您可以在百度里搜索“The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 艾草文学(www.321553.xyz)”查找最新章节！

　　LETTER 224

　　CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM

　　[No date. 1815].

　　Dear Miss Betham,—That accursed word trill has vexed me excessively. I have referred to the MS. and certainly the printer is exonerated, it is much more like a tr than a k. But what shall I say of myself?

　　If you can trust me hereafter, I will be more careful. I will go thro' the Poem, unless you should feel more safe by doing it yourself. In fact a second person looking over a proof is liable to let pass anything that sounds plausible. The act of looking it over seeming to require only an attention to the words that they have the proper component letters, one scarce thinks then (or but half) of the sense.—You will find one line I have ventured to alter in 3'd sheet. You had made hope & yoke rhime, which is intolerable. Every body can see & carp at a bad rhime or no rhime. It strikes as slovenly, like bad spelling.

　　I found out another sung but I could not alter it, & I would not delay the time by writing to you. Besides it is not at all conspicuous—it comes in by the bye 'the strains I sung.' The other obnoxious word was in an eminent place, at the beginning of her Lay, when all ears are upon her.

　　I must conclude hastily,

　　dear M. B.

　　Yours

　　C. L.

　　[These letters refer to The Lay of Marie. In Mr. Ernest Betham's A House of Letters will be found six other letters (see pp. 161, 163, 164, 166, 232) all bearing upon Matilda Betham's poem.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5