cal Humeian indifference, so cold and
unnatural and inhuman! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so
fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members.
None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so
clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an
inference. Burnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind; I
can make the Revolution present to me: the French Revolution, by a
converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far _from_ me. To quit this
tiresome subject, and to relieve you from two or three dismal yawns,
which I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse
letter,--dull up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare. My
love to Lloyd and Sophia.

C. L.

[1] To this remarkable person we are largely indebted for some of the
best of Lamb's letters. He was mathematical tutor at Caius College,
Cambridge, and in later years became somewhat famous as an explorer of
the remoter parts of China and Thibet. Lamb had been introduced to him,
during a Cambridge visit, by Charles Lloyd, and afterwards told Crabb
Robinson that he was the most "wonderful man" he ever met. An account of
Manning will be found in the memoir prefixed to his "Journey to Lhasa,"
in 1811-12. (George Bogle and Thomas Manning's Journey to Thibet and
Lhasa, by C.R. Markham, 1876.)

XX.

TO COLERIDGE,

_May_ 12, 1800,

My Dear Coleridge,--I don't know why I write, except from the propensity
misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty [1] died on Friday night, about
eleven o'clock, after eight days' illness; Mary, in consequence of
fatigue and anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I was obliged to remove
her yesterday. I am left alone in a house with nothing but Hetty's dead
body to keep me company. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite
alone, with nothing but a cat to remind me that the house has been full
of living beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know
where to look for relief. Mary will get better again; but her constantly
being liable to such relapses is dreadful; nor is it the least of our
evils that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are
in a manner _marked_. Excuse my troubling you; but I have nobody by me
to speak to me. I slept out last night, not being able to endure the
change and the stillness. But I did not sleep well, and I must come back
to my own bed. I am going to try and get a friend