e other with less poetic name, which thou
hast Cornwallized for the occasion? And what if Maggiore itself be but a
coinage of adaptation? Of this pray resolve me immediately, for my
albumess will be catechised on this subject; and how can I prompt her?
Lake Leman, I know, and Lemon Lake (in a punch bowl) I have swum in,
though those lymphs be long since dry. But Maggiore may be in the moon.
Unsphinx this riddle for me, for my shelves have no gazetteer. And
mayest thou never murder thy father-in-law in the Trivia of Lincoln's
Inn New Square Passage, where Searl Street and the Street of Portugal
embrace, nor afterwards make absurd proposals to the Widow M. But I know
you abhor any such notions. Nevertheless so did O-Edipus (as Admiral
Burney used to call him, splitting the diphthong in spite or ignorance)
for that matter. C.L.

["Above the painter"--James Barry, R.A., but I do not understand the
allusion here.

"Giraldus Cambrensis"--the historian, Giraldus de Barri.

Procter's poem for Emma Isola's album, as we have seen, mentions Isola
Bella, the island in Lago de Maggiore. Delos was the floating island
which Neptune fixed in order that Latona might rest there and Apollo and
Diana be born.

Oedipus, who solved the riddle of the Sphinx, was the murderer of his
father. Basil Montagu was Procter's father-in-law. Procter's address was
10 Lincolns Inn, New Square.

At the end of the letter came a passage which for family reasons cannot
be printed.]

LETTER 476

CHARLES LAMB TO B.W. PROCTER

February 2, 1829.

Facundissime Poeta! quanquam istiusmodi epitheta oratoribus potius quam
poetis attinere facile scio--tamen, facundissime!

Commoratur nobiscum jamdiu, in agro Enfeldiense, scilicet, leguleius
futurus, illustrissimus Martinus Burneius, otium agens, negotia
nominalia, et officinam clientum vacuam, paululum fugiens. Orat,
implorat te--nempe, Martinus--ut si (quod Dii faciant) forte fortuna,
absente ipso, advenerit tardus cliens, eum certiorem feceris per literas
huc missas. Intelligisne? an me Anglice et barbarice ad te hominem
perdoctum scribere oportet?

Si status de franco tenemento datur avo, et in codem facto si mediate
vel immediate datur _haeredibus vel haeredibus corporis dicti avi_,
postrema, haec verba sunt Limitations, non Perquisitionis.

Dixi.

CARLAGNULUS.

[Mr. Stephen Gwynn has made the following translation for me:--

"Most eloquent P