orge Fox's Journal, being the earliest edition of that
work, the property of John T. Shewell of Ipswich, is lent for six months
to Charles Lamb, at the request of Sam'l Alexander of Needham, Ipswich,
1st mo. 4 1823." Lamb has added: "Returned by Charles Lamb, within the
period, with many thanks to the Lender for the very great satisfaction
which he has derived from the perusal of it."

Southey was meditating a Life of George Fox and corresponded with Barton
on the subject. He did not write the book.

Barton had a plan to provide Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets with a
Quaker pendant. He did not carry it out.

Here might come an undated and unpublished letter from Lamb to Basil
Montagu, which is of little interest except as referring to Miss James,
Mary Lamb's nurse. Lamb says that she was one of four sisters, daughters
of a Welsh clergyman, who all became nurses at Mrs. Warburton's, Hoxton,
whither, I imagine, Mary Lamb had often retired. Mrs. Parsons, one of
the sisters, became Mary Lamb's nurse when, some time after Lamb's
death, she moved to 41 Alpha Road, Mrs. Parsons' house. The late John
Hollingshead, great-nephew of these ladies, says in his interesting
book, _My Lifetime_, that their father was rector of Beguildy, in
Shropshire.]

LETTER 304

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

[January, 1823.]

Dear Payne--Your little books are most acceptable. 'Tis a delicate
edition. They are gone to the binder's. When they come home I shall have
two--the "Camp" and "Patrick's Day"--to read for the first time. I may
say three, for I never read the "School for Scandal." "_Seen_ it I have,
and in its happier days." With the books Harwood left a truncheon or
mathematical instrument, of which we have not yet ascertained the use.
It is like a telescope, but unglazed. Or a ruler, but not smooth enough.
It opens like a fan, and discovers a frame such as they weave lace upon
at Lyons and Chambery. Possibly it is from those parts. I do not value
the present the less, for not being quite able to detect its purport.
When I can find any one coming your way I have a volume for you, my
Elias collected. Tell Poole, his Cockney in the Lon. Mag. tickled me
exceedingly. Harwood is to be with us this evening with Fanny, who comes
to introduce a literary lady, who wants to see me,--and whose portentous
name is _Plura_, in English "many things." Now, of all God's creatures,
I detest letters-affecting, authors-hunting ladies. But Fan