join the party, it
will be so much the pleasanter. Can you name an evening _next week_? I
give you long credit.

Meantime am as usual yours truly C.L.

E.I.H.

11 Jan. 25.

When I saw the Chessiad advertised by C.D. the Younger, I hoped it
might be yours. What title is left for you--

Charles Dibdin _the Younger, Junior_.

O No, you are Timothy.

[Charles Dibdin the Younger wrote a mock-heroic poem, "The Chessiad,"
which was published with _Comic Tales_ in 1825. The simile of the
charwoman runs thus:--

Now Morning, yawning, rais'd her from her bed,
Slipp'd on her wrapper blue and 'kerchief red,
And took from Night the key of Sleep's abode;
For Night within that mansion had bestow'd
The Hours of day; now, turn and turn about,
Morn takes the key and lets the Day-hours out;
Laughing, they issue from the ebon gate,
And Night walks in. As when, in drowsy state,
Some watchman, wed to one who chars all day,
Takes to his lodging's door his creeping way;
His rib, arising, lets him in to sleep,
While she emerges to scrub, dust, and sweep.

This is the lobster simile in _Hudibras_, Part II., Canto 2, lines
29-32:--

The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

Hazard is the chief of the gods in the Chessiad's little drama.

"You are Timothy." See letter to Dibdin above.

I have included in Vol. I. of the present edition a review of Dibdin's
book, in the _New Times_, January 27, 1825, which both from internal
evidence and from the quotation of the charwoman passage I take to be by
Lamb, who was writing for that paper at that time.]

LETTER 360

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP

Jan. 17, 1825.

Dear Allsop--I acknowledge with thanks the receipt of a draft on Messrs.
Wms. for L81:11:3 which I haste to cash in the present alarming state of
the money market. Hurst and Robinson gone. I have imagined a chorus of
ill-used authors singing on the occasion:

What should we when Booksellers break?
We should rejoice
da Capo.

We regret exceed'ly Mrs. Allsop's being unwell. Mary or both will come
and see her soon. The frost is cruel, and we have both colds. I take
Pills again, which battle with your wine & victory hovers doubtful. By