w in America containing valuable and
unpublished marginalia by Coleridge: _The Life of John Buncle_,
Donne's _Poems_ ("I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you
will not be vexed that I have scribbled your book. S.T.C., 2d May,
1811"), Reynolds' _God's Revenge against ... Murder_, 1651 ("O what
a beautiful _concordia discordantium_ is an unthinking good man's
soul!"), _The History of Philip de Commines_ in English, and Petwin's
_Letters Concerning the Mind_.

* * * * *

Page 31. NEW YEAR'S EVE.

_London Magazine_, January, 1821.

The melancholy pessimism of this essay led to some remonstrance from
robuster readers of the _London Magazine_. In addition to the letter
from "A Father" referred to below, the essay produced, seven months
later, in the August number of the _London Magazine_, a long poetical
"Epistle to Elia," signed "Olen," in which very simply and touchingly
Lamb was reminded that the grave is not the end, was asked to consider
the promises of the Christian faith, and finally was offered a glimpse
of some of the friends he would meet in heaven--among them Ulysses,
Shakespeare and Alice W----n. Taylor, the publisher and editor of the
magazine, sent Lamb a copy. He replied, acknowledging the kindness of
the author, and adding:--"Poor Elia ... does not pretend to so very
clear revelations of a future state of being as 'Olen' seems gifted
with. He stumbles about dark mountains at best; but he knows at least
how to be thankful for this life, and is too thankful, indeed, for
certain relationships lent him here, not to tremble for a possible
resumption of the gift. He is too apt to express himself lightly, and
cannot be sorry for the present occasion, as it has called forth a
reproof so Christian-like."

Lamb thought the poet to be James Montgomery, but it was in reality
Charles Abraham Elton. The poem was reprinted in a volume entitled
_Boyhood and other Poems_, in 1835.

It is conceivable that Lamb was reasoned with privately upon the
sentiments expressed in this essay; and perhaps we may take the
following sonnet which he contributed over his own name to, the
_London Magazine_ for April, 1821, as a kind of defiant postscript
thereto, a further challenge to those who reproached him for his
remarks concerning death, and who suggested that he did not really
mean them:--

They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke,
That like a millstone on man's mind doth pre