Lamb was always interested in sales of pictures: the on-view days gave
him some of his best opportunities of seeing good painting. The
Truchsessian Picture Gallery was in New Road, opposite Portland Place.
Exhibitions were held annually, the pictures being for sale.
Loftus was Tom Loftus of Wisbech, a cousin of Hazlitt.
Holcroft's wife at that time, his fourth, was Louisa Mercier, who afterwards married Lamb's friend, James Kenney, the dramatist. The daughter referred to was probably Fanny Holcroft, who subsequently wrote novels and translations.
Cooper, the miniature painter, was Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), a connection by marriage of Pope's mother, and the painter of Cromwell and other interesting men.
Lamb's N.B. contains his first mention of his farce "Mr. H." We are not told where the 3s. room was situated. Possibly in the Temple.]
LETTER 147
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[? Feb. 20, 21 and 22, 1806.]
My dear Sarah,—I have heard that Coleridge was lately going through Sicily to Rome with a party, but that, being unwell, he returned back to Naples. We think there is some mistake in this account, and that his intended journey to Rome was in his former jaunt to Naples. If you know that at that time he had any such intention, will you write instantly? for I do not know whether I ought to write to Mrs. Coleridge or not.
I am going to make a sort of promise to myself and to you, that I will write you kind of journal-like letters of the daily what-we-do matters, as they occur. This day seems to me a kind of new era in our time. It is not a birthday, nor a new-year's day, nor a leave-off-smoking day; but it is about an hour after the time of leaving you, our poor Phoenix, in the Salisbury Stage; and Charles has just left me for the first time to go to his lodgings; and I am holding a solitary consultation with myself as to the how I shall employ myself.