"Whom have we here,
Stuck on this bellows,
But the Prince of good fellows,
Willy Shakspere?"
At top—
"O base and coward luck!
To be here stuck.—POINS."
At bottom—
"Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd,
Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind.—PISTOL."
This is all in old carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling, sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as He was immeasurable. It may be a forgery. They laugh at me and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood may be imitated I cannot say. Ireland was not found out by his parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side the Channel could have painted any thing near like the face I saw. Again, would such a painter and forger have expected £40 for a thing, if authentic, worth £4000? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming over with it, and, my life to Southey's Thalaba, it will gain universal faith.
The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with all kind things.
Our joint hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours as ever,
C. LAMB.
[Frank was Francis John Field, Barron Field's brother, in the India
House.