biography, parentage, place of birth, is
a strange mistake, part founded on some nonsense I wrote about Elia, and
was true of him, the real Elia, whose name I took.... C.L. was born in
Crown Office Row, Inner Temple in 1775. Admitted into Christs Hospital,
1782, where he was contemporary with T.F.M. [Thomas Fanshawe Middleton],
afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, and with S.T.C. with the last of these
two eminent scholars he has enjoyed an intimacy through life. On
quitting this foundation he became a junior clerk in the South Sea House
under his Elder Brother who died accountant there some years since.... I
am not the author of the Opium Eater, &c.

[I have not succeeded in finding the article in question.]

LETTER 401

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

[P.M. September 9, 1826.]

An answer is requested.

Saturday.

Dear D.--I have observed that a Letter is never more acceptable than
when received upon a rainy day, especially a rainy Sunday; which moves
me to send you somewhat, however short. This will find you sitting after
Breakfast, which you will have prolonged as far as you can with
consistency to the poor handmaid that has the reversion of the Tea
Leaves; making two nibbles of your last morsel of _stale_ roll (you
cannot have hot new ones on the Sabbath), and reluctantly coming to an
end, because when that is done, what can you do till dinner? You cannot
go to the Beach, for the rain is drowning the sea, turning rank Thetis
fresh, taking the brine out of Neptune's pickles, while mermaids sit
upon rocks with umbrellas, their ivory combs sheathed for spoiling in
the wet of waters foreign to them. You cannot go to the library, for
it's shut. You are not religious enough to go to church. O it is worth
while to cultivate piety to the gods, to have something to fill the
heart up on a wet Sunday! You cannot cast accounts, for your ledger is
being eaten up with moths in the Ancient Jewry. You cannot play at
draughts, for there is none to play with you, and besides there is not a
draught board in the house. You cannot go to market, for it closed last
night. You cannot look in to the shops, their backs are shut upon you.
You cannot read the Bible, for it is not good reading for the sick and
the hypochondriacal. You cannot while away an hour with a friend, for
you have no friend round that Wrekin. You cannot divert yourself with a
stray acquaintance, for you have picked none up. You cannot bear the
chiming of Bel