A FRIEND OF LAMB Sta,—Your correspondent, Mr. T. B. Nutter,
must adduce stronger evidence (and cite his references) before he makes us lose our belief in a time-honoured story which has been accepted without question by such an excellent authority as Mr. E. V. Lucas. In Amicus Redivivus Lamb certainly adapted the facts to suit his convenience as an essayist; but he would have had no motive for doing so in private correspondence. In fact, in a letter to Sarah Hazlitt, he wrote: " What I now tell you is literally true. Yesterday week George Dyer called upon us, at one o'clock (bright noon day) on his way to dine with Mrs. Barbauld at Newington. He sat with Mary about half an hour, and took leave. The maid saw him go out from her kitchen window, but suddenly losing sight of him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G. D., instead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberately, staff in hand, in broad open day, marched into the New River."
Mr. Nutter does not comment on the corroborative account by B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall) which I quoted in my article. I took my extracts from Notes and Queries (to S. III 282). where they are re-
printed from Procter's Autobiographical Fragment and Biographical Notes, edited by Coventiy Patmore, but the same story is to be found in his Charles Lamb: A Memoir (1869) at page 185. The testimony of Procter, and of Lamb himself—together with the fact of their friend's notorious absentmindedness—leaves no reasonable doubt that " G. D." actually fell into the New River.—Yours faithfully, Vann House, Ockley, Surrey.
DEREK HUDSON.
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