360 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



thing nice, washing it down with a jorum of whiskey-toddy, send 

 him home to his lodgings and landlady with your compliments, so 

 that I, you will perceive, have no bad opinion of your lionship. 



" You can do me a great good ; and when I assure you, which I 

 do seriously and in all sincerity, that I seek not your favor in the 

 spirit of vanity, that I may plume myself with it hereafter ; and 

 when I tell you that I have ventured on this publication not to ex- 

 alt myself, but, if possible, to benefit some poor relations, weighed 

 down by the pressure of our bad times, I am sure that I may rely 

 on your appreciating my motive, whatever you may think of the 

 means I have taken to work it out. 



" One thing more I would say ; these poems, such as they are, 

 are the productions of a self-educated man, who, in his tenth year 

 of childhood, with little more than a knowledge of his Reading 

 Made Easy, was driven out into the world to seek his bread, and 

 pick up such acquirements as he could meet with ; these are not 

 many, for he was not lucky enough to meet with many. This is 

 a fact which I do not care that the public should know, for what 

 has that monster so well off for heads to do with it ; nor, perhaps, 

 have you ; I have mentioned it merely because I could not conceal 

 it at this moment, when the disadvantages it has surrounded me with 

 return upon me like old grievances for a time forgotten, but come 

 back again to ' sight and seeing,' as palpable as ever, and as pro- 

 voking. 



" Enough of myself. There are many errors in the book staring 

 me out of countenance. While it was in the press I was danger- 

 ously ill, and, therefore, paid but little and distracted attention to it. 

 Think, then, as mercifully of me and mine as you can ; and though, 

 when you are frolicsome, you love to spatter us poor cockneys, 

 sometimes justly enough, at others not so, believe that I can can- 

 didly appreciate the power and the beauty of some parts of Black- 

 wood' 's Magazine, and that I am, all differences notwithstanding, 

 your humble servant, ." * 



In my mother's letters during 1833 and 1834, the strong political 

 feelings of the time are occasionally exhibited. In one she says : 



* The signature of this letter has been torn off, but the letter itself is indorsed "from Charles 

 Lamb to Professor Wilson." I am, however, afraid that it is not the production of " Elia," and 

 as I am not familiar with the handwriting, I cannot say who is the writer, or whether the appeal 

 was responded to. 



