end, but
considerable uneasiness respecting your own health and spirits, which
must have suffered under such attention. Pray believe me that we shall
wait in quiet hope for the time when I shall receive the welcome summons
to come and relieve you from a charge, which you have executed with such
tenderness. We desire nothing so much as to exchange it with you.
Nothing shall be wanting on my part to remove her with the best judgment
I can, without (I hope) any necessity for depriving you of the services
of your valuable housekeeper. Until the day comes, we entreat that you
will spare yourself the trouble of writing, which we should be ashamed
to impose upon you in your present weak state. Not hearing from you, we
shall be satisfied in believing that there has been no relapse.
Therefore we beg that you will not add to your troubles by unnecessary,
though _most kind_, correspondence. Till I have the pleasure of thanking
you personally, I beg you to accept these written acknowledgments of all
your kindness. With respects to Mr. Williams and sincere prayers for
both your healths, I remain,

Your ever obliged servant,

C. LAMB.

My sister joins me in respects and thanks.

LETTER 505

CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN

March 8th, 1830.

My dear G.,--Your friend Battin (for I knew him immediately by the
smooth satinity of his style) must excuse me for advocating the cause of
his friends in Spitalfields. The fact is, I am retained by the Norwich
people, and have already appeared in their paper under the signatures of
"Lucius Sergius," "Bluff," "Broad-Cloth,"
"No-Trade-to-the-Woollen-Trade," "Anti-plush," &c., in defence of
druggets and long camblets. And without this pre-engagement, I feel I
should naturally have chosen a side opposite to ----, for in the silken
seemingness of his nature there is that which offends me. My flesh
tingles at such caterpillars. He shall not crawl me over. Let him and
his workmen sing the old burthen,

"Heigh ho, ye weavers!"

for any aid I shall offer them in this emergency. I was over Saint
Luke's the other day with my friend Tuthill, and mightily pleased with
one of his contrivances for the comfort and amelioration of the
students. They have double cells, in which a pair may lie feet to feet
horizontally, and chat the time away as rationally as they can. It must
certainly be more sociable for them these warm raving nights. The
right-hand truckle in one of these friendly rec