a pleasant anecdote,
that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes
compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at
arrears, Dr. *** would take no immediate notice, but, after
supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would
never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches,
and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the desire
of them--ending with 'Lord, keep thy servants, above all things
from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment,
us therewithal be content. Give me Agar's wish,'--and the
like;--which to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine
full of Christian prudence and simplicity,--but to poor D. was a
receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least.

"And D. has been under-working for himself ever since;--drudging
at low rates for unappreciating booksellers,--wasting his fine
erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those
unostentatious but solid services to learning, which commonly fall
to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the art to sell
themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which
do not sell, because their character is inobtrusive like his
own,--and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient
literature, to know what the popular mark in poetry is, even if he
could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what
he terms them, _crotchets;_ voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and
Spring; effusions; little tributes, and offerings, left behind
him, upon tables and window-seats, at parting from friends'
houses; and from all the inns of hospitality, where he has been
courteously (or but tolerably) received in his pilgrimage. If his
muse of kindness halt a little behind the strong lines, in fashion
in this excitement-craving age, his prose is the best of the
sort in the world, and exhibits a faithful transcript of his own
healthy natural mind, and cheerful innocent tone of conversation."

The foregoing passage called forth a protest from one W.K.
necessitating the following reply from Lamb, which was printed in the
_London Magazine_, under the "Lion's Head," for December, 1820:--

"Elia requests the Editor to inform W.K. that in his article on
Oxford, under the initials G.D., it is his ambition to make more
familiar to the public, a