clergymen, but here and there
one. Cary, the Dante Cary, is a model quite as plain as Parson Primrose,
without a shade of silliness."

On July 21, 1827, is a letter to Mr. Dillon, whom I do not identify,
saying that Lamb has been teaching Emma Isola Latin for the past seven
weeks.

"Ass _in praesenti_." This was Boyer's joke, at Christ's Hospital (see
Vol. I. of this edition).

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Edward White, of the India House,
dated August 1, 1827, in which Lamb has some pleasantry about paying
postages, and ends by heartily commending White to mind his ledger, and
keep his eye on Mr. Chambers' balances.]

LETTER 421

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. BASIL MONTAGU

[Summer, 1827.]

Dear Madam,--I return your List with my name. I should be sorry that any
respect should be going on towards [Clarkson,] and I be left out of the
conspiracy. Otherwise I frankly own that to pillarize a man's good
feelings in his lifetime is not to my taste. Monuments to goodness, even
after death, are equivocal. I turn away from Howard's, I scarce know
why. Goodness blows no trumpet, nor desires to have it blown. We should
be modest for a modest man--as he is for himself. The vanities of
Life--Art, Poetry, Skill military, are subjects for trophies; not the
silent thoughts arising in a good man's mind in lonely places. Was I
C[larkson,] I should never be able to walk or ride near ------ again.
Instead of bread, we are giving him a stone. Instead of the locality
recalling the noblest moment of his existence, it is a place at which
his friends (that is, himself) blow to the world, "What a good man is
he!" I sat down upon a hillock at Forty Hill yesternight--a fine
contemplative evening,--with a thousand good speculations about mankind.
How I yearned with cheap benevolence! I shall go and inquire of the
stone-cutter, that cuts the tombstones here, what a stone with a short
inscription will cost; just to say--"Here C. Lamb loved his brethren of
mankind." Everybody will come there to love. As I can't well put my own
name, I shall put about a subscription:

_s. d_.
Mrs. ---- 5 0
Procter 2 6
G. Dyer 1 0
Mr. Godwin 0 0
Mrs. Godwin 0 0
Mr. Irving a watch-chain.
Mr. ------- the proceeds of ------ first edition.*
___ ___
8 6

I scribble in haste from here, where w