Anderson is come home, and the wheels of thy business are going on as
ever. The boy is honest, and I am thy friend. And how does the
coach-maker's daughter? Thou art her Phaeton, her Gig, and her Sociable.
Commend me to Rob.

C. LAMB.

Saturday.

[This letter is the first example extant of Lamb's tendency to hoaxing.
Gutch was at that time courting a Miss Wheeley, the daughter of a
Birmingham coachbuilder. It was while he was in Birmingham that Lamb
wrote the letter. Anderson was his partner in business. Rob would be
Robert Lloyd, then at Birmingham again. This, and one other, are the
only letters of Lamb to Gutch that escaped destruction.]




LETTER 60


CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE

[? Late July, 1800.]

Dear Coleridge,--Soon after I wrote to you last, an offer was made me by
Gutch (you must remember him? at Christ's--you saw him, slightly, one
day with Thomson at our house)--to come and lodge with him at his house
in Southampton Buildings, Chancery-Lane. This was a very comfortable