LETTER 550
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[Late 1832.]
A poor mad usher (and schoolfellow of mine) has been pestering me through you with poetry and petitions. I have desired him to call upon you for a half sovereign, which place to my account.
I have buried Mrs. Reynolds at last, who has virtually at least bequeath'd me a legacy of £32 per Ann., to which add that my other pensioner is safe housed in the workhouse, which gets me £10.
Richer by both legacies £42 per Ann.
For a loss of a loss is as good as a gain of a gain.
But let this be between ourselves, specially keep it from A——- or I shall speedily have candidates for the Pensions.
Mary is laid up with a cold.
Will you convey the inclosed by hand?
When you come, if you ever do, bring me one Devil's Visit, I mean Southey's; also the Hogarth which is complete, Noble's I think. Six more letters to do. Bring my bill also. C.L.
[I do not identify the usher. Mrs. Reynolds, Lamb's first schoolmistress, we have met. The other pensioner I do not positively identify; presumably it was Morgan, Coleridge's old friend, to whom Lamb and Southey had each given ten pounds annually from 1819.
A——- I cannot positively identify. Perhaps the philanthropic Allsop.
Southey's "Devil's Visit" was a new edition of The Devil's Walk illustrated by Thomas Landseer.
Noble's "Hogarth." Noble was the engraver.]