ty. I instantly prepared an Epithalamium, in
the form of a Sonata--which I was sending to Novello to compose--but
Mary forbid it me, as too light for the occasion--as if the subject
required anything heavy-- so in a tiff with her I sent no congratulation
at all. Tho' I promise you the wedding was very pleasant news to me
indeed. Let your reply name a day this next week, when you will come as
many as a coach will hold; such a day as we had at Dulwich. My very
kindest love and Mary's to Victoria and the Novellos. The enclosed is
from a friend nameless, but highish in office, and a man whose accuracy
of statement may be relied on with implicit confidence. He wants the
_expose_ to appear in a newspaper as the "greatest piece of legal and
Parliamentary villainy he ever rememb'd," and he has had experience in
both; and thinks it would answer afterwards in a cheap pamphlet printed
at Lambeth in 8'o sheet, as 16,000 families in that parish are
interested. I know not whether the present _Examiner_ keeps up the
character of exposing abuses, for I scarce see a paper now. If so, you
may ascertain Mr. Hunt of the strictest truth of the statement, at the
peril of my head. But if this won't do, transmit it me back, I beg, per
coach, or better, bring it with you. Yours unaltered, C. LAMB.

[Clarke had married Mary Victoria Novello on July 5, 1828, and they had
spent their honeymoon at the Greyhound, Enfield, unknown to the Lambs.
See the next letter.

"The enclosed." This has vanished. Hunt was Leigh Hunt.]

LETTER 464

CHARLES LAMB TO VINCENT NOVELLO

[Enfield, November 6, 1828.]

My dear Novello,--I am afraid I shall appear rather tardy in offering my
congratulations, however sincere, upon your daughter's marriage. The
truth is, I had put together a little Serenata upon the occasion, but
was prevented from sending it by my sister, to whose judgment I am apt
to defer too much in these kind of things; so that, now I have her
consent, the offering, I am afraid, will have lost the grace of
seasonableness. Such as it is, I send it. She thinks it a little too
old-fashioned in the manner, too much like what they wrote a century
back. But I cannot write in the modern style, if I try ever so hard. I
have attended to the proper divisions for the music, and you will have
little difficulty in composing it. If I may advise, make Pepusch your
model, or Blow. It will be necessary to have a good second voice, as the
stress of the melody