29th October 1822.

Dear Sir,--I have to acknowledge your kind attention to my application
to Mr. Haydon. I have transmitted your draft to Mr. G[odwin]'s committee
as an anonymous contribution through me. Mr. Haydon desires his thanks
and best respects to you, but was desirous that I should write to you on
this occasion. I cannot pass over your kind expressions as to myself. It
is not likely that I shall ever find myself in Scotland, but should the
event ever happen, I should be proud to pay my respects to you in your
own land. My disparagement of heaths and highlands--if I said any such
thing in half earnest,--you must put down as a piece of the old Vulpine
policy. I must make the most of the spot I am chained to, and console
myself for my flat destiny as well as I am able. I know very well our
mole-hills are not mountains, but I must cocker them up and make them
look as big and as handsome as I can, that we may both be satisfied.
Allow me to express the pleasure I feel on an occasion given me of
writing to you, and to subscribe myself, dear sir, your obliged and
respectful servant,

CHARLES LAMB.


[See note to the letter to Godwin above. Lamb and Scott never met.
Talfourd, however, tells us that "he used to speak with gratitude and
pleasure of the circumstances under which he saw him once in
Fleet-street. A man, in the dress of a mechanic, stopped him just at
Inner Temple-gate, and said, touching his hat, 'I beg your pardon, sir,
but perhaps you would like to see Sir Walter Scott; that is he just
crossing the road;' and Lamb stammered out his hearty thanks to his
truly humane informer."