Jonson,' who I
believe was the first regular Laureat with the appointment of L100 a
year and a Butt of Sack or Canary--so add that to my little list.--C.L.

[Mr. Macdonald dates this letter December 31, 1828, perhaps rightly. I
have dated it at a venture April, 1829, because Moxon's _Christmas_ was
published in March of that year. It is the only letter to Mary Lamb's
nurse, Miss James, that exists. Mrs. Reynolds was Lamb's aged pensioner,
whom we have met. Pye died in 1813 and was succeeded by Southey. The
author of the witticism on his first ode was George Steevens, the
critic. The comment gained point from the circumstance that Pye had
drawn largely on images from bird life in his verses.]

LETTER 482

CHARLES LAMB TO H. CRABB ROBINSON

[P.M. April ? 1829.]

Dear Robinson, we are afraid you will slip from us from England without
again seeing us. It would be charity to come and see me. I have these
three days been laid up with strong rheumatic pains, in loins, back,
shoulders. I shriek sometimes from the violence of them. I get scarce
any sleep, and the consequence is, I am restless, and want to change
sides as I lie, and I cannot turn without resting on my hands, and so
turning all my body all at once like a log with a lever. While this
rainy weather lasts, I have no hope of alleviation. I have tried
flannels and embrocation in vain. Just at the hip joint the pangs
sometimes are so excruciating, that I cry out. It is as violent as the
cramp, and far more continuous. I am ashamed to whine about these
complaints to you, who can ill enter into them. But indeed they are
sharp. You go about, in rain or fine at all hours without discommodity.
I envy you your immunity at a time of life not much removed from my own.
But you owe your exemption to temperance, which it is too late for me to
pursue. I in my life time have had my good things. Hence my frame is
brittle--yours strong as brass. I never knew any ailment you had. You
can go out at night in all weathers, sit up all hours. Well, I don't
want to moralise. I only wish to say that if you are enclined to a game
at Doubly Dumby, I would try and bolster up myself in a chair for a
rubber or so. My days are tedious, but less so and less painful than my
nights. May you never know the pain and difficulty I have in writing so
much. Mary, who is most kind, joins in the wish.

C. LAMB.

LETTER 483

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[P.M. April 17, 1829.]