Your ex-Lampoonist, or Lamb-punnist—from Enfield, Oct. 24, or "last day but one for receiving articles that can be inserted."
[Moxon, finding The Englishman's Magazine unsuccessful, gave it up suddenly after the October number, the third under his direction. His letter to Lamb on the subject is not now forthcoming. The ludicrous description of a landscape by an R.A. is, I imagine, that of the garden of the Hesperides in the Elia essay on the "Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Production of Modern Art" (see Vol. II.). Probably Turner's "Garden of the Hesperides" in the National Gallery.
By "Devil's Money" Lamb means money due for Satan in
Search of a Wife. I do not identify * * * * * *.
"The Rev. Mr. ——." I have not identified this gentleman.
"G.D…. penny tract." I have not found Dyer's tract.
"Mr. Aitken." John Aitken, editor of Constable's Miscellany, whom
Moxon would have known at Hurst & Co.'s.]
LETTER 539
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. Dec. 15, 1831.]
Dear M. +S. I know, has an aversion, amounting almost to horror, of H. He would not lend his name. The other I might wring a guinea from, but he is very properly shy of his guineas. It would be improper in me to apply to him, and impertinent to the other. I hope this will satisfy you, but don't give my reason to H.'s friend, simply, say I decline it.