The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb. Charles Lamb

      The Athenæum, April 13, 1833. Not signed.

      Edward Moxon (1801–1858), the publisher, and Lamb's protégé and adopted son-in-law, was himself a poet in a modest way. His first book, The Prospect, 1826, he dedicated to Samuel Rogers, another patron; Christmas followed in 1829, dedicated to Lamb; and in 1830 his first collection of Sonnets was issued. In the second series, 1835, are some touching lines on Lamb.

      I have no proof that The Athenæum review is by Lamb, but I believe it to be so. Attention was first drawn to it by Mr. J. A. Rutter in Notes and Queries, December 22, 1900, who remarked upon the phrase "integrity above his avocation" as being perhaps the only instance that exists of unconscious humour on the part of Charles Lamb.

      Page 435, line 12. Humphrey Mosely. Humphrey Moseley (d. 1661), the bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard and publisher of the first collected edition of Milton, 1645, and also of Waller, Crashaw, Donne, Vaughan. He prefixed to the Milton the words: "It is the love I have to our own language that hath made me diligent to collect and set forth such pieces, both in prose and verse, as may renew the wonted honour and esteem of our English tongue."

      Page 435, line 20. What we hope E. M. will be in his. Moxon nobly fulfilled the wish. He published Tennyson's first book in 1833 and all that followed during his lifetime; he became Wordsworth's publisher in 1835; he published Browning's Sordello and Bells and Pomegranates; and he commissioned fine editions of the old dramatists.