LETTER 574
CHARLES LAMB TO C.W. DILKE
[No date. April, 1833.]
D'r Sir, I read your note in a moment of great perturbation with my Landlady and chuck'd it in the fire, as I should have done an epistle of Paul, but as far as my Sister recalls the import of it, I reply. The Sonnets (36 of them) have never been printed, much less published, till the other day,* save that a few of 'em have come out in Annuals. Two vols., of poetry of M.'s, have been publish'd, but they were not these. The "Nightingale" has been in one of the those gewgaws, the Annuals; whether the other I sent you has, or not, penitus ignoro. But for heaven's sake do with 'em what you like.
Yours
C.L.
*The proof sheets only were in my hand about a fortnight ago.
[Moxon's sonnets were reviewed, probably by Lamb, in The Athenaeum for
April 13, 1833. The sonnet to the nightingale (see above) was quoted.
This review will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition.]