BERNARD BARTON. "To Emma," with a note by Charles Lamb
at foot, 1827.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. "To Emma Isola," circa 1827.
BARRY CORNWALL. "To the Spirit of Italy," circa 1827.
SAMUEL ROGERS. Two letters, and a poem, "My Last," 1829-36.
FREDERICK LOCKER (afterwards Locker-Lampson). A quatrain, dated July, 1873.
George Dyer, J.B. Dibdin, George Darley, Matilda Betham, H.F. Cary, Mrs. Piozzi, Edward Moxon, T.N. Talfourd, are the other writers.]
LETTER 472
CHARLES LAMB TO B.W. PROCTER
Jan. 22nd, 1829.
Don't trouble yourself about the verses. Take 'em coolly as they come. Any day between this and Midsummer will do. Ten lines the extreme. There is no mystery in my incognita. She has often seen you, though you may not have observed a silent brown girl, who for the last twelve years has run wild about our house in her Christmas holidays. She is Italian by name and extraction. Ten lines about the blue sky of her country will do, as it's her foible to be proud of it. But they must not be over courtly or Lady-fied as she is with a Lady who says to her "go and she goeth; come and she cometh." Item, I have made her a tolerable Latinist. The verses should be moral too, as for a Clergyman's family. She is called Emma Isola. I approve heartily of your turning your four vols. into a lesser compass. 'Twill Sybillise the gold left. I shall, I think, be in town in a few weeks, when I will assuredly see you. I will put in here loves to Mrs. Procter and the Anti-Capulets, because Mary tells me I omitted them in my last. I like to see my friends here. I have put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield practitioner—a plain man, who seems perfectly to understand it, and gives me hopes of a favourable result.