solicitous to trim 'em out in their best apparel, it is because they are
to make their appearance in good company. Now to my fragments. Lest you
have lost my Grandame, she shall be one. 'Tis among the few verses I
ever wrote (that to Mary is another) which profit me in the
recollection. God love her,--and may we two never love each other less!

These, Coleridge, are the few sketches I have thought worth preserving;
how will they relish thus detached? Will you reject all or any of them?
They are thine: do whatsoever thou listest with them. My eyes ache with
writing long and late, and I wax wondrous sleepy; God bless you and
yours, me and mine! Good night.

C. LAMB.

I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute longer to tell you, that I
love you for those simple, tender, heart-flowing lines with which you
conclude your last, and in my eyes best, sonnet (so you call 'em),

"So, for the mother's sake, the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child."

Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge, or rather, I should say, banish
elaborateness; for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart, and
carries into daylight its own modest buds and genuine, sweet, and clear
flowers of expression. I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus.
I am unwilling to go to bed, and leave my sheet unfilled (a good piece
of night-work for an idle body like me), so will finish with begging you
to send me the earliest account of your complaint, its progress, or (as
I hope to God you will be able to send me) the tale of your recovery, or
at least amendment. My tenderest remembrances to your Sara.--