y will, and to leave my property
in trust for my sister. _N.B._ I am not _therefore_ going to die.--Would
it be unpleasant for you to be named for one? The other two I shall beg
the same favor of are Talfourd and Proctor. If you feel reluctant, tell
me, and it sha'n't abate one jot of my friendly feeling toward you.

Yours ever, C. LAMB.

E.I. House, Aug. [_i.e_., Sept.] 9, 1823.

LETTER 327

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[P.M. September 10, 1823.]

My dear A.--Your kindness in accepting my request no words of mine can
repay. It has made you overflow into some romance which I should have
check'd at another time. I hope it may be in the scheme of Providence
that my sister may go first (if ever so little a precedence), myself
next, and my good Ex'rs survive to remembr us with kindness many years.
God bless you.

I will set Proctor about the will forthwith. C. LAMB.

[Here should come another note to Allsop dated Sept. 16, 1823, saying
that Mary Lamb is still ill at Fulham. Given in the Boston Bibliophile
edition.]

LETTER 328

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

[September, 1823.]

Dear A.--Your Cheese is the best I ever tasted; Mary will tell you so
hereafter. She is at home, but has disappointed me. She has gone back
rather than improved. However, she has sense enough to value the
present, for she is greatly fond of Stilton. Yours is the delicatest
rain-bow-hued melting piece I ever flavoured. Believe me. I took it the
more kindly, following so great a kindness.

Depend upon't, yours shall be one of the first houses we shall present
ourselves at, when we have got our Bill of Health.

Being both yours and Mrs. Allsop's truly. C.L. & M.L.

[Allsop and Procter may have been named as executors of Lamb's will at
one time, but when it came to be proved the executors were Talfourd and
Ryle, a fellow-clerk in the India House.]

LETTER 329

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. September 17, 1823.]

Dear Sir--I have again been reading your stanzas on Bloomfield, which
are the most appropriate that can be imagined, sweet with Doric
delicacy. I like that

Our more chaste Theocritus--

just hinting at the fault of the Grecian. I love that stanza ending with

Words phrases fashions pass away;
But Truth and nature live through all.

But I shall omit in my own copy the one stanza which alludes to Lord
B