The letters of Coleridge to Robinson preserved in the Diary, are as follows: I, May 1808 (ii, 266–7); II, 1811 (ii, 360–4); III, 7th Dec. 1812 (iii, 423–4); IV, June 1817 (iii, 57–8); V, 3rd May 1818 (iii, 93–95). The letters to Robinson in Brandl’s Life are—p. 322 (1811); p. 323, 18th Nov. 1811; p. 354, 3rd December 1817; p. 362, 20th June 1817.]
CHAPTER XXVI
CHARLES LAMB
[Charles Lamb, Coleridge’s associate of the “Cat and Salutation” days, remained a close friend to the last, and he plays an important part in the Highgate period. Among Lamb’s letters, edited by Canon Ainger, are sixty-two to Coleridge; and there are a few to Allsop and James Gillman from 1821 onward. The next fourteen letters to Allsop reflect the relationship of the little circle of the Lambs and Gillman and Coleridge.
Letter 188. To Allsop
Blandford-place, March 1st, 1821.
My dearest Friend,
God bless you, and all who are dear and near to you! but as to your pens, they seem to have been plucked from the devil’s pinions, and slit and shaped by the blunt edge of the broad sprays of his antlers. Of the ink (i.e. your inkstand), it would be base to complain. I hate abusing folks in their absence. Do you know, my dear friend, that having sundry little snug superstitions of my own, I shrewdly suspect that whimsical ware of that sort is connected with the state and garniture of your paper-staining machinery.—Is it so? Well, I have seen Murray, and he has been civil, I may say kind, in his manners. Is this your knock?—Is it you on the stairs?—No. I explained my full purpose to him, namely,—that he should take me and my concerns, past and future, for print and reprint, under his umbrageous foliage, though the original name of his great predecessor in the patronage of genius, who gave the name of Augustan to all happy epochs—Octavius would be more appropriate—and he promises,—cætera desunt.
Letter 189. To Allsop
May 4th, 1821.