ss,
Which only works and business can redress:
Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke,
Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke.
But might I, fed with silent meditation,
Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation--
_Improbus labor_, which my spirits hath broke--
I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit--
Fling in more days than went to make the gem
That crowned the white top of Methusalem--
Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit,
Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky,
The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity.

It was also probably the present essay which led to Lamb's difference
with Southey and the famous letter of remonstrance. Southey accused
_Elia_ of wanting "a sounder religious feeling," and Lamb suggests in
his reply that "New Year's Eve" was the chief offender. See Vol. I.
for Lamb's amplification of one of its passages.

It may be interesting here to quote Coleridge's description of Lamb
as "one hovering between heaven and earth, neither hoping much nor
fearing anything."

Page 31, line 10 from foot. _Bells_. The music of bells seems always
to have exerted fascination over Lamb. See the reference in the story
of the "First Going to Church," in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, Vol.
III.; in his poem "Sabbath Bells," Vol. IV.; and his "John Woodvil,"
Vol. IV.

Page 31, foot. "_I saw the skirts of the departing Year_." From
Coleridge's "Ode to the Departing Year," as printed in 1796 and
1797. Lamb was greatly taken by this line. He wrote to Coleridge on
January 2, 1797, in a letter of which only a small portion has been
printed:--"The opening [of the Ode] is in the spirit of the sublimest
allegory. The idea of the 'skirts of the departing year, seen far
onwards, waving in the wind,' is one of those noble Hints at which
the Reader's imagination is apt to kindle into grand conceptions."
Afterwards Coleridge altered "skirts" to "train."

Page 32, line 21. _Seven.... years_. See note to "Dream-Children."
Alice W--n is identified with Ann Simmons, who lived near Blakesware
when Lamb was a youth, and of whom he wrote his love sonnets.
According to the Key the name is "feigned."

Page 32, line 25. _Old Dorrell_. See the poem "Going or Gone,"
Vol. IV. There seems really to have been such an enemy of the Lamb
fortunes. He was one of the witnesses to the will of John Lamb, the
father--William Dorrell.

Page 33, line 5. _Small-pox at five_. There is no other evidence than
this c