a sonnet
conceived and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to
one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again.
His coyness to the other's passion--for hate demands a return as much as
love, and starves without it--is most arch and pleasant. Pray, like it
very much. For his theories and nostrums, they are oracular enough, but
I either comprehend 'em not, or there is "miching malice" and mischief
in 'em, but, for the most part, ringing with their own emptiness.
Hazlitt said well of 'em: "Many are the wiser and better for reading
Shakspeare, but nobody was ever wiser or better for reading Shelley." I
wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am,
that make such poor returns. But my head aches at the bare thought of
letter-writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would
listen to the quills shivering up in the candle flame, like parching
martyrs. The same indisposition to write it is has stopped my "Elias;"
but you will see a futile effort in the next number, [1] "wrung from me
with slow pain." The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am
dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything--to order me a new coat, for
instance, though my old buttons are shelled like beans--is an effort. My
pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old inditers of
folios must have had, what a mortified pulse! Well, once more I throw
myself on your mercy. Wishing peace in thy new dwelling,

C. LAMB.

[1] The essay "Blakesmoor in Hertfordshire," in the "London Magazine"
for September, 1824.

LXXXIV.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

_December_ 1, 1824.

Taylor and Hessey, finding their magazine [1] goes off very heavily at
2_s_. 6_d_., are prudently going to raise their price another shilling;
and having already more authors than they want, intend to increase the
number of them. If they set up against the "New Monthly," they must
change their present hands. It is not tying the dead carcase of a review
to a half-dead magazine will do their business. It is like George Dyer
multiplying his volumes to make 'em sell better. When he finds one will
not go off, he publishes two; two stick, he tries three; three hang
fire, he is confident that four will have a better chance.

And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of
yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate
Fauntleroy [2] makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflec