Coleridge's and his friends. In the words of Terence, a little altered,
"Taedet me hujus quotidiani mundi." I am heartily sick of the every-day
scenes of life. I shall half wish you unmarried (don't show this to Mrs.
C.) for one evening only, to have the pleasure of smoking with you, and
drinking egg-hot in some little smoky room in a pot-house, for I know
not yet how I shall like you in a decent room, and looking quite happy.
My best love and respects to Sara notwithstanding.

Yours sincerely,
CHARLES LAMB.

[Coleridge's image of melancholy will be found in the lines
"Melancholy--a fragment." It was published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817,
and in a note Coleridge said that the verses were printed in the
_Morning Chronicle_ in 1794. They were really printed in the _Morning
Post_, December 12, 1797. Coleridge had probably sent them to Lamb in
MS. The "hymns" came to nothing.

"The following lines." Lamb's poem "The Grandame" was presumably
included in this letter. See Vol. IV. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother,
died July 31, 1792, aged seventy-nine, and was buried in Widford
churchyard. She had been for many years housekeeper in the Plumer family
at Blakesware. On William Plumer's moving to Gilston, a neighbouring
seat, in 1767, she had sole charge of the Blakesware mansion, where her
grandchildren used to visit her. Compare Lamb's _Elia_ essays
"Blakesmoor in H----shire" and "Dream-Children,"

N. Biggs was the printer of Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797.

Lamb had begun his amendment of Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of