only me but
the Boston Bibliophile Society include it with the correspondence. In it
Lamb expresses regret, not so much that Hood had signed "The Widow" with
Lamb's name, but that an unfortunately ambiguous jest, pointed out to
him by certain friends, had crept into it. He asks that the subject may
never be referred to again.

Here perhaps should come a note to Miss Reynolds, Hood's sister-in-law,
accompanying Lamb's Essay on Hogarth.]

LETTER 466

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Dec., 1828.]

Dear M.,--As I see no blood-marks on the Green Lanes Road, I conclude
you got in safe skins home. Have you thought of inquiring Miss Wilson's
change of abode? Of the 2 copies of my drama I want one sent to
Wordsworth, together with a complete copy of Hone's "Table Book," for
which I shall be your debtor till we meet. Perhaps Longman will take
charge of this parcel. The other is for Coleridge at Mr. Gilman's,
Grove, Highgate, which may be sent, or, if you have a curiosity to see
him you will make an errand with it to him, & tell him we mean very soon
to come & see him, if the Gilmans can give or get us a bed. I am ashamed
to be so troublesome. Pray let Hood see the "Ecclectic Review"--a rogue!
The 2'd parts of the Blackwood you may make waste paper of. Yours truly,

C.L.

[I do not identify Miss Wilson. Lamb's drama was "A Wife's Trial" in
_Blackwood_ for December, 1828. The same number of the _Eclectic Review_
referred to Hood's parody of Lamb, "The Widow," as profaning Leslie's
picture of the widow by its "heartless ribaldry." By the 2d parts of
_Blackwood_ Lamb referred, I imagine, to the pages on which his play was
not printed.]

LETTER 467

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. December 5, 1828.]

Dear B.B.--I am ashamed to receive so many nice Books from you, and to
have none to send you in return; You are always sending me some fruits
or wholesome pot-herbs, and mine is the garden of the Sluggard, nothing
but weeds or scarce they. Nevertheless if I knew how to transmit it, I
would send you Blackwood's of this month, which contains a little Drama,
to have your opinion of it, and how far I have improved, or otherwise,
upon its prototype. Thank you for your kind Sonnet. It does me good to
see the Dedication to a Christian Bishop. I am for a Comprehension, as
Divines call it, but so as that the Church shall go a good deal more
than halfway over to the Silent Meeting house. I have ever said that