ou before two on Tuesday. I am well
and happy, tell E.

[Moxon subsequently published his _Sonnets_, in two parts, one of which
was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth. There are several to
his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last
lines were to be altered. Mrs. Moxon's first album was an extract book
in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.

I quote one of Moxon's many sonnets to Emma Moxon:--

Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride!
Her freshness is about thee; like a river
To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever
Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide,
Humanity a livelier aspect wears.
Fair art thou as the morning of that land
Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned
Thy grandsire oft. Thou hast not many tears,
Save such as pity from the heart will wring,
And then there is a smile in thy distress!
Meeker thou art than lily of the spring,
Yet is thy nature full of nobleness!
And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so,
That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know!

"Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!" I cannot identify this acquaintance.

"Knowles's play"--"The Wife." Prologued by Lamb too.

"At Chatteris." I cannot say who were the teetotal, or abstinent,
Philistines.

"Mary's birthday." Mary Lamb would be sixty-nine on December 3, 1833.

Lamb's verses to Miss Brown seem to be no longer preserved. Mr. Hazlitt
prints a letter to a Miss Frances Brown, wherein Lamb offers the verses,
adding "I hope your sweetheart's name is WHITE. Else it would spoil all.
May be 'tis BLACK. Then we must alter it. And may your fortunes BLACKEN
with your name."]

LETTER 592

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE

[No date. Middle Dec., 1833.]

I hoped R. would like his Sonnet, but I fear'd S. that _fine old man_,
might not quite like the turn of it. This last was penn'd almost
literally extempore.

YOUR LAUREAT.

Is S.'s Christian name Thomas? if not, correct it.

["R."--Rogers; "S."--Stothard. See next letter.]

LETTER 593

CHARLES LAMB TO SAMUEL ROGERS

[No date. Probably Saturday, December 21, 1833.]

My dear Sir,--Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of your
publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will
till to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough reading of it. "The
P