Let me then invention strain,
On your excelling grace to feign.
Cold is fiction. I believe it
Kindly as I did receive it;
Even as I. F.'s tongue did weave it.

To S. L. [Sarah Locke.]

Shall I praise a face unseen,
And extol a fancied mien,
Rave on visionary charm,
And from shadows take alarm?
Hatred hates without a cause,

Love may love without applause,
Or, without a reason given,
Charmed be with unknown heaven.
Keep the secret, though unmocked,
Ever in your bosom Locked.

After the transfer to Mr. Southern of the "London Magazine," Lamb was
prevailed upon to allow some short papers to be published in the "New
Monthly Magazine."

They were entitled "Popular Fallacies," and were subsequently published
conjointly with the "Elia Essays." He also sent brief contributions to the
"Athenaeum" and the "Englishman," and wrote some election squibs for
Serjeant Wilde, during his then contest for "Newark." But his animal
spirits were not so elastic as formerly, when his time was divided between
official work and companionable leisure; the latter acting as a wholesome