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　　LETTER 30

　　CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

　　[P.M. August 24, 1797.]

　　Poor Charles Lloyd came to me about a fortnight ago. He took the opportunity of Mr. Hawkes coming to London, and I think at his request, to come with him. It seemed to me, and he acknowledged it, that he had come to gain a little time and a little peace, before he made up his mind. He was a good deal perplexed what to do—wishing earnestly that he had never entered into engagements which he felt himself unable to fulfill, but which on Sophia's account he could not bring himself to relinquish. I could give him little advice or comfort, and feeling my own inability painfully, eagerly snatched at a proposal he made me to go to Southey's with him for a day or two. He then meant to return with me, who could stay only one night. While there, he at one time thought of going to consult you, but changed his intention and stayed behind with Southey, and wrote an explicit letter to Sophia. I came away on the Tuesday, and on the Saturday following, last Saturday, receiv'd a letter dated Bath, in which he said he was on his way to Birmingham,—that Southey was accompanying him,—and that he went for the purpose of persuading Sophia to a Scotch marriage—I greatly feared, that she would never consent to this, from what Lloyd had told me of her character. But waited most anxiously the result. Since then I have not had one letter. For God's sake, if you get any intelligence of or from Chas Lloyd, communicate it, for I am much alarmed.

　　C. LAMB.

　　I wrote to Burnett what I write now to you,—was it from him you heard, or elsewhere?—

　　He said if he had come to you, he could never have brought himself to leave you. In all his distress he was sweetly and exemplarily calm and master of himself,—and seemed perfectly free from his disorder.—

　　How do you all at?

　　[This letter is unimportant, except in showing Lamb's power of sharing his friends' troubles. Charles Lloyd was not married to Sophia Pemberton, of Birmingham, until 1799; nothing rash being done, as Lamb seems to think possible. The reference to Southey, who was at this time living at Burton, in Hampshire, throws some light on De Quincey's statement, in his "Autobiography," that owing to the objection of Miss Pemberton's parents to the match, Lloyd secured the assistance of Southey to carry the lady off.

　　Burnett was George Burnett (1776?-1811), one of Coleridge's fellow

　　Pantisocratists, whom we shall meet later.

　　The "he" of the second postscript is not Burnett, but Lloyd.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5