d to join, were both dead. Lamb, I assume, sent him a second
copy of _Elia_, with this letter.

Cardinal Gonsalvi was Ercole Gonsalvi (1757-1824), secretary to Pius
VII. and a patron of the arts. Lawrence painted him.

For the present state of the _London Magazine_ see next letter. Leigh
Hunt contributed to Colburn's _New Monthly Magazine_, among other
things, a series of papers on "The Months." Hunt also contributed an
account of the Honeycomb family, by Harry Honeycomb.

By Mary Isabella Lamb meant Mary Sabilla Novello, Vincent Novello's
wife. The eldest girl was Mary Victoria, afterwards the wife of Charles
Cowden Clarke, the Mr. Clark mentioned here. Novello (now living at
Shackleford Green) remained a good Roman Catholic to the end. Holmes was
Edward Holmes (1797-1859), a pupil of Cowden Clarke's father at Enfield
and schoolfellow of Keats. He had lived with the Novellos, studying
music, and later became a musical writer and teacher and the biographer
of Mozart.

Mrs. Barron Field was a Miss Jane Carncroft, to whom Lamb addressed some
album verses (see Vol. IV. of this edition). Leigh Hunt knew of Field's
return, for he had contributed to the _New Monthly_ earlier in the year
a rhymed letter to him in which he welcomed him home again.

Irving was Edward Irving (1792-1834), afterwards the founder of the
Catholic Apostolic sect, then drawing people to the chapel in Hatton
Garden, attached to the Caledonian Asylum. The dedication, to which Lamb
alludes more than once in his correspondence, was that of his work, _For
Missionaries after the Apostolical School, a series of orations in four
parts_, ... 1825. It runs:--

DEDICATION

TO

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, ESQ.

MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND,

Unknown as you are, in the true character either of your mind or of your
heart, to the greater part of your countrymen, and misrepresented as
your works have been, by those who have the ear of the vulgar, it will
seem wonderful to many that I should make choice of you, from the circle
of my friends, to dedicate to you these beginnings of my thoughts upon
the most important subject of these or any times. And when I state the
reason to be, that you have been more profitable to my faith in orthodox
doctrine, to my spiritual understanding of the Word of God, and to my
right conception of the Christian Church, than any or all of the men
with whom I have entertained friendship and conversation, it will
perhaps still more as