o your remaining brother, and to Miss Rogers.

Your's truly, CHARLES LAMB.

Rogers, of all the men that I have known
But slightly, who have died, your brother's loss
Touched me most sensibly. There came across
My mind an image of the cordial tone
Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest
I more than once have sate; and grieve to think,
That of that threefold cord one precious link
By Death's rude hand is sever'd from the rest.
Of our old gentry he appear'd a stem;
A magistrate who, while the evil-doer
He kept in terror, could respect the poor,
And not for every trifle harass them--
As some, divine and laic, too oft do.
This man's a private loss and public too.

[Daniel Rogers, the banker's elder brother, had just died.]

LETTER 480

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. March 25, 1829.]

Dear B.B.--I send you by desire Barley's very poetical poem. You will
like, I think, the novel headings of each scene. Scenical directions in
verse are novelties. With it I send a few _duplicates_, which are
_therefore_ no value to me, and may amuse an idle hour. Read
"Christmas," 'tis the production of a young author, who reads all your
writings. A good word from you about his little book would be as balm to
him. It has no pretensions, and makes none. But parts are pretty. In
"Field's Appendix" turn to a Poem called the Kangaroo. It is in the best
way of our old poets, if I mistake not. I have just come from Town,
where I have been to get my bit of quarterly pension. And have brought
home, from stalls in Barbican, the old Pilgrim's Progress with the
prints--Vanity Fair, &c.--now scarce. Four shillings. Cheap. And also
one of whom I have oft heard and had dreams, but never saw in the
flesh--that is, in sheepskin--The whole theologic works of--

THOMAS AQUINAS!

My arms aked with lugging it a mile to the stage, but the burden was a
pleasure, such as old Anchises was to the shoulders of Aeneas--or the
Lady to the Lover in old romance, who having to carry her to the top of
a high mountain--the price of obtaining her--clamber'd with her to the
top, and fell dead with fatigue.

O the glorious old Schoolmen!

There must be something in him. Such great names imply greatness. Who
hath seen Michael Angelo's things--of us that never pilgrimaged to
Rome--and yet which of us disbelieves his grea