tterly
forgotten. The world will never see again two such delightful volumes as
"The Essays of Elia;" no man living is capable of writing the worst
twenty pages of them. The Continent has Zadig and Gil Bias, we have Elia
and Sir Roger de Coverly.

Mrs. Fields, writing in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April, 1866, on
Landor, says that Landor told her of his visit to Lamb and said that
Lamb read to him some poetry and asked his opinion of it. Landor said it
was very good, whereupon Lamb laughed and called Landor the vainest of
men, for it was his own.

In a letter to Southey the lines differed, ending thus:

Few are the spirits of the glorified
I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven.]

LETTER 550

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[Late 1832.]

A poor mad usher (and schoolfellow of mine) has been pestering me
_through you_ with poetry and petitions. I have desired him to call upon
you for a half sovereign, which place to my account.

I have buried Mrs. Reynolds at last, who has _virtually at least_
bequeath'd me a legacy of L32 per Ann., to which add that my other
pensioner is safe housed in the workhouse, which gets me L10.

Richer by both legacies L42 per Ann.

For a loss of a loss is as good as a gain of a gain.

But let this be _between ourselves_, specially keep it from A----- or I
shall speedily have candidates for the Pensions.

Mary is laid up with a cold.

Will you convey the inclosed by hand?

When you come, if you ever do, bring me one _Devil's Visit_, I mean
_Southey's_; also the Hogarth which is complete, Noble's I think. Six
more letters to do. Bring my bill also. C.L.

[I do not identify the usher. Mrs. Reynolds, Lamb's first
schoolmistress, we have met. The other pensioner I do not positively
identify; presumably it was Morgan, Coleridge's old friend, to whom Lamb
and Southey had each given ten pounds annually from 1819.

A----- I cannot positively identify. Perhaps the philanthropic Allsop.

Southey's "Devil's Visit" was a new edition of _The Devil's Walk_
illustrated by Thomas Landseer.

Noble's "Hogarth." Noble was the engraver.]

LETTER 551

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Winter, 1832.]

Thank you for the books. I am ashamed to take tythe thus of your press.
I am worse to a publisher than the two Universities and the Brit. Mus.
A[llan] C[unningham] I will forthwith read. B[arry] C[ornwall] (I can't
get out of