This humane letter is considered by Mr. J. A. Rutter, a profound student of Lamb, to be probably Lamb's work, a protest against Hone's remark in the Every-Day Book that dogs would have to be exterminated. There certainly is no difficulty in conceiving it to be from Lamb's pen, although there is no overwhelming internal evidence. Writing to Hone on July 25, 1825, Lamb offers further hints as to the "Dog Days" for the Every-Day Book.
Lamb's interest in dogs became more personal after Hood gave him Dash for a companion. In the letter to P. G. Patmore, dated from Enfield, September, 1827, he speaks of mad dogs:—
"All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are not used to them. Try him [Dash] with hot water: if he won't lick it up it is a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally, or perpendicularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased—for otherwise there is no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had it at one time; but that was in Hyder-Ally's time."
[Page 431.] Hood's "Progress of Cant."
There can be, I think, very little doubt that Lamb was the author of this criticism of Hood's picture "The Progress of Cant" in the New Monthly Magazine for February, 1826. Lamb, we know, praised the detail of the Beadle, reproduced in Hone's Every-Day Book, under the title "An Appearance of the Season" (see [page 360]).
[Page 432.] Mr. Ephraim Wagstaff.
In The Table Book, 1827, beginning on column 185, Vol. II., is this humorous story which there is some reason to believe is by Lamb. The late Mr. Dykes Campbell had no doubt whatever, the proof residing not only in internal evidence but in the rhymed story of "Dick Strype," which we may safely assume Lamb to have written. The subject of the two stories, prose and verse, is the same, and the style of Ephraim Wagstaff is not unlike that of Juke Judkins. "Dick Strype" is printed in Vol. IV. of this edition.