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　　LETTER 276

　　CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN TAYLOR

　　Margate, June 8, 1821.

　　Dear Sir,—I am extremely sorry to be obliged to decline the article proposed, as I should have been flattered with a Plate accompanying it. In the first place, Midsummer day is not a topic I could make anything of—I am so pure a Cockney, and little read, besides, in May games and antiquities; and, in the second, I am here at Margate, spoiling my holydays with a Review I have undertaken for a friend, which I shall barely get through before my return; for that sort of work is a hard task to me. If you will excuse the shortness of my first contribution-and I know I can promise nothing more for July—I will endeavour a longer article for our next. Will you permit me to say that I think Leigh Hunt would do the article you propose in a masterly manner, if he has not outwrit himself already upon the subject. I do not return the proof—to save postage—because it is correct, with ONE EXCEPTION. In the stanza from Wordsworth, you have changed DAY into AIR for rhyme-sake: DAY is the right reading, and I IMPLORE you to restore it.

　　The other passage, which you have queried, is to my ear correct. Pray let it stand.

　　D'r S'r, yours truly, C. LAMB.

　　On second consideration, I do enclose the proof.

　　[John Taylor (1781-1864), the publisher, with Hessey, of the London Magazine was, in 1813, the first publicly to identify Sir Philip Francis with Junius. Taylor acted as editor of the London Magazine from 1821 to 1824, assisted by Thomas Hood. Later his interests were centred in currency questions.

　　"I am here at Margate." I do not know what review Lamb was writing. If written and published it has not been reprinted. It was on this visit to Margate that Lamb met Charles Cowden Clarke.

　　"My first contribution." The first number to bear Taylor & Hessey's name was dated July, but they had presumably acquired the rights in the magazine before then. Lamb's first contribution to the London Magazine had been in August, 1820, "The South-Sea House."

　　The proof which Lamb returned was that of the Elia, essay on "Mackery End in Hertfordshire," printed in the July number of the London Magazine, in which he "ed a stanza from Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited":—

　　But thou, that didst appear so fair

　　To fond imagination,

　　Dost rival in the light of day

　　Her delicate creation.

　　Here should come a scrap from Lamb to Ayrton, dated July 17, 1821, referring to the Coronation. Lamb says that in consequence of this event he is postponing his Wednesday evening to Friday.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6