"'Gentleman' said I." On another occasion Lamb, asked to give a toast, gave the best he knew—woodcock on toast. See also his toasts at Haydon's dinner. I do not know when or why the dinner was given to him; perhaps after the failure of "Mr. H."
"Gentleman concern'd in the Stamp office." See note to the preceding letter.
"Our red letter days." Lamb repeats the complaint in his Elia essay
"Oxford in the Vacation." In 1820, I see from the Directory, the
Accountant's Office, where Lamb had his desk, kept sacred only five
red-letter days, where, ten years earlier, it had observed many.
"Mr. Monkhouse," Thomas Monkhouse, a friend of the Wordsworths and of
Lamb. He was at Haydon's dinner.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Charles and James Ollier, dated May 28, 1818, which apparently accompanied final proofs of Lamb's Works. Lamb remarks, "There is a Sonnet to come in by way of dedication." This would be that to Martin Burney at the beginning of Vol. II. The Works were published in two volumes with a beautiful dedication to Coleridge (see Vol. IV. of the present edition). Charles Ollier (1788-1859) was a friend of Leigh Hunt's, for whom he published, as well as for Shelley. He also brought out Keats' first volume. The Olliers' address was The Library, Vere Street, Oxford Street.]
LETTER 243
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES AND JAMES OLLIER
[P.M. June 18, 1818.]
Dear Sir (whichever opens it)
I am going off to Birmingh'm. I find my books, whatever faculty of selling they may have (I wish they had more for {your/my} sake), are admirably adapted for giving away. You have been bounteous. SIX more and I shall have satisfied all just claims. Am I taking too great a liberty in begging you to send 4 as follows, and reserve 2 for me when I come home? That will make 31. Thirty-one times 12 is 372 shillings, Eighteen pounds twelve Shillings!!!—but here are my friends, to whom, if you could transmit them, as I shall be away a month, you will greatly oblige the obliged