mmaterial.
But your feelings, and I fear _pocket_, is every thing. I have just time
to pack this off by the 2 o Clock stage. Yours till me meet

At all events I behave more gentlemanlike than Emma did, in returning
the copies.

Yours till we meet--DO COME.

Bring the Sonnets--

Why not publish 'em?--or let another Bookseller?

[Dr. Cresswell was vicar of Edmonton. Having married the daughter of a
tailor--or so Mr. Fuller Russell states in his account of a conversation
with Lamb in _Notes and Queries_--he was in danger of being ribaldly
associated with Satan's matrimonial adventures in Lamb's ballad. I
cannot explain to what book Lamb refers: possibly to the _Last Essays of
Elia_, which Moxon, having found errors in, wished to withdraw,
substituting another. The point probably cannot be cleared up. The
sonnets would be Moxon's own, which he had printed privately (see a
later letter).]

LETTER 570

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. March 30, 1833.]

D'r M. Emma and we are _delighted_ with the Sonnets, and she with her
nice Walton. Mary is deep in the novel. Come as early as you can. I
stupidly overlookd your proposal to meet you in Green Lanes, for in some
strange way I _burnt my leg_, shin-quarter, at Forster's;* it is laid up
on a stool, and Asbury attends. You'll see us all as usual, about
Taylor, when you come.

Yours ever

C.L.

*Or the night I came home, for I felt it not bad till yesterday. But I
scarce can hobble across the room.

I have secured 4 places for night: in haste.

Mary and E. do not dream of any thing we have discussed.

[I fancy that the last sentence refers to an offer for Miss Isola's hand
which Moxon had just made to Lamb.]

LETTER 571

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. Spring, 1833.]

Dear M. many thanks for the Books; the _Faust_ I will acknowledge to the
Author. But most thanks for one immortal sentence, "If I do not _cheat_
him, never _trust_ me again." I do not know whether to admire most, the
wit or justness of the sentiment. It has my cordial approbation. My
sense of meum and tuum applauds it. I maintain it, the eighth
commandment hath a secret special reservation, by which the reptile is
exempt from any protection from it; as a dog, or a nigger, he is not a
holder of property. Not a ninth of what he detains from the world is his
own. Keep your hands from picking and stealing is no ways referable to
his acquists. I doubt whether bearing false w