another
stamp on it.

[Around the seal of this note are the words in Lamb's hand: "Obiit
Edwardus Reflector Armiger, 31 Dec., 1832. Natus tres hebdomidas. Pax
animae ejus."

The newspaper stamp at that time was fourpence (less 25 per cent.).

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Badams (_nee_ Holcroft),
dated December 31, 1832, not available for this edition, in which, after
some plain speaking about the Westwoods, Lamb refers to the murder of
Mr. Danby at Enfield by Fare and two other men on the night of December
19, and says that he had been in their company at the inn a little
before, and the next morning was asked to give his evidence. Canon
Ainger says that Lamb's story is a hoax, but it reads reasonably enough
and might as easily have happened as not.]

LETTER 554

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Jan., 1833.]

I have a proof from Dilke. _That_ serves for next Saturday. What Forster
had, will serve a second. I sent you a _third_ concluding article for
_him_ and _us_ (a capital hit, I think, about Cervantes) of which I
leave you to judge whether we shall not want it to print _before_ a
third or even second week. In that case beg D. to clap them in all at
once; and keep the Atheneums to print from. What I send is the
concluding Article of the painters.

Soften down the Title in the Book to

"Defect of the Imaginative Faculty in Artists."

Consult Dilke.

[Lamb's _Elia_ essay "Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the
Production of Modern Art," intended originally for _The Englishman's
Magazine_, was partly printed by Forster in _The Reflector_ and finally
printed in full in _The Athenaeum_ in January and February, 1833. The
reference to Don Quixote is at the end. Moxon was already printing the
_Last Essays of Elia_.

"Consult Dilke" was a favourite phrase with Lamb and Hood and, long
before, with Keats.]

LETTER 555

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. Jan. 3(1833).]

Be sure and let me have the Atheneum--or, if they don't appear, the Copy
back again. I have no other.

I am glad you are introduced to Rickman, _cultivate the introduction_. I
will not forget to write to him.

I want to see Blackwood, but _not without you_.

We are yet Emma-less.

And so that is all I can remember.

This is a corkscrew.

[_Here is a florid corkscrew._]

C. Lamb, born 1775
flourished about