n's "Bacchus and Ariadne" in the National Gallery
is highly praised (see Vol. II.). Wordsworth's favourite essays in this
volume were "The Wedding" and "Old China."

"My Milton." Against the reference to the portrait of Milton, in the
postscript, some one, possibly Wordsworth, has pencilled a note, now
only partially legible. It runs thus: "It had been proposed by L. that
W.W. should be the Possessor of [? this picture] his friend and that
afterwards it was to be bequeathed to Christ's Coll. Cambridge."

Lamb had given Wordsworth in 1820 a copy of _Paradise Regained_, 1671,
with this inscription: "C. Lamb to the best Knower of Milton, and
therefore the worthiest occupant of this pleasant Edition. June 2'd
1820."]

LETTER 582

CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT

[Dated at end:] Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton, May 31, 1833.

Dear Mrs. Hazlitt,--I will assuredly come, and find you out, when I am
better. I am driven from house and home by Mary's illness. I took a
sudden resolution to take my sister to Edmonton, where she was under
medical treatment last time, and have arranged to board and lodge with
the people. Thank God, I have repudiated Enfield. I have got out of
hell, despair of heaven, and must sit down contented in a half-way
purgatory. Thus ends this strange eventful history--

But I am nearer town, and will get up to you somehow before long--

I repent not of my resolution.

'Tis late, and my hand unsteady, so good b'ye till we meet.

Your old

C.L.

LETTER 583

CHARLES LAMB TO MARY BETHAM

June 5, 1833.

Dear Mary Betham,--I remember You all, and tears come out when I think
on the years that have separated us. That dear Anne should so long have
remembered us affects me. My dear Mary, my poor sister is not, nor will
be for two months perhaps capable of appreciating the _kind old long
memory_ of dear Anne.

But not a penny will I take, and I can answer for my Mary when she
recovers, if the sum left can contribute in any way to the comfort of
Matilda.

We will halve it, or we will take a bit of it, as a token, rather than
wrong her. So pray consider it as an amicable arrangement. I write in
great haste, or you won't get it before you go.

_We do not want the money_; but if dear Matilda does not much want it,
why, we will take our thirds. God bless you.

C. LAMB.

[Miss Betham's sister, Anne, who had just died, had left thirty pounds
to Mary Lamb. Mr. Ernest Betham allows me to