at they do to borrow money of you. Henceforth I
will consort with none but rich rogues. Paris is a glorious picturesque
old City. London looks mean and New to it, as the town of Washington
would, seen after _it_. But they have no St. Paul's or Westminster
Abbey. The Seine, so much despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to
run thro' a magnificent street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty
Edinbro' stone (O the glorious antiques!): houses on the other. The
Thames disunites London & Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He
has picked up, as I believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspere. He paid
a broker about L40 English for it. It is painted on the one half of a
pair of bellows--a lovely picture, corresponding with the Folio head.
The bellows has old carved wings round it, and round the visnomy is
inscribed, near as I remember, not divided into rhyme--I found out the
rhyme--

"Whom have we here,
Stuck on this bellows,
But the Prince of good fellows,
Willy Shakspere?"

At top--

"O base and coward luck!
To be here stuck.--POINS."

At bottom--

"Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd,
Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind.--PISTOL."

This is all in old carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling,
sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as He was immeasurable. It
may be a forgery. They laugh at me and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and
has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood
may be imitated I cannot say. Ireland was not found out by his
parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side
the Channel could have painted any thing near like the face I saw.
Again, would such a painter and forger have expected L40 for a thing, if
authentic, worth L4000? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even
found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming over with
it, and, my life to Southey's Thalaba, it will gain universal faith.

The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with
all kind things.

Our joint hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours as ever,

C. LAMB.

[Frank was Francis John Field, Barron Field's brother, in the India
House.

Shelley was drowned on July 8, 1822.

Talma was Francois Joseph Talma (1763-1826), the great French tragedian.
Lamb, introduced by John Howard Payne, saw