And writing to you, or to
Coleridge, besides affection, I feel a reverential deference as to
Grecians still [3]. I keep my soaring way above the Great Erasmians, yet
far beneath the other. Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk
or India pensioner to a Deputy-Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer!
Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., etc.
C. LAMB.
[1] Talfourd relates an amusing instance of the universal charity of the
kindly Dyer. Lamb once suddenly asked him what he thought of the
murderer Williams,--a wretch who had destroyed two families in Ratcliff
Highway, and then cheated the gallows by committing suicide. "The
desperate attempt," says Talfourd, "to compel the gentle optimist to
speak ill of a mortal creature produced no happier success than the
answer, 'Why, I should think, Mr. Lamb, he must have been rather an
eccentric character.'"
[2] Whalley and Boyer were masters at Christ's Hospital.
[3] "Deputy-Grecian," "Grecian," etc., were of course forms, or grades,
at Christ's Hospital.
CVI.
TO MR. MOXON [1].
_February_, 1832.
Dear Moxon,--The snows are ankle-deep, slush, and mire, that 't is hard
to get to the post-office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'Tis a slough
of despair, or I should sooner have thanked you for your offer of the
"Life," which we shall very much like to have, and will return duly.
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