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　　LETTER 313

　　CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

　　[Dated at end: March 11, 1823.]

　　Dear Sir—The approbation of my little book by your sister is very pleasing to me. The Quaker incident did not happen to me, but to Carlisle the surgeon, from whose mouth I have twice heard it, at an interval of ten or twelve years, with little or no variation, and have given it as exactly as I could remember it. The gloss which your sister, or you, have put upon it does not strike me as correct. Carlisle drew no inference from it against the honesty of the Quakers, but only in favour of their surprising coolness—that they should be capable of committing a good joke, with an utter insensibility to its being any jest at all. I have reason to believe in the truth of it, because, as I have said, I heard him repeat it without variation at such an interval. The story loses sadly in print, for Carlisle is the best story teller I ever heard. The idea of the discovery of roasting pigs, I also borrowed, from my friend Manning, and am willing to confess both my plagiarisms.

　　Should fate ever so order it that you shall be in town with your sister, mine bids me say that she shall have great pleasure in being introduced to her. I think I must give up the cause of the Bank—from nine to nine is galley-slavery, but I hope it is but temporary. Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight into the natures of animals must fail, as I shall transcribe the passage. It appears to me that he stopt short in time, and was on the brink of falling with his friend Naylor, my favourite.—The book shall be forthcoming whenever your friend can make convenient to call for it.

　　They have dragged me again into the Magazine, but I feel the spirit of the thing in my own mind quite gone. "Some brains" (I think Ben Jonson says it) "will endure but one skimming." We are about to have an inundation of poetry from the Lakes, Wordsworth and Southey are coming up strong from the North. The she Coleridges have taken flight, to my regret. With Sara's own-made acquisitions, her unaffectedness and no-pretensions are beautiful. You might pass an age with her without suspecting that she knew any thing but her mother's tongue. I don't mean any reflection on Mrs. Coleridge here. I had better have said her vernacular idiom. Poor C. I wish he had a home to receive his daughter in. But he is but as a stranger or a visitor in this world. How did you like Hartley's sonnets? The first, at least, is vastly fine. Lloyd has been in town a day or two on business, and is perfectly well. I am ashamed of the shabby letters I send, but I am by nature anything but neat. Therein my mother bore me no Quaker. I never could seal a letter without dropping the wax on one side, besides scalding my fingers. I never had a seal too of my own. Writing to a great man lately, who is moreover very Heraldic, I borrowed a seal of a friend, who by the female side quarters the Protectorial Arms of Cromwell. How they must have puzzled my correspondent!—My letters are generally charged as double at the Post office, from their inveterate clumsiness of foldure. So you must not take it disrespectful to your self if I send you such ungainly scraps. I think I lose £100 a year at the India House, owing solely to my want of neatness in making up Accounts. How I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder. I have to do with millions. I?

　　It is time to have done my incoherences.

　　Believe me Yours Truly

　　C. LAMB.

　　Tuesd 11 Ma 23.

　　[Lamb had sent Elia to Woodbridge. Bernard Barton's sister was Maria Hack, author of many books for children. The Quaker incident is in the essay "Imperfect Sympathies." Carlisle was Sir Anthony Carlisle.

　　"Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight." See letter above. James Nayler (1617?-1660), an early Quaker who permitted his admirers to look upon him as a new Christ. He went to extremes totally foreign to the spirit of the Society. Barton made a paraphrase of Nayler's "Last Testimony."

　　"They have dragged me again." Lamb had been quite ready to give up Elia with the first essays. "Old China," one of his most charming papers, was in the March London Magazine.

　　"Some brains …" I had to give this up in my large edition. I now find that Swift says it, not Ben Jonson. "There is a brain that will endure but one scumming." Preface to Battle of the Books.

　　"Hartley's sonnets." Four sonnets by Hartley Coleridge were printed in the London Magazine for February, 1823, addressed to R.S. Jameson.

　　"Writing to a great man lately." This was Sir Walter Scott (see page 626). Barron Field would be the friend with the seal.

　　Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton saying that there will be cards and cold mutton in Russell St. from 8 to 9 and gin and jokes from 9.30 to 12.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6