see
John, but I never go to town, nor my brother but at his quarterly visits
at the India House, and when he does, he finds it melancholy, so many of
our old friends being dead or dispersed, and the very streets, he says
altering every day. Many thanks for your Letter and the nice news in it,
which I should have replied to more at large than I see he has done. I
am sure it deserved it. He has not said a word about your intentions for
Rome, which I sincerely wish you health one day to accomplish. In that
case we may meet by the way. We are so glad to hear dear _little_
William is doing well. If you knew how happy your letters made us you
would write I know more frequently. Pray think of this. How chearfully
should we pay the postage _every week_.

Your affectionate

MARY LAMB.

["Baucis and Baucida." A slip, I suppose, for Philemon and Baucis (Ovid,
_Metamorphoses_).

_Redgauntlet_ dated from 1824.

"In a calenture." A calenture is a form of fever at sea in which the
sufferer believes himself to be surrounded by green fields, and often
leaps overboard. Wordsworth describes one in "The Brothers."

"A Recluse"--Wordsworth's promised poem, that was never completed. First
printed in 1888.

Inachus' daughter was Io, persecuted by a malignant insect sent by Juno.

"Henry Crabb." Crabb Robinson was a personal friend of Goethe's. He had
spent some days with him at Weimar in the summer of 1829. Goethe told
Robinson that he admired Lamb's sonnet "The Family Name."

"Mr. Quillinan"--Edward Quillinan, afterwards Wordsworth's son-in-law.

"Johanna." Joanna Hutchinson, Mrs. Wordsworth's sister. Joanna of the
laugh.

"John." John Wordsworth, Wordsworth's eldest son, was now twenty-six;
William, Wordsworth's second son, no longer little, was nineteen.]

LETTER 500

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. 25 February, 1830.]

Dear B.B.--To reply to you by return of post, I must gobble up my
dinner, and dispatch this in propria Persona to the office, to be in
time. So take it from me hastily, that you are perfectly welcome to
furnish A.C. with the scrap, which I had almost forgotten writing. The
more my character comes to be known, the less my veracity will come to
be suspected. Time every day clears up some suspected narrative of
Herodotus, Bruce, and others of us great Travellers. Why, that Joseph
Paice was as real a person as Joseph Hume, and a great deal pleasanter.
A careful observer of life, Bernard, has no