too—who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all _that part_, congratulated himself, now his liver was gone, that he should be the longest liver of the two.’ Southey wrote in a soberer vein. ‘My friend, go to bed early; and if you eat suppers, read afterwards, but never compose, that you may lie down with a quiet intellect. There is an intellectual as well as a religious peace of mind, and without the former be assured there can be no health for a poet.’ At times Bernard Barton seems to have been troubled about money matters. On one occasion he appears to have made up his mind to have done with banking and devote himself to literature. ‘Keep to your bank,’ wrote Lamb, ‘and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public: you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy personage cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me on the stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the banking office. What! is there not from six to eleven p.m. six days in the week? and is there not all Sunday?’ Fortunately for B. B., friends came to his rescue. A few members of his Society, including some of the wealthier of his own family, raised among them £1,200 for his benefit. The scheme originated with Joseph John Gurney, of Norwich, and in 1824 when the money was collected, it was felt that £1,200 was a great deal for a poet to receive. Bernard Barton’s daughter married a Suffolk gentleman, well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman had not congenial minds, and parted almost as soon as the honeymoon was over.