ing you a crude, wretched paper on
Sunday, you must burn it, and forgive me; if it proves anything better
than I predict, may it be a peace-offering of sweet incense between us!

C. LAMB.

[1] Godwin's "Life of Chaucer,"--a work, says Canon Ainger, consisting
of "four fifths ingenious guessing to one fifth of material having any
historic basis."

XLIV.

TO MANNING.

_February_ 24, 1805.

Dear Manning,--I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression
of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been
partially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the
swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has
thrust himself into the important situations (no sinecures, believe me)
of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College; and the generous creature has
contrived, with the greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present
of Cambridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the
man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has _heard_ of
me. I did not immediately recognize the donor; but one of Richard's
cards, which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a
moment, Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card
imports that "orders [to wit, for brawn] from any part of England,
Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly executed," etc. At first I thought of
declining the present; but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched
upon brawn. 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He
might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's
lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal
(dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive
livers, runaway gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender
effusions of laxative woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, leverets'
ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been
ordinary presents, the everyday courtesies of dishwashers to their
sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common
gullet-fancier that can properly esteem it. It is like a picture of one
of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As
Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, "you must love him, ere to you he
will seem worthy of your love," so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you
it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the
adept,--those that will send out their tong