of the text of the plain song, nothing but the Babylonish
choral howl at the tail on't, "That fury being quenched,'--the howl I
mean,--a burden succeeds of shouts and clapping and knocking of the
table. At length over-tasked nature drops under it, and escapes for a
few hours into the society of the sweet silent creatures of dreams,
which go away with mocks and mows at cockcrow. And then I think of the
words Christabel's father used (bless me! I have dipt in the wrong ink)
to say every morning by way of variety when he awoke,--

"Every knell, the Baron saith,
Wakes us up to a world of death,"--

or something like it. All I mean by this senseless interrupted tale is,
that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I
have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to
drive away the harpy Solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a
cheerful glass; but I mean merely to give you an idea, between office
confinement and after-office society, how little time I can call my own.
I mean only to draw a picture, not to make an inference. I would not,
that I know of, have it otherwise. I only wish sometimes I could
exchange some of my faces and voices for the faces and voices which a
late visitation brought most welcome, and carried away, leaving regret,
but more pleasure,--even a kind of gratitude,--at being so often favored
with that kind northern visitation. My London faces and noises don't
hear me,--I mean no disrespect, or I should explain myself, that instead
of their return 220 times a year, and the return of W. W., etc., seven
times in 104 weeks, some more equal distribution might be found. I have
scarce room to put in Mary's kind love and my poor name.

C. LAMB.

W. H[azlitt]. goes on lecturing against W.W., and making copious use of
quotations from said W.W. to give a zest to said lectures. S.T.C. is
lecturing with success. I have not heard either him or H.; but I dined
with S.T.C. at Oilman's a Sunday or two since; and he was well and in
good spirits. I mean to hear some of the course; but lectures are not
much to my taste, whatever the lecturer may be. If _read_, they are
dismal flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to hear a
man read his works, which you could read so much better at leisure
yourself; if delivered extempore, I am always in pain lest the gift of
utterance should suddenly fail the orator in the middle, as it did me at
the dinner given in hono