think I shall adopt your emendation in the "Dying Lover," though I do
not myself feel the objection against "Silent Prayer."

My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a velvet collar.
He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born
fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant,
have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads
hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button,
recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury,
neither becomes him as a tailor nor the ninth of a man. My meek
gentleman was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a
one-horse shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas,
some shillings and half-pence, and a bundle of customers' measures,
which they swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they
rode off he addrest them with profound gratitude, making a congee:
"Gentlemen, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged to you
that you have not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has had the
audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet
collar--A damn'd ninth of a scoundrel!

When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address
him as _Mr_. C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well.

Yours sincerely,
C. LAMB.

[The poem "Mystery of God" was, when printed in the _Annual Anthology_
for 1799, entitled "Living without God in the World." Lamb never
reprinted it. It is not clear to what sonnet Lamb refers, possibly that
to his sister, printed on page 78, which he himself never reprinted. It