spects to Mr. Mitford, who is so good as to entertain good thoughts
of Elia, but don't show this almost impertinent scrawl. I will write
more respectfully next time, for believe me, if not in words, in
feelings, yours most so.

["Your poem." Barton's poem was entitled "A Poet's Thanks," and was
printed in the _London Magazine_ for April, 1823, the same number that
contained Lamb's article on Ritson and Scott. It is one of his best
poems, an expression of contentment in simplicity. The "Letter to an Old
Gentleman," a parody of De Quincey's series of "Letters to a Young
Gentleman" in the _London Magazine_, was not published until January,
1825. Scott was John Scott of Amwell (Barton's predecessor as the Quaker
poet), who had written a rather foolish book of prose, _Critical Essays
on the English Poets_. Ritson was Joseph Ritson, the critic and
antiquarian. See Vol. I. of the present edition for the essay. Barton
seems to have suggested to Lamb that he should write an essay around the
poem "A Poet's Thanks." Mitford's sonnet, which was printed in the
_London Magazine_ for June, 1823, was addressed commiseratingly to
Bernard Barton. It began:--

What to thy broken Spirit can atone,
Unhappy victim of the Tyrant's fears;

and continued in the same strain, the point being that Barton was the
victim of his Quaker employers, who made him "prisoner at once and
slave." Lamb's previous letter shows us that Barton was being worked
from nine till nine, and we must suppose also that an objection to his
poetical exercises had been lodged or suggested. The matter righted
itself in time.

"I dined in Parnassus." This dinner, at Thomas Monkhouse's, No. 34
Gloucester Place, is described both by Moore and by Crabb Robinson, who
was present. Moore wrote in his _Journal_:--

"Dined at Mr. Monkhouse's (a gentleman I had never seen before) on
Wordsworth's invitation, who lives there whenever he comes to town. A
singular party. Coleridge, Rogers, Wordsworth and wife, Charles Lamb
(the hero at present of the _London Magazine_), and his sister (the poor
woman who went mad in a diligence on the way to Paris), and a Mr.
Robinson, one of the _minora sidera_ of this constellation of the Lakes;
the host himself, a Maecenas of the school, contributing nothing but
good dinners and silence. Charles Lamb, a clever fellow, certainly, but
full of villainous and abortive puns, which he miscarries of every
minute. Some excellent