Answers to Correspondents. Indeed, I do not know but that they contain
some of the most racy sentences Lamb ever wrote. At any rate, they do
contain some delightful banter and "most ingenious nonsense." In their
pleasantry, archness, and good-natured raillery, these two little
articles of Elia's remind me of some of Addison's happiest papers in the
"Spectator."

Better than anything in Southey's "Doctor" concerning the authorship of
that queer, quaint, delightful book are Elia's affected anger and
indignation against the author of the "Indicator" for attributing the
essays of Elia to their right author. Leigh Hunt must have "laughed
consumedly," as he read the P.S. to the "Chapter on Ears." And in his
Answers to Correspondents how many delightful changes Elia rings upon
the name of the unlucky Peter Bell! How cavalierly he answers
"Indagator," and the others, who are so importunate about the true
locality of his birth,--"as if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to
be passed to his parish "!

* * * * *

P.S. TO THE "CHAPTER ON EARS."

"A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who has been
entertaining the town for the last twelve months with some very pleasant
lucubrations under the assumed signature of _Leigh Hunt_,[2] in his
'Indicator' of the 31st January last has thought fit to insinuate that
I, _Elia_, do not write the little sketches which bear my signature, in
this Magazine, but that the true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observe
the critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--on
the very eve of the publication of our last number,--affording no scope