The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 3 / Books for Children

by Charles Lamb; Mary Lamb

NOTES

CHARLES LAMB AND BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

Charles Lamb's activities as a writer for children seem to have begun and ended in the service of Godwin. The earliest effort in this direction of which we have any knowledge is The King and Queen of Hearts, 1805, and the latest Prince Dorus, 1810 or 1811, unless we count Beauty and the Beast, possibly 1811, which in my opinion he did not write.

Lamb first met William Godwin (1756-1836), the philosopher, probably through the instrumentality of their mutual friend Thomas Holcroft, not long after Gillray had satirised Lamb and Lloyd, in his plate in the first number of The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, August, 1798, as a frog and a toad, seated in the vicinity of Coleridge and Southey and reading together a volume labelled "Blank Verse, by Toad and Frog." "Pray, Mr. Lamb," said Godwin when he first made Lamb's acquaintance, "are you toad or frog?" It was feared that trouble might ensue, but Lamb and Godwin were found the next morning at breakfast together and they became good, though never very intimate, friends.

Godwin, who had been for a while a minister at Ware, in Hertfordshire, came to London in 1779, and took up literature as a profession seriously in 1783. His Political Justice was published in 1793, Caleb Williams in 1794, and St. Leon in 1799. After loving at a distance Mrs. Opie and Mrs. Inchbald, Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797. Their daughter afterwards became Mrs. Shelley, the wife of the poet. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died in the year of her marriage, and in 1801 Godwin married again, a Mrs. Clairmont, a widow. Lamb detested her. None the less it was she who took to publishing and who incited him and his sister to write the charming children's books in this volume.

Lamb helped Godwin with other literary ventures before the publishing business was started. In 1800 he wrote an epilogue to his tragedy of "Antonio" (see the essay in Vol. II., "The Old Actors," for a description of the luckless first night), and he advised him in the composition of "Faulkener," another tragedy, which failed in 1807 and which also had a prologue by Lamb. And a letter is extant showing Lamb toiling at a review of Godwin's Chaucer in 1803, but the review itself is not forthcoming.

The publishing business was started in 1805 on Mrs. Godwin's initiative. At first, owing to the undesirability of connecting the name of a political and moral firebrand like Godwin with books for children, it was arranged that the business, which was in Hanway Street, Oxford Street, should bear the name of the manager, Thomas Hodgkins, while the books contributed by Godwin were to be signed Edward Baldwin. In 1806, however, Mrs. Godwin opened a shop at 41 Skinner Street, Snow Hill (now demolished), and published in her own name as M.J. Godwin & Co., at The Children's Library.

For her the Lambs wrote The King and Queen of Hearts (by Charles
Lamb), 1805; Tales from Shakespear, 1807; The Adventures of
Ulysses (by Charles Lamb), 1808; Mrs. Leicester's School and Poetry
for Children, 1809; and Prince Dorus (by Charles Lamb), 1811. Mrs.
Godwin translated tales from the French, Godwin contributed Baldwin's
Fables, Baldwin's Pantheon, and histories of Greece, England and
Rome, and Hazlitt wrote an English Grammar. The principal illustrator
to the firm was William Mulready.

Although Lamb had the most cordial disliking for Mrs. Godwin, he always stood by his old friend her husband. Between 1811 and 1821 the two men seem to have had little to do with each other; but in 1822 Lamb came to Godwin's assistance to much purpose. The title to Godwin's house in Skinner Street was successfully contested in that year, and Godwin became a bankrupt. A fund was therefore set on foot for him by Lamb and others, Lamb's own contribution being £50. Godwin, however, never rightly rallied, and thenceforward lived very quietly, wrote the History of the Commonwealth and Lives of the Necromancers, and died in 1836. Mrs. Godwin survived him until 1841.

Knowing what we do—from Dowden's Shelley and other sources—it is not possible greatly to admire Godwin's character, nor is the second Mrs. Godwin a subject for enthusiasm; but the part played by them in the Lambs' literary life was extremely valuable. Charles Lamb had, it is true, other stimulus, and without his work for children, sweet though it is, his name would still be a household word; but Mary Lamb might, but for the Godwins, have gone almost silent to the grave. Her writings, with their sweet gravity and tender simplicity, were called forth wholly by the Bad Baby, as Lamb called Mrs. Godwin.

Lamb's views on the literature of the nursery had crystallised long before he began to write children's books himself. In a letter to Coleridge, October 23,1802, he had said:—

"'Goody Two Shoes' is almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newberry's hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's books convey, it seems, must come to a child in the shape of knowledge, and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learnt, that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales, which made the child a man, while all the while he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting this sore evil? Think what you would have been now, if, instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history!"

Hence when the time came Lamb was all ready with a nursery method of his own.

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Page 1. TALES FROM SHAKESPEAR.

Mary Lamb was asked to write the Tales from Shakespear, with help from her brother, in the spring of 1806 or the winter of 1805. I have seen the statement that this was at the instigation of Hazlitt, but Lamb does not say so. The first mention of the work is in Lamb's letter to Manning, May 10, 1806:—

"She [Mary] says you saw her writings about the other day, and she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's bookseller twenty of Shakspeare's plays, to be made into children's tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, 'The Tempest,' 'Winter's Tale,' 'Midsummer Night,' 'Much Ado,' 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and 'Cymbeline'; and the 'Merchant of Venice' is in forwardness. I have done 'Othello' and 'Macbeth,' and mean to do all the tragedies. I think it will be popular among the little people, besides money. It's to bring in sixty guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think, you'd think. These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant the cross of Christ among barbarous pagan anthropophagi. Quam homo homini præstat! but then, perhaps, you'll get murdered, and we shall die in our beds with a fair literary reputation."

Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart (afterwards Sarah Hazlitt), continue the story. This is on June 2, 1806:—

My Tales are to be published in separate story-books; I mean, in single stories, like the children's little shilling books. I cannot send you them in Manuscript, because they are all in the Godwins' hands; but one will be published very soon, and then you shall have it all in print. I go on very well, and have no doubt but I shall always be able to hit upon some such kind of job to keep going on. I think I shall get fifty pounds a year at the lowest calculation; but as I have not yet seen any money of my own earning, for we do not expect to be paid till Christmas, I do not feel the good fortune, that has so unexpectedly befallen me, half so much as I ought to do. But another year, no doubt, I shall perceive it.

When I write again, you will hear tidings of the farce, for Charles is to go in a few days to the Managers to inquire about it. But that must now be a next-year's business too, even if it does succeed; so it's all looking forward, and no prospect of present gain. But that's better than no hopes at all, either for present or future times.

Charles has written Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and has begun Hamlet; you would like to see us, as we often sit writing on one table (but not on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena in the Midsummer Night's Dream; or, rather, like an old literary Darby and Joan: I taking snuff; and he groaning all the while, and saying he can make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he finds out he has made something of it….

Martin [Burney] has just been here. My Tales (again) and Charles's Farce has made the boy mad to turn Author; and he has written a Farce, and he has made the Winter's Tale into a story; but what Charles says of himself is really true of Martin, for he can make nothing at all of it; and I have been talking very eloquently this morning, to convince him that nobody can write farces, &c., under thirty years of age. And so I suppose he will go home and new model his farce.

A little later, June 26, Lamb writes to Wordsworth:—

"Mary is just stuck fast in All's Well that Ends Well. She complains of having to set forth so many female characters in boy's clothes. She begins to think Shakspear must have wanted Imagination. I to encourage her, for she often faints in the prosecution of her great work, flatter her with telling how well such and such a play is done. But she is stuck fast and I have been obliged to promise to assist her."

Then we have Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart again (early in July, 1806): "I am in good spirits just at this present time, for Charles has been reading over the Tale I told you plagued me so much, and he thinks it one of the very best: it is 'All's Well that Ends Well.'"

The work was finished in the autumn of 1806 and published at the end of the year, dated 1807. Lamb sent Wordsworth a copy on January 29, 1807, with the following letter:—

"We have book'd off from Swan and Two Necks, Lad Lane, this day (per Coach) the Tales from Shakespear. You will forgive the plates, when I tell you they were left to the direction of Godwin, who left the choice of subjects to the bad baby, who from mischief (I suppose) has chosen one from damn'd beastly vulgarity (vide 'Merch. Venice'), where no atom of authority was in the tale to justify it—to another has given a name which exists not in the tale, Nic Bottom, and which she thought would be funny, though in this I suspect his hand, for I guess her reading does not reach far enough to know Bottom's Christian name—and one of Hamlet, and Grave digging, a scene which is not hinted at in the story, and you might as well have put King Canute the Great reproving his courtiers—the rest are Giants and Giantesses. Suffice it, to save our taste and damn our folly, that we left it all to a friend W.G. who in the first place cheated me into putting a name to them, which I did not mean, but do not repent, and then wrote a puff about their simplicity, &c., to go with the advertisement as in my name! Enough of this egregious dupery. I will try to abstract the load of teazing circumstances from the Stories and tell you that I am answerable for Lear, Macbeth, Timon, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, for occasionally a tail piece or correction of grammar, for none of the cuts and all of the spelling. The rest is my Sister's.—We think Pericles of hers the best, and Othello of mine—but I hope all have some good. As You Like It, we like least.

"So much, only begging you to tear out the cuts and give them to
Johnny, as 'Mrs. Godwin's fancy'.

"C.L.

"Our love to all.

"I had almost forgot, My part of the Preface begins in the middle
of a sentence, in last but one page, after a colon, thus:—

":—which if they be happily so done, &c. (see page 2, line 7 from foot).

The former part hath a more feminine turn and does hold me up something as an instructor to young ladies: but upon my modesty's honour I wrote it not.

"Godwin told my Sister that the Baby chose the subjects: a fact in taste."

This letter not only tells us how the preface was written—the first part, I take it, by William Godwin—but what Lamb himself thought of the pictures; which I reproduce in the large edition. It is customary to attribute the designs to Mulready and the engraving to William Blake.

I have set up the Tales from the second edition, 1809, because it embodies certain corrections and was probably the last edition in which the Lambs took any interest. The changes of word are few. I note the more important; Page 5, line 1, "recollection" was "remembrance" in the first edition; page 10, line 27, "voracious" was "ugly" in the first edition; page 15, line 21, "vessel" was "churn"; page 42, line 30, "continued" was in the first edition "remained"; page 108, foot, "But she being a woman" had run in the first edition, "But she being a bad ambitious woman." I leave other minute differences to the Bibliographer.

The second edition was issued in two forms: one similar to the first edition and one with only frontispiece, a portrait of Shakespear, and the following foreword from the pen, I imagine, of Mr. Godwin:—

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION

The Proprietors of this work willingly pay obedience to the voice of the public. It has been the general sentiment, that the style in which these Tales are written, is not so precisely adapted for the amusement of mere children, as for an acceptable and improving present to young ladies advancing to the state of womanhood. They therefore now offer to the public an edition prepared with suitable elegance. In the former impression they gave twenty prints, illustrative of the twenty tales which compose these volumes, for they knew that it was a grievous thing and a disappointment to a child, to find some tales without the recommendation of a print, which the others possessed. The prints were therefore made from spirited designs, but did not pretend to high finishing in the execution. To this edition they have annexed merely a beautiful head of our immortal Dramatist, from a much admired painting by Zoust.—They are satisfied that every reader of taste will thank them for not suppressing the former Preface, though not exactly applicable on the present occasion.

N.B.—A few copies have been worked off on the plan of the former impression, for the use of those who rather coincide in the original conception of the writer, than in the opinion above stated.

Lamb, we may be sure, had no hand in this manifesto, but whatever protest he may have made was unsuccessful. It reappears in the third edition, while the preface there has the general alteration of the first person singular to the first person plural: "our young readers" for "my young readers," and so forth. But this was probably Godwinian work.

The Godwins also issued some or all of the Tales separately at sixpence each (the two ordinary volumes cost eight shillings) with three plates to each, of a different design from those in the two-volume edition. These little books are exceedingly rare, but copies have been discovered both plain and coloured. The plates are attributed to Blake.

The Lambs' Tales from Shakespear were not, Mr. Bertram Dobell has pointed out, the first experiment of the kind. In 1783 was published in Paris Contes Moraux, Amusans et Instructifs, à l'usage de la Jeunesse tirés des Tragédies de Shakespear. Par M. Perrin. The Lambs did not, however, borrow anything from M. Perrin, even if they were aware of his work. The Tales are peculiarly their own.

The Tales from Shakespear are, and probably will continue to be, the most widely distributed of all the Lambs' work. In England it may be that Elia has had as many readers; but abroad the Tales from Shakespear easily lead. In the British Museum catalogue I find translations in French, German, Swedish, Spanish, and Polish. (No complete translation of Elia into any language is known, not even in French, although a selection of the essays will be found at the end of Depret's monograph, De L'Humeur Littéraire en Angleterre, 1877.) In England almost every Christmas brings a new edition of the Tales and often an imitation.

Although Mary Lamb was the true author of the book, as of Mrs. Leicester's School and of Poetry for Children, her share being much greater than her brother's in all of these, she was not until many years later associated publicly with any of them. The Tales were attributed to Charles Lamb, presumably against his wish, as we see from a sentence in the letter to Wordsworth quoted above, and the other two books had no name attached to them at all. Why Mary Lamb preserved such strict anonymity we do not now know; but it was probably from a natural shrinking from any kind of publicity after the unhappy publicity which she had once gained by her misfortune.

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Page 240. THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Lamb must have been as busy in the years 1806-1808 as in any of his life; for he then not only had his India House work, but wrote his share of the Tales from Shakespear, Mrs. Leicester's School and Poetry for Children, wrote all of The Adventures of Ulysses, and finally prepared his Dramatic Specimens. Moreover in 1806 he had the harassment of the alterations and impending production of "Mr. H."

On February 26, 1808, he tells Manning that he has just finished The Adventures of Ulysses and the Specimens, describing The Adventures of Ulysses as "intended to be an introduction to the reading of Telemachus! it is done out of the Odyssey, not from the Greek. I would not mislead you: nor yet from Pope's Odyssey, but from an older translation of one Chapman. The 'Shakspeare Tales' suggested the doing it." Many years after Lamb wrote to Barton (August 10, 1827): "Did you ever read my 'Adventures of Ulysses,' founded on Chapman's old translation of it? for children or men. Ch. is divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity."

Chapman's Homer was the folio which Leigh Hunt tells us he once saw
Lamb kiss.

Writing to Coleridge on October 23, 1802, Lamb says:—

"I have just finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it?—it has most the continuous power of interesting you all along, like a rapid original, of any; and in the uncommon excellence of the more finished parts goes beyond Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is fourteen syllables, and capable of all sweetness and grandeur. Cowper's ponderous blank verse detains you every step with some heavy Miltonism; Chapman gallops off with you his own free pace….

"I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my next. I am much interested in him."

A brief correspondence which passed between Godwin and Lamb just before the publication of The Adventures of Ulysses may be given here.

WILLIAM GODWIN TO CHARLES LAMB

Skinner Street, March 10, 1808.

Dear Lamb,—I address you with all humility, because I know you to be tenax propositi. Hear me, I entreat you, with patience.

It is strange with what different feelings an author and a bookseller looks at the same manuscript. I know this by experience: I was an author, I am a bookseller. The author thinks what will conduce to his honour: the bookseller what will cause his commodities to sell.

You, or some other wise man, I have heard to say, It is children that read children's books, when they are read, but it is parents that choose them. The critical thought of the tradesman put itself therefore into the place of the parent, and what the parent will condemn.

We live in squeamish days. Amid the beauties of your manuscript, of which no man can think more highly than I do, what will the squeamish say to such expressions as these,—'devoured their limbs, yet warm and trembling, lapping the blood,' page 10. Or to the giant's vomit, page 14; or to the minute and shocking description of the extinguishing the giant's eye in the page following. You, I daresay, have no formed plan of excluding the female sex from among your readers, and I, as a bookseller, must consider that if you have you exclude one half of the human species.

Nothing is more easy than to modify these things if you please, and nothing, I think, is more indispensable.

Give me, as soon as possible, your thoughts on the matter.

I should also like a preface. Half our customers know not Homer, or know him only as you or I know the lost authors of antiquity. What can be more proper than to mention one or two of those obvious recommendations of his works, which must lead every human creature to desire a nearer acquaintance.—Believe me, ever faithfully yours,

W. GODWIN.

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN

March 11, 1808.

Dear Godwin,—The giant's vomit was perfectly nauseous, and I am glad you pointed it out. I have removed the objection. To the other passages I can find no other objection but what you may bring to numberless passages besides, such as of Scylla snatching up the six men, etc.,—that is to say, they are lively images of shocking things. If you want a book, which is not occasionally to shock, you should not have thought of a tale which was so full of anthropophagi and wonders. I cannot alter these things without enervating the Book, and I will not alter them if the penalty should be that you and all the London booksellers should refuse it. But speaking as author to author, I must say that I think the terrible in those two passages seems to me so much to preponderate over the nauseous, as to make them rather fine than disgusting. Who is to read them, I don't know: who is it that reads Tales of Terror and Mysteries of Udolpho? Such things sell. I only say that I will not consent to alter such passages, which I know to be some of the best in the book. As an author I say to you, an author, Touch not my work. As to a bookseller I say, Take the work such as it is, or refuse it. You are as free to refuse it as when we first talked of it. As to a friend I say, Don't plague yourself and me with nonsensical objections. I assure you I will not alter one more word.

As the reader will see, Lamb made only the one alteration; nor did he add a preface recommending the works of Homer.

I have set up The Adventures of Ulysses from the second edition, 1819, because it probably contains Lamb's final revision of the text. The punctuation differs considerably from that of the first edition, but there are, I think, only four changes of words. On page 251, line 34, "and" was inserted before "snout"; on page 257, line g, "does" was substituted for "do"; on page 266, line 7 from foot, "over" was substituted for "above"; and on page 276, line 5 from foot, "it" was inserted after "keep."

The suggestion has been made that, since Lamb states in the preface that this work was designed as a supplement to The Adventures of Telemachus, he was also the author of one of the versions of Fénélon's popular tale. But this, I think, has no foundation in fact. We know from Lamb's letter to Godwin that the impulse to write The Adventures of Ulysses came from Godwin, and it was natural that he, a bookseller, should wish to associate this new venture with a volume so well known and so acceptable as the Telemachus. Now and then in the story Lamb deliberately refers to Fénélon's work, as when in the fourth chapter he says:—

"It were useless to describe over again what has been so well told already; or to relate those soft arts of courtship which the goddess used to detain Ulysses; the same in kind which she afterwards practised upon his less wary son, whom Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, hardly preserved from her snares when they came to the Delightful Island together in search of the scarce departed Ulysses."

This is drawn not from Chapman or Homer, but from the Archbishop of Cambrai. Lamb introduced it in accordance with the first sentence of his preface.

Lamb adapted Chapman very freely. For the material in Chapter I. we must go to Chapman, Books IX. and X.; for Chapter II., to Books X. and XL; for Chapter III., to Book XII.; for Chapter IV., to the early books; for Chapters V., VI. and VII., to Chapman, Books V.-IX. and XIII.; for Chapter VIII., to Books XIII. and XIV.; and for Chapter IX. to the end, to Chapman, Book XVI. and onwards. It must be agreed that Lamb performed a difficult task with great skill and success, especially when we consider his want of interest, frequently admitted, in stories. But the pleasure of adding dignity and sweetness to the character of Ulysses seems to have been very considerable as he worked (or so I imagine), and he made practically a new thing, a very persuasive blend of ancient and modern. The book has not been so popular as the Tales from Shakespear, but it has, I think, finer literary merits and may perhaps be read by older intellects with more satisfaction.

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Page 316. MRS. LEICESTER'S SCHOOL.

This charming little book was published by Mrs. Godwin at the end of 1808, dated 1809, with no author's name attached. Besides, however, ample internal evidence as to its authorship, there are many references to it in Lamb's letters. Why it was issued anonymously we cannot now learn; probably, as I have suggested, from Mary Lamb's unwillingness to have her name in print. The Tales from Shakespear, it will be remembered, were described always as being by Charles Lamb, although Mary did far more than half, and it was at the outset her book. Her share of Mrs. Leicester's School was equally great, and a sentence in one of her letters to Sarah Stoddart suggests that it was hers in inception also: "I have been busy making waistcoats, and plotting new work to succeed the Tales." Possibly it was because his share in the book was so small that Lamb refused to sign Mrs. Leicester's School as he had the Tales from Shakespear; possibly he had other reasons, the title-page of his Dramatic Specimens being one of them. When, a little while afterwards, the Poetry for Children was published, it was stated to be "by the author of Mrs. Leicester's School," while several of the poems when reprinted by Mylius (see notes below) were signed Mrs. Leicester. Thus, Mary Lamb's last chance of seeing her name on a title-page vanished. But we may feel confident that her own wishes were consulted in the matter.

Lamb's share in Mrs. Leicester's School we know from a letter to Bernard Barton (January 23, 1824): "My Sister's part in the Leicester School (about two thirds) was purely her own; as it was (to the same quantity) in the Shakspeare Tales which bear my name. I wrote only the Witch Aunt, the first going to Church, and the final Story, about a little Indian girl in a ship."

The little book was well received, and was quietly popular for some years, running into eight editions by 1823. I imagine, however, that it was little known between 1830 and the end of the century. Latterly there has been a revival in interest. One or two critics have touched rapturous heights in their praise. Landor wrote to Crabb Robinson in April, 1831:—

It is now several days since I read the book you recommended to me, "Mrs. Leicester's School;" and I feel as if I owed you a debt in deferring to thank you for many hours of exquisite delight. Never have I read anything in prose so many times over within so short a space of time as "The Father's Wedding-day." Most people, I understand, prefer the first tale—in truth a very admirable one—but others could have written it. Show me the man or woman, modern or ancient, who could have written this one sentence: "When I was dressed in my new frock, I wished poor mamma was alive, to see how fine I was on papa's wedding day; and I ran to my favourite station at her bedroom door." How natural, in a little girl, is this incongruity—this impossibility! Richardson would have given his "Clarissa," and Rousseau his "Heloïse" to have imagined it. A fresh source of the pathetic bursts out before us, and not a bitter one. If your Germans can show us anything comparable to what I have transcribed, I would almost undergo a year's gargle of their language for it. The story is admirable throughout—incomparable, inimitable….

Landor wrote to Lady Blessington to the same effect. Praise of this book is so pleasant to read that I quote his second letter too:—

One of her tales is, with the sole exception of the Bride of Lammermoor, the most beautiful tale in prose composition in any language, ancient or modern. A young girl has lost her mother, the father marries again, and marries a friend of his former wife. The child is ill reconciled to it, but being dressed in new clothes for the marriage, she runs up to her mother's chamber, filled with the idea how happy that dear mother would be at seeing her in all her glory—not reflecting, poor soul! that it was only by her mother's death that she appeared in it. How natural, how novel is all this! Did you ever imagine that a fresh source of the pathetic would burst forth before us in this trodden and hardened world? I never did, and when I found myself upon it, I pressed my temples with both hands, and tears ran down to my elbows.

And Coleridge remarked to Allsop:—

It at once soothes and amuses me to think—nay, to know—that the time will come when this little volume of my dear and well-nigh oldest friend, Mary Lamb, will be not only enjoyed but acknowledged as a rich jewel in the treasury of our permanent English literature; and I cannot help running over in my mind the long list of celebrated writers, astonishing geniuses, Novels, Romances, Poems, Histories and dense Political Economy quartos which, compared with Mrs. Leicester's School, will be remembered as often and prized as highly as Wilkie's and Glover's Epics and Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophies compared with Robinson Crusoe.

I have set up the book from the second edition, 1809, because the Lambs' final text is probably to be found there. Although certain additional minor differences were made in the eighth and ninth editions, 1821 and 1825, I think it very unlikely that they were made by Mary or Charles Lamb. The principal alteration between the second and first editions is page 317, line 6, "your eyes were red with weeping," for "The traces of tears might still be seen on your cheeks." The other differences are very slight, mostly being in punctuation, but there are also a few changes of word. I leave these, however, to the Bibliographer.

The eighth edition was furnished with the following preface; which, though it is signed "The Author," is not, I think, from either Mary or Charles Lamb's pen. I rather suspect Mrs. Godwin.

"Tell me a story, Mamma," was almost the first request my own child made me when she understood the meaning of a story, and I soon discovered I had no easier method of managing a very difficult temper than by adapting my stories to the errors she committed, or the good qualities she announced; but as I found it a very difficult and troublesome task to repeat the same story precisely the same each time, and as a sensible child, even at so early a period as three years of age, will remember where the narrator forgets, and never fail to detect the mistakes of the second repetition, I came to the resolution to print a small collection of stories for very young children, composed merely of circumstances incidental to their age.

The great error of many juvenile books is their deviation from truth; and as so much is absolutely necessary to be taught, why add to the labour by impressing false ideas on the mind of an infant, and thus lose the opportunity of making amusement the vehicle to convey instruction? A Mother only is, perhaps, capable of adapting stories to the capacities of very young Children; for a Mother only watches the unfolding of their ideas, and the bent of their dispositions. If one good Mother finds these tales of service to her in her arduous but pleasing task, my purpose will be answered.

It is stated that a French version of Mrs. Leicester's School, under the title Les Jeunes Pensionnaires, was published. I have seen, however, only Petits Conies à l'usage de la Feunesse traduits de l'Anglais par M'me M. D'Avot, 1823, which contains "Elisabeth Villiers, ou l'Oncle marin," "Charlotte Wilmot," "Marguerite Green, ou la jeune Mahométane," and "Arabella Hardy, ou la Traversée."

Mrs. Leicester's School calls for little annotation, except for the purpose of relating the stories to the lives of their writers; for it contains some very valuable autobiographical matter. But there are a few minor points too.

Page 316. Dedication.

In the choice of Amwell School as the name of Mrs. Leicester's establishment Mary (or Charles) returned after an inveterate Lamb habit to the old Hertfordshire days. Amwell, where the New River rises, is only a few miles from Widford and Blakesware. The signature to the dedication, "M.B.," may have been a little joke for the amusement of Martin Burney, who had taken such interest in the progress of the Tales from Shakespear and was in those days a special favourite with Mary Lamb.

Page 319. I.—Elizabeth Villiers. "The Sailor Uncle."

By Mary Lamb. The story of the little girl learning her letters from her mother's grave may have belonged to Widford churchyard; otherwise there seems to be no personal memory here.

Page 328. II.—Louisa Manners. "The Farm House."

By Mary Lamb. Much of the description of the farm and country is probably from memory of the old days at Mackery End, where we know Mary Lamb to have gone with her little brother Charles some time about 1780, and perhaps herself earlier. It is, however, possible that Blakesware is meant, since Mary Lamb speaks of the grandmother: Mrs. Bruton of Mackery End was her great aunt. One feels that the grandmother's sorrow at not being remembered (on page 329) is from life; and also the episode with Will Tasker (on the same page), and the description (and probably the name) of Old Spot, the shepherd, on page 333.

Page 334. III.—Ann Withers. "The Changeling."

By Mary Lamb. In one of the later editions of this story certain small changes were made, not, I fancy, by Mary Lamb. For example, on page 349, line 19, the sentence was made to read: "Neither dancing, nor any foolish lectures, could do much for Miss Lesley, she remained for some time wanting in gracefulness of carriage; but all that is usually attributed to dancing music finally effected." The italics indicate the additions of the nice editorial hand.

Page 350. IV.—Elinor Forester. "The Father's Wedding Day."

By Mary Lamb. It is this story which Landor so much admired (see above). The pretty song, "Balow, my babe," was probably "Ann Bothwell's Lament," beginning "Balow, my boy."

Page 354. V.—Margaret Green. "The Young Mahometan."

By Mary Lamb, and perhaps her most perfect work. Here we have a description of Blakesware, the home of the Plumers, which for many years was uninhabited by the family, and left from 1778 to 1792 in the sole charge of Mrs. Field, Charles and Mary's maternal grandmother. Charles, since he was born in 1775, would on his visits have known no power superior to his grandmother; but Mary, who was born in 1764, would have occasionally encountered Mrs. Plumer, just as Margaret Green met Mrs. Beresford. Probably Mrs. Plumer and Mrs. Beresford were very like. Probably also Mrs. Field maintained silence with her grandchild, for we know that neither she nor her daughter rightly understood Mary Lamb. Mrs. Field used to speak of her "poor moythered brains." Mary's description of the old house should be compared with Charles's in the Elia essays "Blakesmoor in H——shire" and "Dream-Children." In one point they are at variance; for Mary says that the twelve Cæsars "hung" round the hall, and her brother that they were life-size busts. I have the authority of a gentleman who remembers them at Gilston, whither they were removed, for saying that Charles Lamb's memory was the more accurate. The picture of the little girl with a lamb seems to have made an equal impression on both their minds; and both mention the shuttlecocks on the table.

Page 360. VI.—Emily Barton. "Visit to the Cousins."

By Mary Lamb. Possibly autobiographical in the matter of the first play. Charles Lamb's first play was the opera "Artaxerxes;" Mary's may quite well have been Congreve's "Mourning Bride." The book-shop at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard would be Harris's (late Newbery's); that in Skinner Street (No. 41) was, of course, Godwin's, where Mrs. Leicester's School was published and sold. This pleasant art of advertising one's wares in one's own children's books was brought to perfection by Newbery, and by Harris, his successor, whose tiny histories are full of reminders of the merits of the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. By making Mr. Barton hesitate between the two shops and then go to Mrs. Godwin's, Lamb (for here it was probably he and not his sister) carried the joke a step farther than Newbery.

The following account of the figures on old St. Dunstan's Church (the children of to-day are taken to Cheapside to see Bennett's clock) is given in Hughson's London (1805):—

On the outside of the church, within a niche and pediment at the south-west end, over the clock, are two figures of savages or wild men, carved in wood, and painted natural colour, as big as the life, standing erect, with each a knotty club in his hand, with which they alternately strike the quarters, not only their arms, but even their heads, moving at every blow.

Moxon tells us that when the old church was pulled down and the figures were removed, Lamb shed tears. The figures I am told still exist in the garden of the villa in Regent's Park—"St. Dunstan's"—that once belonged to the Marquis of Hertford and is now the Earl of Londesborough's London House.

Miss Pearson kept a toy-shop at No. 7 Fleet Street. The Lambs knew her through Charles's old schoolmistress, Mrs. Reynolds.

Page 368. VII.—Maria Howe. "The Witch Aunt."

By Charles Lamb. This story is peculiarly interesting to students of Lamb's life, for it describes, probably with absolute fidelity, his Aunt Hetty, and elaborates the passage concerning Stackhouse's New History of the Bible, which is to be found in the Elia essay "Witches and other Night Fears." Aunt Hetty is described elsewhere by Lamb in his Elia essays, "Christ's Hospital" and "My Relations;" and in the poem "Written on the Day of my Aunt's Funeral." In Mary Lamb's letter to Sarah Stoddart on September 21, 1803, is a short passage corroborative of Lamb's account of the relations subsisting between his aunt and his parents:—

My father had a sister lived with us—of course, lived with my Mother, her sister-in-law; they were, in their different ways, the best creatures in the world—but they set out wrong at first. They made each other miserable for full twenty years of their lives—my Mother was a perfect gentlewoman, my Aunty as unlike a gentlewoman as you can possibly imagine a good old woman to be; so that my dear Mother (who, though you do not know it, is always in my poor head and heart) used to distress and weary her with incessant and unceasing attention and politeness, to gain her affection. The old woman could not return this in kind, and did not know what to make of it—thought it all deceit, and used to hate my Mother with a bitter hatred; which, of course, was soon returned with interest.

Lamb told Coleridge, in a letter upon his aunt's death, "she was to me the 'cherisher of infancy.'"

In the Elia essay on "Witches" no mention is made of Glanvil; but there is a passage in the unpublished version of John Woodvil which mentions both it and Stackhouse:—

I can remember when a child the maids
Would place me on their lap, as they undrest me,
As silly women use, and tell me stories
Of Witches—Make me read "Glanvil on Witchcraft,"
And in conclusion show me in the Bible,
The old Family-Bible, with the pictures in it,
The 'graving of the Witch raising up Samuel,
Which so possest my fancy, being a child,
That nightly in my dreams an old Hag came
And sat upon my pillow.

That was written some eight or nine years earlier than "Maria Howe;" the essay on "Witches" some fifteen years later. Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) issued his Philosophical Considerations touching Witches and Witchcraft, in 1666.

Page 375. VIII.—Charlotte Wilmot. "The Merchant's Daughter."

By Mary Lamb.

Page 378. IX.—Susan Yates. "First Going to Church."

By Charles Lamb. John Lamb, the father, came from Lincolnshire, but Charles did not know that county at all. The remark, "to see how goodness thrived," may well have been John Lamb's, or possibly his father's; and Lamb's own first impressions of church, probably acquired at the Temple (which he mentions here by comparison), were, it is easy to believe, identical with the imaginary narrator's. Church bells seem always to have had an attraction for him: he has a pretty reference to them in John Woodvil, and a little poem in Blank Verse, 1798, entitled "The Sabbath Bells."

Page 384. X.—Arabella Hardy. "The Sea Voyage."

By Charles Lamb. Nothing else that Lamb wrote is quite so far from the ordinary run of his thoughts; and nothing has, I think, more charm.

* * * * *

Page 389. The King and Queen of Hearts This is probably the first of Charles Lamb's books for children. Of its history nothing is known: the proof that Charles Lamb wrote it is to be found in a letter from Lamb to Wordsworth, now in America, dated February 1, 1806, the concluding portion of which, and the only portion that has been printed—beginning "Apropos of Spenser"—will be found in most editions of the correspondence tacked on to the letter dated June, 1806. In the earlier part of this missive Lamb enumerates the books which he has just despatched to Wordsworth by carrier from London. Among these is an edition of Spenser, leading to the "apropos." Also: "there comes W. Hazlitt's book about Human Action for Coleridge; a little song book for Sarah Coleridge; a Box for Hartley …; a Paraphrase on The King and Queen of Hearts, of which I, being the author, beg Mr. Johnny Wordsworth's acceptance and opinion. Liberal Criticism, as G. Dyer declares, I am always ready to attend to."

As Charles Lamb is not known to have written children's books for any one but the Godwins, who in 1806 were still publishing under cover of Thomas Hodgkins' name, in Hanway Street, it is reasonable to assume that if a paraphrase of The King and Queen of Hearts nursery rhyme could be found, bearing Hodgkins' or Godwin's name, and dated 1805 or 1806, Lamb would be its author. That such a work did exist was proved by the advertisements at the end of other of Godwin's juvenile books. In the first edition of Mrs. Leicester's School, 1809, is this announcement:—

"Likewise, the following elegant and approved Publications, containing each of them the Incidents of an agreeable Tale, exhibited in a Series of Engravings, Price 1s. plain, or 1s. 6d. coloured.

"1. The King and Queen of Hearts: showing how notably the Queen made her Tarts, and how Scurvily the Knave stole them away. &c."

This series was called the Copperplate Series. In due course a copy of No. 1, The King and Queen of Hearts, was found in the library of Miss Edith Pollock, bought by her at the sale of the late Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, an authority upon old children's literature and the publisher to whose enterprise we owe the facsimile editions of Prince Dorus and Poetry for Children. Mr. Tuer, however, had not suspected Lamb's authorship. The cover of Miss Pollock's copy bears the date 1809, which means that the little book was re-bound as required with the date of the current year upon it. Copies of the first edition have since been discovered and sold for enormous sums. The date is 1806.

In a copy of The Looking Glass, another of Godwin's books, The King and Queen of Hearts is thus advertised, with a new quatrain, probably also from Lamb's pen:—

"Price 1s. Plain; or 15. 6ed. Coloured,
The King and Queen of Hearts,
With the
Rogueries of the Knave who stole away the Queen's Pies.
Illustrated in Fifteen elegant Engravings:
Agreeably to the famous Historical Ballad on the Subject.

"I write of Tarts; how sweet a tale!
You'll lick your lips to hear it told:
I show you mighty Kings and Queens,
Robes of scarlet, Crowns of gold."

This little book, The Looking Glass, which relates the early life of William Mulready (1786-1863), was issued in facsimile by Mr. F.G. Stephens in 1885, with an interesting account of its history. Therein Mr. Stephens wrote: "Mr. Linnell told me that the cuts to the once well-known Nongtong Paw [Vol. 6 of "The Copperplate Series;" see above], The Sullen Woman and the Pedlar [Vol. 2 of the same series], Think before you speak, and The King and Queen of Hearts, were designed by Mulready." We thus discover who was the illustrator. My own feeling is that the plates came first and Lamb's verses later.

The King and Queen of Hearts cannot be said to add anything characteristic to the body of Lamb's writings. But its discovery is historically valuable in establishing—by the date 1805 on the engraved title-page—the fact that before the Tales from Shakespear, which are usually thought to be the brother and sister's first experiment in writing for children, Charles at any rate had tried his hand at that pastime. The King and Queen of Hearts thus becomes his first juvenile work.

* * * * *

Page 404. POETRY FOR CHILDREN.

This little book, attributed on the title-page merely to the author of Mrs. Leicester's School, was published in two minute volumes at three shillings by Mrs. Godwin in 1809.

Robert Lloyd, writing from London to his wife in April, 1809, says of Charles and Mary Lamb: "If we may use the expression, their Union of affection is what we conceive of marriage in Heaven. They are the World one to the other. They are writing a Book of Poetry for children together." Later: "It is task work to them, they are writing for money, and a Book of Poetry for Children being likely to sell has induced them to compose one." Writing to Coleridge of the Poetry for Children, in June, 1809, Lamb says: "Our little poems are but humble, but they have no name. You must read them, remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents would not have found so many." Charles Lamb, by the way, was then thirty-four, and Mary Lamb forty-four. In sending the book to Manning, Lamb said that his own share of the poems was only one-third.

The little book seems to have been quickly allowed by its publisher to pass into the void. Possibly the two-volume form was found to be impracticable: at any rate Poetry for Children disappeared, many of its pieces at various times reappearing with the signature Mrs. Leicester in The Junior Class-Book (two pieces), in The First Book of Poetry (twenty-two pieces) and The Poetical Class Book (three pieces), all compiled by William Frederic Mylius, a Christ's Hospital master, and published by Mrs. Godwin. Hence the extreme rarity of Poetry for Children, which seemed to be completely lost until, in 1877, a copy was found in Australia. Two or three other copies of the English edition have since come to light. Mylius used also the frontispieces to the two volumes. As I have not seen all the editions of these compilations, it is possible that my figures may not be complete.

An American edition of Poetry for Children was published in 1812 at
Boston. The poems "Clock Striking," "Why not do it, Sir, To-day?" and
"Home Delights," were omitted.

I have placed against the poems, in the notes that follow, the authorship—brother or sister's—which seems to me the more probable. But I hope it will be understood that I do this at a venture, and, except in a few cases, with no exact knowledge.

Page 404. Envy.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 404. The Reaper's Child.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 405. The Ride.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 406. The Butterfly.

(?) Mary Lamb. The poet referred to was William Roscoe, author of The
Butterfly's Ball, 1807.

Page 407. The Peach.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 408. Chusing a Name.

By Charles Lamb; as we know from a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd.

Page 408. Crumbs to the Birds.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 409. The Rook and the Sparrows.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 410. Discontent and Quarrelling.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 411. Repentance and Reconciliation.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 412. Neatness in Apparel.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 412. The New-born Infant.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 413. Motes in the Sun-beams.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 413. The Boy and Snake.

(?) Mary Lamb. This poem was the subject of the frontispiece to Vol. I. of the original edition. According to a letter from Jean D. Montgomery printed in The County Gentleman in August, 1907, there is extant in Kirkcudbrightshire a legend on which this poem is probably based. She writes thus:—

"At the farm of Newlaw, in the parish of Rerrick, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, some people named Crosbie lived about the year 1782—at least, they had a son, Douglas, who was born there in that year. When the child grew old enough to trot about by himself his mother was in the habit of giving him his plate of porridge and milk to take outside the farm and eat every morning. He had probably done so for long enough, when one day, his mother, happening to go out, saw him seated on the ground eating his porridge in company with an adder, who, however, instead of hurting the child, merely supped up the milk. When the reptile edged a little nearer to the boy than was quite equal, Douglas slapped the adder on his head with his horn spoon, saying, "Keep yer ain side o' the plate, Grey Bairdie."

The mother was, of course, terrified, but waited until the boy had finished his meal, when she called in the neighbours and killed the adder.

Curiously enough a precisely similar story turned up in Hungary in 1907 and was telegraphed to the London press from Budapest.

Page 415. The First Tooth.

Mary Lamb. The last line was quoted by Lamb in his Popular Fallacy "That Home is Home": "It has been prettily said, that 'a babe is fed with milk and praise.'"

Page 416. To a River in which a Child was Drowned.

By Charles Lamb. It was reprinted by him in the Works, 1818, the text of which is here given. I imagine Lamb to have found the metre and manner of the poem in the ballad "Gentle River, Gentle River" (translated from the Spanish "Rio Verde, Rio Verde"), which is printed in the Percy Reliques. Reprinted by Mylius in The Junior Class-Book.

Page 416. The First of April.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 417. Cleanliness.

(?) Charles Lamb. In the little essay "Saturday Night," written in 1829, Lamb disputes the truth of the adage "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."

Page 418. The Lame Brother.

(?) Mary Lamb. John Lamb, Charles's elder brother, was lamed when a young man (much older than the brother in the verses) by a falling stone. In "Dream-Children" Lamb states that he himself was once lame-footed too, and had to be carried by John. Somewhere between the two brothers the historical truth of this poem probably resides.

Page 419. Going into Breeches.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 420. Nursing.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 421. The Text.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 422. The End of May.

Mary Lamb. Talfourd writes, apparently with reference to this poem: "One verse, which she did not print—the conclusion of a little poem supposed to be expressed in a letter by the son of a family who, when expecting the return of its father from sea, received news of his death,—recited by her to Mr. Martin Burney, and retained in his fond recollection, may afford a concluding example of the healthful wisdom of her lessons:—

'I can no longer feign to be
A thoughtless child in infancy;
I tried to write like young Marie,
But I am James her brother;
And I can feel—but she's too young—
Yet blessings on her prattling tongue,
She sweetly soothes my mother.'"

Page 424. Feigned Courage.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 425. The Broken Doll.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 426. The Duty of a Brother.

(?) Mary Lamb, amended by Charles Lamb.

Page 427. Wasps in a Garden.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 428. What is Fancy?

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 429. Anger.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 429. Blindness.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 430. The Mimic Harlequin.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 430. Written in the First Leaf of a Child's Memorandum Book.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 431. Memory.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 432. The Reproof.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 432. The Two Bees.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 434. The Journey from School and to School.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 435. The Orange.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 436. The Young Letter-writer.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 437. The Three Friends.

By Charles Lamb. Reprinted by him in his Works, 1818, with the text now given, which differs very slightly from that of 1809.

Page 442. On the Lord's Prayer.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 443. "Suffer little Children …"

(?) Mary Lamb. With this poem ended Vol. I. of the original edition of Poetry for Children. With the following poem Vol. II. began.

Page 445. The Magpye's Nest, or a Lesson of Docility.

(?) Mary Lamb. In this poem some trace of John Lamb senior's poetical manner may be seen. Fables drawn from bird life stand at the beginning of his Poetical Pieces on Several Occasions (see Vol. II.).

Page 447. The Boy and the Sky-lark.

(?) Charles Lamb. The frontispiece to Vol. II. of Poetry for
Children took its subject from this poem.

Page 449. The Men and Women, and the Monkeys.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 449. Love, Death, and Reputation.

(?) Charles Lamb. Mr. Swinburne contributed to The Athenæum of
February 2, 1878, a note on this poem:—

At the 96th page of the new edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's 'Poetry for Children' is a little poem of which the authorship can hardly be doubtful, done into rhyme from the blank verse of Webster; a translation by no means to its advantage. The original is to be found in the third act of the "Duchess of Malfi," in the magnificent scene where the privacy of the wedded lovers is invaded by Ferdinand; in whose mouth the apologue transferred or "conveyed" by Lamb into the quaint and delightful little book over the recovery of which all the hearts of his lovers are yet warm with rejoicing, has a tragic and terrible significance. It may be worth remark that the Poetry for Children appeared the year after that—most fortunate of years for all students of the higher English drama—which was made nobly memorable by the appearance of the matchless and priceless volume of 'Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who Lived about the Time of Shakespear,' in which the fratricide's apologue is translated at length; so that while some part of Lamb's too rare leisure was given to the gentle "task work" of making rhymes for little children, the first strong savour of a fierce delight in his new intimacy with the third and most tragic of English tragic poets must have been fresh and hot upon him.

Page 450. The Sparrow and the Hen.

(?) Charles Lamb. Mrs. Glasse would be Hannah Glasse, of The Art of
Cookery made Plain and Easy, 1747.

Page 451. Which is the Favourite?

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 451. The Beggar-Man.

By John Lamb, Charles and Mary's brother; as we know from a letter from Charles Lamb to Robert Lloyd.

Page 452. Choosing a Profession.

By Mary Lamb, as we know on the evidence of Robert Lloyd.

Page 453. Breakfast.

This also, on Robert Lloyd's evidence, is by Mary Lamb.

Page 454. Weeding.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 455. Parental Recollections.

(?) Charles Lamb. The first line was quoted by him in the Elia essay "The Old and the New Schoolmaster." The poem may be considered as the poetical correlative of the beautiful Elia essay "Dream-Children."

Page 455. The Two Boys.

By Mary Lamb. Quoted by Lamb, as by "a quaint poetess," in his Elia essay "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading."

Page 456. The Offer.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 456. The Sister's Expostulation on the Brother's Learning
Latin.

(?) Charles Lamb. Many years later Mary Lamb wrote a sonnet in Blackwood on a kindred subject, addressed to Emma Isola. Mary Lamb taught Latin to Mary Cowden Clarke (when Mary Victoria Novello) and to William Hazlitt's son, also to Miss Kelly.

Page 457. The Brother's Reply.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 459. Nurse Green.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 460. Good Temper.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 460. Moderation in Diet.

(?) Mary Lamb. The "splendid shilling" (borrowed from Phillips' parody of Milton) suggests a touch of Charles Lamb.

Page 462. Incorrect Speaking.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 462. Charity.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 463. My Birth-day.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 464. The Beasts in the Tower.

(?) Charles Lamb. There is a hint of Blake's "Tiger, tiger burning bright" (which Lamb so greatly admired) in—

That cat-like beast that to and fro
Restless as fire doth ever go.

Page 466. The Confidant.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 466. Thoughtless Cruelty.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 467. Eyes.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 468. Penny Pieces.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 469. The Rainbow.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 470. The Force of Habit.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 470. Clock Striking.

(?) Charles Lamb. The late R.H. Shepherd, in his edition of Lamb, remarks upon the resemblance between lines 10 and 11 and the couplet in "Hester"—

if 'twas not pride It was a joy to that allied—

as proving Charles Lamb to be the author.

Page 471. Why not do it, Sir, To-day?

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 471. Home Delights.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 472. The Coffee Slips.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 473. The Dessert.

(?) Charles Lamb.

Page 474. To a Young Lady, on being too fond of Music.

(?) Mary Lamb. Melesinda also was the name of the heroine in "Mr. H."

Page 475. Time spent in Dress.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 476. The Fairy.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 476. Conquest of Prejudice.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 478. The Great Grandfather.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 479. The Spartan Boy.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 480. Queen Oriana's Dream.

By Charles Lamb. Reprinted by him in his Works, 1818, the text of which is here given.

Page 481. On a Picture of the Finding of Moses, etc.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 483. David.

(?) Mary Lamb.

Page 486. David in the Cave of Adullam.

Reprinted by Lamb, with Mary Lamb's name to it, in the Works, 1818, the text of which is here given. This was the last poem in Poetry for Children.

* * * * *

Page 488, Summer Friends.

By Mary Lamb. This poem was sent by Robert Lloyd to his wife in April, 1809, as being one of the poems which Mary Lamb was writing for Poetry for Children. It was not, however, included in that collection.

Page 488. A Birth-day Thought.

This poem is printed by Mylius in his First Book of Poetry. In the edition of 1811 the initials M.L. are appended; in later editions, C.L. Hence it is included here. But we have no proof that M.L. stands for Mary Lamb, or C.L. for Charles Lamb; although the coincidence would be very striking if they did not.

Page 489. The Boy, the Mother, and the Butterfly.

These verses, which have not before been collected with Lamb's
writings, exist in an album which belonged probably to Thomas
Westwood, son of the Lambs' providers at Enfield. They are signed
Charles Lamb and dated October 9, 1827, at Enfield Chase.

* * * * *

Page 490. PRINCE DORUS, OR FLATTERY PUT OUT OF COUNTENANCE.

Apart from the internal evidence, which is very strong, I think, the only reason for attributing this tale to Charles Lamb is an entry in Crabb Robinson's diary for May 15, 1811: "A very pleasant call on Charles and Mary Lamb. Read his version of Prince Dorus, the Long-Nosed King." In his reminiscences of Lamb and others (in MS.) Robinson said, under 1811: "C. Lamb wrote this year for children a version of the Nursery Tale of Prince Dorus. I mention this, because it is not in his collected works and like two vols. of Poems for Children likely to be lost. I this year tried to persuade him to make a new version of the old Tale of Reynard the Fox. He said he was sure it would not succeed—sense for humour, said L., is extinct." What particular version of the story was used by Lamb we cannot tell, but in a little book called Adventures of Musul; or, The Three Gifts, printed for Vernor & Hood and E. Newbery in 1800, "The Prince that had a Long Nose" is one of the tales. Lamb's version does not call for annotation.