I sincerely wish you better health, & better health to Edith, Kind
remembrances to her.

C. LAMB.

If you come to town by Ash Wednesday [February 6], you will certainly
see Lloyd here--I expect him by that time.

My sister Mary was never in better health or spirits than now.

[Writing in June, 1799, to Robert Lloyd, Priscilla, his sister, says:
"Lamb would not I think by any means be a person to take up your abode
with. He is too much like yourself--he would encourage those feelings
which it certainly is your duty to suppress. Your station in life--the
duties which are pointed out by that rank in society which you are
destined to fill--differ widely from his." When next we hear of Robert
Lloyd he has returned to Birmingham, where his father soon afterwards
bought him a partnership in a bookselling and printing business.

"Col. Despard." I have not found the verses. Colonel Edward Marcus
Despard, after a career that began brilliantly, was imprisoned in the
spring of 1798 and executed for High Treason in 1803.

The rhymed passage from _John Woodvil_ is that which is best known.
Hazlitt relates that Godwin was so taken with it when he first read it
that he asked every one he met to tell him the author and play, and at
last applied to Lamb himself.]