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On awakening from his brief slumber, Lamb sat for some time in profound silence, and then, with the most startling rapidity, sang out–“Diddle, diddle, dumpkins;” not looking at me, but as if soliloquizing. For five minutes he relapsed into the same deep silence; from which again he started up into the same abrupt utterance of–“Diddle, diddle, dumpkins.” I could not help laughing aloud at the extreme energy of this sudden communication, contrasted with the deep silence that went before and followed. Lamb smilingly begged to know what I was laughing at, and with a look of as much surprise as if it were I that had done something unaccountable, and not himself. I told him (as was the truth) that there had suddenly occurred to me the possibility of my being in some future period or other called on to give an account of this very evening before some literary committee. The committee might say to me–(supposing the case that I outlived him)–“You dined with Mr. Lamb in January, 1822; now, can you remember any remark or memorable observation which that celebrated man made before or after dinner?”

I as respondent. “Oh yes, I can.”

Com. “What was it?”

Resp. “Diddle, diddle, dumpkins.”

Com. “And was this his only observation? Did Mr. Lamb not strengthen this remark by some other of the same nature?”

Resp. “Yes, he did.”

Com. “And what was it?”

Resp. “Diddle, diddle, dumpkins.”

Com. “What is your secret opinion of Dumpkins?”

Com. “Do you conceive Dumpkins to have been a thing or a person?”

Resp. “I conceive Dumpkins to have been a person, having the rights of a person.”

Com. “Capable, for instance, of suing and being sued?”

Resp. “Yes, capable of both; though I have reason to think there would have been very little use in suing Dumpkins.”

Com. “How so? Are the committee to understand that you, the respondent, in your own case, have found it a vain speculation, countenanced only by visionary lawyers, to sue Dumpkins?”

Resp. “No; I never lost a shilling by Dumpkins, the reason for which may be that Dumpkins never owed me a shilling; but from his pronomen of ‘diddle,’ I apprehend that he was too well acquainted with joint-stock companies!”

Com. “And your opinion is, that he may have diddled Mr. Lamb?”

Resp. “I conceive it to be not unlikely.”

Com. “And, perhaps, from Mr. Lamb’s pathetic reiteration of his name, ‘Diddle, diddle,’ you would be disposed to infer that Dumpkins had practised his diddling talents upon Mr. L. more than once?”

Resp. “I think it probable.”

Lamb laughed, and brightened up; tea was announced; Miss Lamb returned. The cloud had passed away from Lamb’s spirits, and again he realized the pleasure of evening, which, in his apprehension, was so essential to the pleasure of literature.

On the table lay a copy of Wordsworth, in two volumes; it was the edition of Longman, printed about the time of Waterloo. Wordsworth was held in little consideration, I believe, amongst the house of Longman; at any rate, their editions of his works were got up in the most slovenly manner. In particular, the table of contents was drawn up like a short-hand bill of parcels. By accident the book lay open at a part of this table, where the sonnet beginning–

“Alas! what boots the long laborious quest”–

had been entered with mercantile speed, as–

“Alas! what boots,”—-

“Yes,” said Lamb, reading this entry in a dolorous tone of voice, “he may well say that. I paid Hoby three guineas for a pair that tore like blotting paper, when I was leaping a ditch to escape a farmer that pursued me with a pitch-fork for trespassing. But why should W. wear boots in Westmoreland? Pray, advise him to patronize shoes.”

The mercurialities of Lamb were infinite, and always uttered in a spirit of absolute recklessness for the quality or the prosperity of the sally. It seemed to liberate his spirits from some burthen of blackest melancholy which oppressed it, when he had thrown off a jest: he would not stop one instant to improve it; nor did he care the value of a straw whether it were good enough to be remembered, or so mediocre as to extort high moral indignation from a collector who refused to receive into his collection of jests and puns any that were not felicitously good or revoltingly bad.