--_with_, not simply _for_ another. I write
verses and _sympathize_ with you. You have the tooth ache, I have not;
I feel for you, I cannot sympathize.

243. What is "sheen"? Has it more significance than "bright"? Richmond
in its old name was Shene. Would you call an omnibus to take you to
Shene? How the "all's right" man would stare!

363. [The violet nestled in the shade,
Which fills with perfume all the glade,
Yet bashful as a timid maid
Thinks to elude the searching eye
Of every stranger passing by,
Might well compare with Emily.]

A strangely involved simile. The maiden is likend [_sic_] to a _violet_
which has been just before likened to a _maid_. Yet it reads prettily,
and I would not have it alter'd.

420. "Een" come again? In line 407 you speak it out "eye," bravely like
an Englishman.

468. Sorceresses do not entice by wrinkles, but, being essentially aged,
appear in assumed beauty.

[This communication and that which follows (with trifling omissions)
were sent to _Notes and Queries_ by the late Mr. J. Fuller Russell,
F.S.A., with this explanation: "I was residing at Enfield in the
Cambridge Long Vacation, 1834, and--perhaps to the neglect of more
improving pursuits--composed a metrical novel, named 'Emily de Wilton,'
in three parts. When the first of them was completed, I ventured to
introduce myself to Charles Lamb (who was living at Edmonton at the
time), and telling him what I had done, and that I had 'scarcely heart
to proceed until I had obtained the opinion of a competent judge
respecting my verses,' I asked him to 'while away an idle hour in their
perusal,' adding, 'I fear you will think me very rude and very
intrusive, but I am one of the most nervous souls in Christendom.'
Moved, possibly, by this diffident (not to say unusual) confession, Elia
speedily gave his consent."

The poem was never printed. Lamb's pains in this matter serve to show
how kindly disposed he was in these later years to all young men; and
how exact a sense of words he had.

In the British Museum is preserved a sheet of similar comments made by
Lamb upon a manuscript of P.G. Patmore's, from which I have quoted a few
passages above. In _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_ will also be found a
number of interesting criticisms on a translation of Homer.]

LETTER 606

CHARLES LAMB TO J. FULLER RUSSELL

[Summer, 1834.]

Sir,--I hope you will finish "E