" Then he and Mary became very poorly.
He writes, "We have had a sick child, sleeping, or not sleeping, next to
me, with a pasteboard partition between, who killed my sleep. My
bedfellows are Cough and Cramp: we sleep three in a bed. Don't come yet to
this house of pest and age." This is in 1833. At the end of that year (in
December) he writes (once more humorously) to Rogers, expressing, amongst
other things, his love for that fine artist, Stothard: "I met the dear old
man, and it was sublime to see him sit, deaf, and enjoy all that was going
on mirthful with the company. He reposed upon the many graceful and many
fantastic images he had created." His last letter, written to Mrs. Dyer on
the day after his fall, was an effort to recover a book of Mr. Cary, which
had been mislaid or lost, so anxious was he always that every man should
have his own.
In December, 1834, the history of Charles Lamb comes suddenly to a close.
He had all along had a troubled day: now came the night. His spirits had
previously been tolerably cheerful; reading and conversing, as heretofore,
with his friends, on subjects that were familiar to him. There was little
manifest alteration or falling off in his condition of mind or body.
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