sterday week, George
Dyer called upon us, at one o'clock (_bright noonday_), on his way to
dine with Mrs. Barbauld at Newington. He sat with Mary about half an
hour, and took leave. The maid saw him go out from her kitchen window,
but suddenly losing sight of him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G.D.,
instead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberately,
staff in hand, in broad, open day, marched into the New River. [1] He had
not his spectacles on, and you know his absence. Who helped him out,
they can hardly tell; but between 'em they got him out, drenched thro'
and thro'. A mob collected by that time, and accompanied him in. "Send
for the doctor!" they said; and a one-eyed fellow, dirty and drunk, was
fetched from the public-house at the end, where it seem he lurks for the
sake of picking up water-practice, having formerly had a medal from the
Humane Society for some rescue. By his advice the patient was put
between blankets; and when I came home at four to dinner, I found G.D.
a-bed, and raving, light-headed with the brandy-and-water which the
doctor had administered. He sang, laughed, whimpered, screamed, babbled
of guardian angels, would get up and go home; but we kept him there by
force; and by next morning he departed sobered, and seems to have
received no injury. [2] All my friends are open-mouthed about having
paling before the river; but I cannot see that because a ... lunatic
chooses to walk into a river, with his eyes open, at mid-day, I am any
the more likely to be drowned in it, coming home at midnight.

[1] See Elia-essay, "Amicus Redivivus."

[2] In the "Athenaeum" for 1835 Procter says: "I happened to call at
Lamb's house about ten minutes after this accident; I saw before me a
train of water running from the door to the river. Lamb had gone for a
surgeon; the maid was running about distraught, with dry clothes on one
arm, and the dripping habiliments of the involuntary bather in the
other. Miss Lamb, agitated, and whimpering forth 'Poor Mr. Dyer!' in the
most forlorn voice, stood plunging her hands into the wet pockets of his
trousers, to fish up the wet coin. Dyer himself, an amiable little old
man, who took water _in_ternally and eschewed strong liquors, lay on his
host's bed, hidden by blankets; his head, on which was his short gray
hair, alone peered out; and this, having been rubbed dry by a resolute
hand,--by the maid's, I believe, who assisted at the rescue,--looked as
if bristling