OMBS IN THE ABBEY.

_London Magazine_, October, 1823, where, with slight differences,
it formed the concluding portion of the "Letter of Elia to Robert
Southey, Esquire," which will be found in Vol. I. The notes in that
volume should be consulted; but a little may be said here. This, the
less personal portion of the "Letter to Southey," seems to have been
all that Lamb cared to retain. He admitted afterwards, when his
anger against Southey had cooled, that his "guardian angel" had been
"absent" at the time he wrote it.

The Dean of Westminster at the time was Ireland, the friend of
Gifford--dean from 1815 to 1842. Lamb's protest against the
two-shilling fee was supported a year or so later than its first
appearance by Reynolds, in _Odes and Addresses_, 1825, in a sarcastic
appeal to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster to reduce that sum. The
passage in Lamb's essay being reprinted in 1833, suggests that the
reform still tarried. The evidence, however, of J.T. Smith, in his
_Book for a Rainy Day_, is that it was possible in 1822 to enter
Poets' Corner for sixpence. Dean Stanley, in his _Historical Memorials
of Westminster Abbey_, writes: "Free admission was given to the larger
part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. Authorised guides were first
appointed in 1826, and the nave and transepts opened, and the fees
lowered in 1841...."

Lamb's reference to Southey and to Andre's monument is
characteristically mischievous. He is reminding Southey of his early
sympathy with rebels--his "Wat Tyler" and pantisocratic days. Major
John Andre, Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-general, was caught returning
from an interview with an American traitor--a perfectly honourable
proceeding in warfare--and was hanged by Washington as a spy in 1780.
No blame attached either to judge or victim. Andre's remains were
reburied in the Abbey in 1821. Lamb speaks of injury to Andre's figure
in the monument, but the usual thing was for the figure of Washington
to be attacked. Its head has had to be renewed more than once. Minor
thefts have also been committed. According to Mrs. Gordon's _Life of
Dean Buckland_, one piece of vandalism at any rate was the work of an
American, who returned to the dean two heads which he had appropriated
as relics.

In _The Examiner_ for April 8, 1821, is quoted from _The Traveller_
the following epigram, which may not improbably be Lamb's, and which
shows at any rate that his protest against entrance fees for churches
w