"But L. has a way of viewing things in rather a paradoxical light
on some occasions.
"ELIA.
"P.S.—My friend Hume (not MP.) has a curious manuscript in his possession, the original draught of the celebrated 'Beggar's Petition' (who cannot say by heart the 'Beggar's Petition?') as it was written by some school usher (as I remember) with corrections interlined from the pen of Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen of the doctor's improvement, I recollect one most judicious alteration—
"A pamper'd menial drove me from the door.
"It stood originally—
"A livery servant drove me, &c.
"Here is an instance of poetical or artificial language properly substituted for the phrase of common conversation; against Wordsworth.
"I think I must get H. to send it to the LONDON, as a corollary to the foregoing."
The foregoing passage needs some commentary. Lamb's friend L—— was Lamb himself. He tells the story to Manning in the letter of January 2,1810.—Lamb's friend Hume was Joseph Hume of the victualling office, Somerset House, to whom letters from Lamb will be found in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's Lamb and Hazlitt, 1900. Hume translated The Inferno of Dante into blank verse, 1812.—The "Beggar's Petition," a stock piece for infant recitation a hundred years ago, was a poem beginning thus:—
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.