establishment. Wafers of the
coarsest bran supply its place. When my Epistles come to be weighed with
Plin