l make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance
of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute
question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little
we have got beforehand, which my evil conduct has already encroached
upon one-half. My best love, however, to you all, and to that most
friendly creature. Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see
or write to her.

CHARLES LAMB.

XLVI. [1]

TO MANNING.

_May_ 10, 1806.

My Dear Manning,--I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last
fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a
wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can
never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's
nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it
always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll
see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony,
and then--Martin Burney _took me out_ a walking that evening, and we
talked of Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you, and at
twelve o'clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and there
was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate
characters, because they knew a certain person. But what's the use of
talking about 'em? By the time you'll have made your escape from the
Kalmuks, you'll have stayed so long I shall never be able to bring to
your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who
the Holcrofts were! Me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or
confound me with Mr. Dawe, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you
seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal
parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a
token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little mandarin
for our mantelpiece, as a companion to the child I am going to purchase
at the museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and
she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's
bookseller twenty of Shakspeare's plays, to be made into children's
tales. Six are already done by her; to wit: "The Tempest," "Winter's
Tale," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Much Ado," "Two Gentlemen of Verona,"
and "Cymbeline;" and "The Merchant of Venice" is in forwardness. I have
done "Othello" and "Macbeth," and mean to do all the tragedies. I think
it will be pop