fore what we will do. Methinks we might be condemned before
commission. In these things we grope and flounder; and if we can pick up
a little human comfort that the child taken is snatched from vice (no
great compliment to it, by the by), let us take it. And as to where an
untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have
borne the heat of the day,--fire-purified martyrs and torment-sifted
confessors,--what know we? We promise heaven, methinks, too cheaply, and
assign large revenues to minors incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run
upon this topic of consolation till the very frequency induces a
cheapness. Tickets for admission into paradise are sculptured out a
penny a letter, twopence a syllable, etc. It is all a mystery; and the
more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear), the more I
flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the
unerring judge, deems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a
half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country,
full of walks, and idle to our heart's desire. Taylor has dropped the
"London." It was indeed a dead weight. It had got in the Slough of
Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand, like Christian,
with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and
everything that is bad. Both our kind _remembrances_ to Mrs. K. and
yourself, and strangers'-greeting to Lucy,--is it Lucy, or Ruth?--that
gathers wise sayings in a Book.

C. LAMB.

XC.

TO SOUTHEY.

_August_ 19, 1825.

Dear Southey,--You'll know whom this letter comes from by opening
slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come
into the custom of envelopes,--'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian
correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and
meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a
codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent
to give an opinion of the latter; I have not reading enough of that kind
to venture at it. I can only say the fact, that I have read it with
attention and interest. Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I
felt a jealousy at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of
Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, from Druid extirpation downwards.
I call all good Christians the Church. Capillarians and all. But I am in
too light a humor to touch these matters. May all our churches