All the while, until Monkhouse succeeded, we could hear Lamb struggling in the painting-room and calling at intervals, "Who is that fellow? Allow me to see his organs once more." It was indeed an immortal evening. Wordsworth's fine intonation as he quoted Milton and Virgil, Keats's eager, inspired look, Lamb's quaint sparkle of lambent humour, so speeded the stream of conversation that in my life I never passed a more delightful time. All our fun was within bounds. Not a word passed that an apostle might not have listened to. It was a night worthy of the Elizabethan age. "SIXPENNY JOKES" [Sidenote: _Charles Lamb_] There is no _virtue_ like _necessity_, says the proverb. If that be true, what a quantity of _virtue_ there must be among the lower orders of people in this country! * * * * * A _bench_ of Justices certainly gives us an idea of something _wooden_. Shakespeare, in his Seven Ages, represents a Justice as made up with saws. * * * * * Locke compares the mind of a new-born infant to a sheet of white paper not yet written on. It must be confessed that, whoever wrote upon Mr. A----n's mind has left _large margins._ TO HIS BROTHER [Sidenote: _Keats_] The thought of your little girl puts me in mind of a thing I heard Mr. Lamb say. A child in arms was passing by his chair towards the mother in the nurse's arms. Lamb took hold of the long-clothes, saying, "Where, God bless me, where does it leave off?" LAMB'S TASK [Sidenote: _Charles Lamb_] In those days every morning paper, as an essential retainer to its establishment, kept an author, who was bound to furnish daily a quantum of witty paragraphs. Sixpence a joke--and it was thought pretty high too--was Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases. The chat of the day, scandal, but, above all, _dress_, furnished the material. The length of no paragraph was to exceed seven lines. Shorter they might be, but they must be poignant.