Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton, [25 February 1830]
[p.m. 25 February 1830.]’
DEAR B. B.—To
reply to you by return of post, I must gobble up my dinner, and dispatch this
in propriâ Personâ to the office, to be in in time. So take
it from me hastily, that you are perfectly welcome to furnish A. C. with the scrap, which I had almost
forgotten writing. The more my character comes to be known, the less my
veracity will come to be suspected. Time every day clears up some suspected
narrative of Herodotus, Bruce, and others of us great Travellers. Why,
that Joseph Paice was as real a person
as Joseph Hume, and a great deal
pleasanter. A careful observer of life, Bernard, has no
need to invent. Nature romances it for him. Dinner plates rattle, and I
positively shall incur indigestion by carrying it half concocted to the Post
House. Let me con-![]()
| 832 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Feb. |
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gratulate you on the Spring
coming in, and do you in return condole with me for the Winter going out. When
the old one goes, seldome comes a better. I dread the prospect of Summer, with
his all day long days. No need of his assistance to make country places dull.
With fire and candle light, I can dream myself in Holborn. With lightsome skies
shining in to bed time, I can not. This Meseck, and these tents of Kedar—I
would dwell in the skirts of Jericho rather, and think every blast of the
coming in Mail a Ram’s Horn. Give me old London at Fire and Plague times,
rather than these tepid gales, healthy country air, and purposeless exercise.
Leg of mutton absolutely on the table.
Take our hasty loves and short farewell.
Bernard Barton (1784-1849)
Prolific Quaker poet whose verse appeared in many of the literary annuals; he was an
acquaintance of Charles Lamb.
James Bruce of Kinnaird (1730-1794)
Scottish traveler in Africa; he was the author of
Travels to Discover
the Source of the Nile, 5 vols (1790).
Allan Cunningham [Hidallan] (1784-1842)
Scottish poet and man of letters who contributed to both
Blackwood's and the
London Magazine; he was author of
Lives of the most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects (1829-33).
Herodotus (484 BC c.-425 BC c.)
Greek historian, author of
Histories of the Persian Wars, called
by Cicero “the founder of history.”
Joseph Hume (1767-1844)
A clerk in the Victualling Office at Somerset House; he was a translator of Dante and
friend of Godwin, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Henry Crabb Robinson.
Joseph Paice (1728 c.-1810)
London merchant and a director of the South Sea House; he was Charles Lamb's first
employer.
