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　　LETTER 537

　　CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT, JR.

　　[P.M. Sept. 13, 1831.]

　　Dear Wm—We have a sick house, Mrs. Westw'ds daughter in a fever, & Grandaughter in the meazles, & it is better to see no company just now, but in a week or two we shall be very glad to see you; come at a hazard then, on a week day if you can, because Sundays are stuffd up with friends on both parts of this great ill-mix'd family. Your second letter, dated 3d Sept'r, came not till Sund'y & we staid at home in even'g in expectation of seeing you. I have turned & twisted what you ask'd me to do in my head, & am obliged to say I can not undertake it—but as a composition for declining it, will you accept some verses which I meditate to be addrest to you on your father, & prefixable to your Life? Write me word that I may have 'em ready against I see you some 10 days hence, when I calculate the House will be uninfected. Send your mother's address.

　　If you are likely to be again at Cheshunt before that time, on second thoughts, drop in here, & consult—

　　Yours.

　　C.L.

　　Not a line is yet written—so say, if I shall do 'em.

　　[This is the only letter extant to the younger Hazlitt, who was then nearly twenty. William Hazlitt, the essayist, had died September 18, 1830. Lamb was at his bedside. The memoir of him, by his son, was prefixed to the Literary Remains in 1836, but no verses by Lamb accompanied it. When this letter was last sold at Sotheby's in June, 1902, a copy of verses was attached beginning—

　　There lives at Winterslow a man of such

　　Rare talents and deep learning …

　　in the handwriting of William Hazlitt. They bear more traces of being Mary Lamb's work than her brother's.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6