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　　LETTER 352

　　CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

　　[Dated at end: September 30, 1824.]

　　Little Book! surnam'd of White;

　　Clean, as yet, and fair to sight;

　　Keep thy attribution right,

　　Never disproportion'd scrawl;

　　Ugly blot, that's worse than all;

　　On thy maiden clearness fall.

　　In each Letter, here design'd,

　　Let the Reader emblem'd find

　　Neatness of the Owner's mind.

　　Gilded margins count a sin;

　　Let thy leaves attraction win

　　By thy Golden Rules within:

　　Sayings, fetch'd from Sages old;

　　Saws, which Holy Writ unfold,

　　Worthy to be writ in Gold:

　　Lighter Fancies not excluding;

　　Blameless wit, with nothing rude in,

　　Sometimes mildly interluding

　　Amid strains of graver measure:—

　　Virtue's self hath oft her pleasure

　　In sweet Muses' groves of leisure.

　　Riddles dark, perplexing sense;

　　Darker meanings of offence;

　　What but shades, be banish'd hence.

　　Whitest Thoughts, in whitest dress—

　　Candid Meanings—best express

　　Mind of quiet Quakeress.

　　Dear B.B.—"I am ill at these numbers;" but if the above be not too mean to have a place in thy Daughter's Sanctum, take them with pleasure. I assume that her Name is Hannah, because it is a pretty scriptural cognomen. I began on another sheet of paper, and just as I had penn'd the second line of Stanza 2 an ugly Blot [here is a blot] as big as this, fell, to illustrate my counsel.—I am sadly given to blot, and modern blotting-paper gives no redress; it only smears and makes it worse, as for example [here is a smear]. The only remedy is scratching out, which gives it a Clerkish look. The most innocent blots are made with red ink, and are rather ornamental. [Here are two or three blots in red ink.] Marry, they are not always to be distinguished from the effusions of a cut finger.

　　Well, I hope and trust thy Tick doleru, or however you spell it, is vanished, for I have frightful impressions of that Tick, and do altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, or the Tick of a Death Watch. I take it to be a species of Vitus's dance (I omit the Sanctity, writing to "one of the men called Friends"). I knew a young Lady who could dance no other, she danced thro' life, and very queer and fantastic were her steps. Heaven bless thee from such measures, and keep thee from the Foul Fiend, who delights to lead after False Fires in the night, Flibbertigibit, that gives the web and the pin &c. I forget what else.—

　　From my den, as Bunyan has it, 30 Sep. 24. C.L.

　　[The verses were for the album of Barton's daughter, Lucy (afterwards Mrs. Edward FitzGerald). Lucy was her only name. Lamb afterwards printed them in his Album Verses, 1830.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6