he
ambiguity of the word light, which Donne in his admirable poem on the
Metempsychosis, has so ingeniously illustrated in his invocation

1 2 1 2
Make my _dark heavy_ poem, _light_ and _light_--

where the two senses of _light_ are opposed to different opposites. A
trifling criticism.--I can see no reason for any scruple then but what
arises from your own interest; which is in your own power of course to
solve. If you still have doubts, read over Sanderson's Cases of
Conscience, and Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, the first a moderate
Octavo, the latter a folio of 900 close pages, and when you have
thoroughly digested the admirable reasons pro and con which they give
for every possible Case, you will be--just as wise as when you began.
Every man is his own best Casuist; and after all, as Ephraim Smooth, in
the pleasant comedy of Wild Oats, has it, "there is no harm in a
Guinea." A fortiori there is less in 2000.

I therefore most sincerely congratulate with you, excepting so far as
excepted above. If you have fair Prospects of adding to the Principal,
cut the Bank; but in either case do not refuse an honest Service. Your
heart tells you it is not offered to bribe you _from_ any duty, but
_to_
a duty which you feel to be your vocation. Farewell heartily C.L.

[In the memoir of Barton by Edward FitzGerald, prefixed to the _Poems
and Letters_, it is stated that in this year Barton received a handsome
addition to his income. "A few members of his Society, including some of
the wealthier of his own family, raised L1200 among them for his benefit
[not 2000 guineas, as Lamb says]. It seems that he felt some delicacy at
first in accepting this munificent testimony which his own people
offered to his talents." Birton had written to Lamb on the subject.]

LETTER 343

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[(Early spring), 1824.]

I am sure I cannot fill a letter, though I should disfurnish my scull to
fill it. But you expect something, and shall have a Note-let. Is Sunday,
not divinely speaking, but humanly and holydaysically, a blessing?
Without its institution, would our rugged taskmasters have given us a
leisure day, so often, think you, as once in a month?--or, if it had not
been instituted, might they not have given us every 6th day? Solve me
this problem. If we are to go 3 times a day to church, why has Sunday
slipped into the notion of a _Holli_day? A Holyday I