The character of his letters at this time is not generally lively; there
is, he says, "a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date
from poor John's (his brother's) loss. Deaths overset one. Then there's
Captain Burney gone. What fun has whist now?" He proceeds, "I am made up
of queer points. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against
it." The only hope he has, he says, is, "that some pulmonary affection may
relieve me." The success which attended the "Elia" Essays did not comfort
him, nor the (pecuniary) temptations of the bookseller to renew them. "The
spirit of the thing in my own mind is gone" (he writes). "Some brains," as
Ben Jonson says, "will endure but one skimming." Notwithstanding his
melancholy humor, however, there is Hope in the distance, which he does
not see, and Freedom is not far off.

It was during this period of Lamb's life (1823) that the quarrel between
him and his old friend Robert Southey took place. Southey had long been
(as was well known) one of the most constant and efficient contributors to
the "Quarterly Review;" and Lamb assigned to him the authorship of one of
the Review articles, in which he himself was scantily complimented, and
his friends Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt denounced. Sir T. Talfourd thinks that
Mr. Southey was not the author of the offending essay. Be that as it may,
Lamb was then of opinion that his old Tory friend was the enemy. In a
letter to Bernard Barton (July, 1823) he writes, "Southey has attacked
'Elia' on the score of infidelity. He might have spared an old friend. I
hate his Review, and his being a Reviewer;" but he adds, "I love and
respect Southey, and will not retort." However, in the end, irritated by
the calumny, or (which is more probable) resenting compliments bestowed on
himself at the expense of his friends, he sat down and penned his famous
"Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esq.," which appeared in the "London
Magazine" for October, 1823, and which was afterwards published amongst