The character of his letters at this time is not generally lively; there is, he says, "a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date from poor John's (his brother's) loss. Deaths overset one. Then there's Captain Burney gone. What fun has whist now?" He proceeds, "I am made up of queer points. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it." The only hope he has, he says, is, "that some pulmonary affection may relieve me." The success which attended the "Elia" Essays did not comfort him, nor the (pecuniary) temptations of the bookseller to renew them. "The spirit of the thing in my own mind is gone" (he writes). "Some brains," as Ben Jonson says, "will endure but one skimming." Notwithstanding his melancholy humor, however, there is Hope in the distance, which he does not see, and Freedom is not far off. It was during this period of Lamb's life (1823) that the quarrel between him and his old friend Robert Southey took place. Southey had long been (as was well known) one of the most constant and efficient contributors to the "Quarterly Review;" and Lamb assigned to him the authorship of one of the Review articles, in which he himself was scantily complimented, and his friends Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt denounced. Sir T. Talfourd thinks that Mr. Southey was not the author of the offending essay. Be that as it may, Lamb was then of opinion that his old Tory friend was the enemy. In a letter to Bernard Barton (July, 1823) he writes, "Southey has attacked 'Elia' on the score of infidelity. He might have spared an old friend. I hate his Review, and his being a Reviewer;" but he adds, "I love and respect Southey, and will not retort." However, in the end, irritated by the calumny, or (which is more probable) resenting compliments bestowed on himself at the expense of his friends, he sat down and penned his famous "Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esq.," which appeared in the "London Magazine" for October, 1823, and which was afterwards published amongst his collected letters. This letter, I remember, produced a strong sensation in literary circles; and Mr. Southey's acquaintances smiled, and his enemies rejoiced at it. Indeed, the letter itself is a remarkable document. With much of Lamb's peculiar phraseology, it is argumentative, and defends the imaginary weaknesses or faults, against which (as he guesses) the "Quarterly" reproofs had been levelled. The occasion having gone by, this letter has been dismissed from most minds, except that part of it which exhibits Lamb's championship on behalf of Hunt and Hazlitt, and which is more touching than anything to be found in controversial literature.