Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/189

Rh enough for his father's restless, dissatisfied heart to taste for once the sweetness of a tie unalloyed with any bitterness, and the memory of it never faded out. There is a pathetic allusion in one of his latest essays to a visit to the neglected spot where the baby was laid, and where still "as the nettles wave in a corner of the churchyard over his little grave, the welcome breeze helps to refresh me and ease the tightness at my breast."

In March of this year, too, died one of the most conspicuous members of Lamb's circle, Thomas Holcroft; dear to Godwin, but not, perhaps, a great favourite with the Lambs. He was too dogmatic and disputatious, a man who would pull you up at every turn for a definition, which, as Coleridge said, was like setting up perpetual turnpikes along the road to truth. Hazlitt undertook to write his life.

The visit to Winterslow which had been so often talked of before Sarah's marriage was again under discussion and, on June 2nd, Mary, full of thoughtful consideration for her hosts that were to be, writes jointly with Martin Burney:—

You may write to Hazlitt that I will certainly go to Winterslow, as my father has agreed to give me £5 to bear my expences, and has given leave that I may stop till that is spent, leaving enough to defray my carriage on 14th July.'

"So far Martin has written, and further than that I can give you no intelligence, for I do not yet know Phillips' intentions; nor can I tell you the exact time when we can come; nor can I positively say we shall come at all; for we have scruples of conscience about there being so many of us. Martin says if you can borrow a blanket or two he can sleep on the floor without either bed or mattress, which would save his