tenor. It may make folks smile and stare, but
the ungenial coalition of barbarous with refined phrases will prevent
you in the end from being so generally tasted, as you deserve to be.
Excuse my freedom, and take the same liberty with my _puns_.

I send you two little volumes of my spare hours. They are of all sorts,
there is a methodist hymn for Sundays, and a farce for Saturday night.
Pray give them a place on your shelf. Pray accept a little volume, of
which I have [a] duplicate, that I may return in equal number to your
welcome presents.

I think I am indebted to you for a sonnet in the London for August.

Since I saw you I have been in France, and have eaten frogs. The nicest
little rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs.
Clare pick off the hind quarters, boil them plain, with parsley and
butter. The fore quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off by
themselves.

Yours sincerely,

CHAS. LAMB.

[John Clare (1793-1864) was the Northamptonshire poet whom the _London
Magazine_ had introduced to fame. Octavius Gilchrist had played to him
the same part that Capell Lofft had to Bloomfield. His first volume,
_Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery_, was published in January,
1820; his next, _The Village Minstrel_, in September of the next year.
These he had probably sent to Lamb. Helpstone was Clare's birthplace.
Lamb's two little return volumes were his _Works_. The sonnet in the
August _London Magazine_ was not signed by Clare. It runs thus:--

TO ELlA

ELIA, thy reveries and vision'd themes
To Care's lorn heart a luscious pleasure prove;
Wild as the mystery of delightful dreams,
Soft as the anguish of remember'd love:
Like records of past days their memory dances
Mid the cool feelings Manhood's reason brings,
As the unearthly visions of romances
Peopled with sweet and uncreated things;--
And yet thy themes thy gentle worth enhances!
Then wake again thy wild harp's tenderest strings,
Sing on, sweet Bard, let fairy loves again
Smile in thy dreams, with angel ecstacies;
Bright o'er our souls will break the heavenly strain
Through the dull gloom of earth's realities.

Clare addressed to Lamb a sonnet on his _Dramatic Specimens_ which was
printed in Hone's _Year Book_ in 1831.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton dated Sept. 5,