I will muster up courage to see you, however, any day next week (Wednesday excepted). We shall hope that you will bring Edith with you. That will be a second mortification. She will hate to see us; but come and heap embers. We deserve it; I for what I've done, and she for being my sister.
Do come early in the day, by sun-light, that you may see my Milton.
I am at Colebrook Cottage, Colebrook Row, Islington: a detached whitish house, close to the New River end of Colebrook Terrace, left hand from Sadler's Wells.
Will you let me know the day before?
Your penitent,
C. Lamb.
P.S.—I do not think your handwriting at all like ****'s. I do not think many things I did think.
There the matter ended. Seven years later, however, when The Literary Gazette fell upon Lamb's Album Verses, in a paltry attack, Southey sent to The Times a poem in defence and praise of his friend, beginning:—
Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear,
For rarest genius, and for sterling worth,
Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere,
And wit that never gave an ill thought birth ...
[Page 265,] line 4 of essay. A recent paper on "Infidelity." The passage relating to Lamb and Thornton Hunt ran as follows:—