But although forbidden to smoke, he still hopes he may be allowed to
enjoy a little of the delicious fragrance at a respectful distance--

"And a seat too 'mongst the joys
Of the blest Tobacco Boys;
Where though I, by sour physician,
Am debarred the full fruition
Of thy favours, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odours that give life-
Like glances from a neighbour's wife,
And still live in thee by places
And the suburbs of thy graces;
And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquered Canaanite."

His early years brought forth another kind of humour which led to his
being appointed jester to the "Morning Post." He was paid at the rate of
sixpence a joke, furnished six a day, and depended upon this
remuneration for his supplementary livelihood--everything beyond mere
bread and cheese. As humour, like wisdom, is found of those who seek her
not, we may suppose the quality of these productions was not very good.
He thus bemoans his irksome task, which he performed generally before
breakfast--

"No Egyptian task-master ever devised a slavery like to that, our
slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the
tyranny, which this necessity exercised upon us. Half-a-dozen jests
in a day, (bating Sundays too,) why, it seems nothing! We make
twice the number every day in our lives as a matter of course, and
claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But then they come into our head.
But when the head has to go out to them--when the mountain must go
to Mahomet. Readers, try it for once, only for some short
twelvemonth."

Lamb, however, only obtained this undesirable appointment by a
coincidence he thus relates,--

"A fashion of flesh--or rather pink-coloured hose for the ladies
luckily coming up when we were on our probation for the place of
Chief Jester to Stuart's Paper, established our reputation. We were
pronounced a 'capital hand.' O! the conceits that we varied upon
_red_ in all its prismatic differences!... Then there was the
collateral topic of ankles, what an occasion to a truly chaste
writer like ourself of touching that nice brink and yet never
tumbling over it, of a seemingly ever approximating something 'not
quite proper,' while like a skilful posture master, balancing
between decorums and their opposites, he keeps the line from which
a hair's breadth deviation is de