console
myself for my flat destiny as well as I am able. I know very well our
mole-hills are not mountains, but I must cocker them up and make them
look as big and as handsome as I can, that we may both be satisfied.
Allow me to express the pleasure I feel on an occasion given me of
writing to you, and to subscribe myself, dear sir, your obliged and
respectful servant,

CHARLES LAMB.

[See note to the letter to Godwin above. Lamb and Scott never met.
Talfourd, however, tells us that "he used to speak with gratitude and
pleasure of the circumstances under which he saw him once in
Fleet-street. A man, in the dress of a mechanic, stopped him just at
Inner Temple-gate, and said, touching his hat, 'I beg your pardon, sir,
but perhaps you would like to see Sir Walter Scott; that is he just
crossing the road;' and Lamb stammered out his hearty thanks to his
truly humane informer."

Mr. Lang has recently discovered that also in 1818 or thereabouts Sir
Walter invited Lamb to Abbotsford.]

LETTER 298

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ROBINSON

[Dated at end: Nov. 11, 1822.]

Dear Sir, We have to thank you, or Mrs. Robinson-- for I think her name
was on the direction--for the best pig, which myself, the warmest of
pig-lovers, ever tasted. The dressing and the sauce were pronounced
incomparable by two friends, who had the good fortune to drop in to
dinner yesterday, but I must not mix up my cook's praises with my
acknowledgments; let me but have leave to say that she and we did your
pig justice. I should dilate on the crackling--done to a turn--but I am
afraid Mrs. Clarkson, who, I hear, is with you, will set me down as an
Epicure. Let it suffice, that you have spoil'd my appetite for boiled
mutton for some time to come. Your brother Henry partook of the cold
relics--by which he might give a good guess at what it had been _hot_.

With our thanks, pray convey our kind respects to Mrs. Robinson, and the
Lady before mentioned.

Your obliged Ser't

CHARLES LAMB.

India House

11 Nov. 22.

[This letter is addressed to R. Robinson, Esq., Bury, Suffolk, but I
think there is no doubt that Thomas Robinson was the recipient.

Thomas Robinson of Bury St. Edmunds was Henry Crabb Robinson's brother.
Lamb's "Dissertation on Roast Pig" had been printed in the _London
Magazine_ in September, 1822, and this pig was one of the first of many
such gifts that came to him.]

LETTER 299

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

Wedn