avory, a young Quaker girl of
Pentonville, who inspired the poem embalming the name of Hester forever,
and of Fanny Kelly, the actress with "the divine plain face," who will
always live in one of "Elia's" most exquisite essays. "He had a
_reverence_ for the sex," said Procter, "and there were tender spots in
his heart that time could never entirely cover up or conceal."

During our walk we stepped into Christ's Hospital, and turned to the
page on its record book where together we read this entry: "October 9,
1782, Charles Lamb, aged seven years, son of John Lamb, scrivener, and
Elizabeth his wife."

It was a lucky morning when I dropped in to bid "good morrow" to the
poet as I was passing his house one day, for it was then he took from
among his treasures and gave to me an autograph letter addressed to
himself by Charles Lamb in 1829. I found the dear old man alone and in
his library, sitting at his books, with the windows wide open, letting
in the spring odors. Quoting, as I entered, some lines from Wordsworth
embalming May mornings, he began to talk of the older poets who had
worshipped nature with the ardor of lovers, and his eyes lighted up with
pleasure when I happened to remember some almost forgotten stanza from
England's "Helicon." It was an easy transition from the old bards to
"Elia," and he soon went on in his fine enthusiastic way to relate
several anecdotes of his eccentric friend. As I rose to take leave he
said,--

"Have I ever given you one of Lamb's letters to carry home to America?"

"No," I replied, "and you must not part with the least scrap of a note
in 'Elia's' handwriting. Such things are too precious to be risked on a
sea-voyage to another hemisphere."

"America ought to share with England in these things," he rejoined; and
leading me up to a sort of cabinet in the library, he unlocked a drawer
and got out a package of time-stained papers. "Ah," said he, as he
turned over the golden leaves, "here is something you will like to
handle." I unfolded the sheet, and lo! it was in Keats's handwriting,
the sonnet on first looking into Chapman's Homer. "Keats gave it to me,"
said Procter, "many, many years ago," and then he proceeded to read, in
tones tremulous with delight, these undying lines:--

"Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many Western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide e