on again without seeing your pleasant Play.
In meanwhile, pray, send three or four orders to a Lady who can't afford
to pay: Miss James, No. 1 Grove Road, Lisson Grove, Paddington, a day or
two before--and come and see us some _Evening_ with my hitherto
uncorrupted and honest bookseller

Moxon. C. LAMB.

[I have dated this April, 1832, because it may refer to Knowles' play
"The Hunchback," produced April 5, 1832. It might also possibly refer to
"The Wife" of a year later, but I think not.]

LETTER 544

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[? Late April, 1832.]

One day in my life
Do come. C.L.

I have placed poor Mary at Edmonton--

I shall be very glad to see the Hunch Back and Straitback the 1st Even'g
they can come. I am very poorly indeed. I have been cruelly thrown out.
Come and don't let me drink too much. I drank more yesterday than I ever
did any one day in my life.

C.L.

Do come.

Cannot your Sister come and take a half bed--or a whole one? Which,
alas, we have to spare.

[Mary Lamb would have been taken to Walden House, Edmonton, where mental
patients were received. A year later the Lambs moved there altogether.

The Hunchback would be Knowles; the Straitback I do not recognise.

John Forster (1812-1876), whom we now meet for the first time, one of
Lamb's last new friends, was the author, later, of _Lives of the
Statesmen of the Commonwealth_ and the Lives also of Goldsmith and of
Landor and Dickens, whose close friend he was. His _Life of Pym_, which
was in Vol. II. of the _Statesman_, did not appear until 1837, but I
assume that he had ridden the hobby for some years.]

LETTER 545

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON (?)

[P.M. June 1, 1832.]

I am a little more than half alive--
I was more than half dead--
the Ladies are very agreeable--
I flatter myself I am less than disagreeable--
Convey this to Mr. Forster--
Whom, with you, I shall just be able to see some 10 days
hence and believe me ever yours C.L.

I take Forster's name to be John,
But you know whom I mean,
the Pym-praiser
not pimp-raiser.

[This letter possibly is not to Moxon at all, as the wrapper (on which
is the postmark) may belong to another letter.]

LETTER 546

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

July 2, 1832.

AT midsummer or soon after (I will let you know the previous day),