his radicalism, nor his Pyrrhonism, nor his paradoxes, could estrange Southey. The last time the oddly-assorted pair met was in Taylor’s house; the student of German criticism had found some theological novelty, and wished to draw his guest into argument; Southey parried the thrusts good-humouredly, and at last put an end to them with the words, “Taylor, come and see me at Keswick. We will ascend Skiddaw, where I shall have you nearer heaven, and we will then discuss such questions as these.” In the year 1823 one of his oldest friends made a public attack on Southey, and that friend the gentlest and sweetest-natured of them all. In a _Quarterly_ article Southey had spoken of the Essays of Elia as a book which wanted only a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful as it was original. He had intended to alter the expression in the proof-sheet, but no proof-sheet was ever sent. Lamb, already pained by references to his writings in the _Quarterly_, some of which he erroneously ascribed to Southey, was deeply wounded. “He might have spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights that meant no harm to religion.” A long expostulation addressed by Elia to Robert Southey, Esq., appeared in the _London Magazine_ for October, only a portion of which is retained in the Elia Essays under the title of “The Tombs of the Abbey;” for though Lamb had playfully repented Coleridge’s salutation, “my gentle-hearted Charles,” his heart was indeed gentle, and could not endure the pain of its own wrath; among the memorials of the dead in Westminster he finds his right mind, his truer self, once more; he forgets the grave aspect with which Southey looked awful on his poor friend, and spends his indignation harmless as summer lightning over the heads of a Dean and Chapter. Southey, seeing the announcement of letter addressed to him by Lamb, had expected a sheaf of friendly pleasantries; with surprise he learnt what pain his words had caused. He hastened to explain; had Lamb intimated his feelings in private, he would have tried, by a passage in the ensuing _Quarterly_, to efface the impression unhappily created; he ended with a declaration of unchanged affection, and a proposal to call on Lamb. “On my part,” Southey said, “there was not even a momentary feeling of anger;” he at once understood the love, the error, the soreness, and the repentance awaiting a being so composed of goodness as Elia. “Dear Southey”—runs the answer of Lamb—“the kindness of your note has melted away the mist that was upon me. I have been fighting against a shadow.... I wish both magazine and review were at the bottom of the sea. I shall be ashamed to see you, and my sister (though innocent) will be still more so, for this folly was done without her knowledge, and has made her uneasy ever since. My guardian angel was absent at the time. I will make up courage to see you, however, any day next week. We shall hope that you will bring Edith with you. That