“Very nearly being very good!” This is an author’s modest estimate. Readers there are who have found them so absolutely good that they leaven the whole heavy mass of album verse. Shall not a century of extortion on the one side and debility on the other be forgiven, because upon one blank page, the property of one thrice fortunate young woman, were written these lines, fragrant with imperishable sentiment:—
When he was young as you are young,
When he was young, and lutes were strung,
And love-lamps in the casement hung.
But when we turn to Lamb, and find him driving his pen along its unwilling way, and admitting ruefully that the road was hard, we see the reverse of the medal, and we resent that inexplicable sweetness of temper which left him defenceless before marauders.
My feeble Muse, that fain her best would
Write at command of Frances Westwood,
But feels her wits not in their best mood.
Why should Frances Westwood have commanded his services? Why should Frances Brown, “engaged to a Mr. White,” have wrung from him a dozen lines of what we should now call “copy”? She had no recognizable right to that copy; but Lamb confided to Mrs. Moxon that he had sent it to her at twenty-four hours’ notice, because she was going to be married and start with her husband for India. Also that he had forgotten what he had written, save only two lines:—
May your fame