Lamb, Gutch tells us, subsequently asked for the book again, with the intention of preparing from it the present essay on Wither, and coming then upon Nott's criticisms of himself, superimposed sarcastic criticisms of Nott. Thus the volumes contain first Wither, then Gutch and Lamb on Wither, then Nott on Wither and Lamb, and then Lamb on Nott again and incidentally on Wither again, too, for some of his earlier opinions were slightly modified.
Lamb gave the volume to his friend John Brook Pulham of the East India House, and the treasure passed to the fitting possession of the late Mr. Swinburne, who described it in a paper in the Nineteenth Century for January, 1885, afterwards republished in his Miscellanies, 1886. Mr. Swinburne permitted me to quote from his very entertaining analysis:—
The second fly-leaf of the first volume bears the inscription, "Jas Pulham Esqr. from Charles Lamb." A proof impression of the well-known profile sketch of Lamb by Pulham has been inserted between this and the preceding fly-leaf. The same place is occupied in the second volume by the original pencil drawing, to which is attached an engraving of it "Scratched on Copper by his Friend Brook Pulham;" and on the fly-leaf following is a second inscription—"James Pulham Esq. from his friend Chas Lamb." On the reverse of the leaf inscribed with these names in the first volume begins the commentary afterwards republished, with slight alterations and transpositions, as an essay "on the poetical works of George Wither...."
After the quotation from Drayton, with which the printed essay concludes, the manuscript proceeds thus:—
"The whole poem, for the delicacy of the thoughts, and height of the passion, is equal to the best of Spenser's, Daniel's or Drayton's love verses; with the advantage of comprising in a whole all the fine things which lie scatter'd in their works, in sonnets, and smaller addresses—The happy chearful spirit of the author goes with it all the way; that sanguine temperament, which gives to all Wither's lines (in his most loved metre especially, where chiefly he is a Poet) an elasticity, like a dancing measure; it [is] as full of joy, and confidence, and high and happy thoughts, as if it were his own Epithalamium which, like Spenser, he were singing, and not a piece of perambulary, probationary flattery...."[67]
[67] Lamb subsequently altered the conclusion of this paragraph to: "as if, like Spenser, he were singing his own Epithalamium, and not a strain of probationary courtship."
On page 70 Lamb has proposed a new reading which speaks for itself—"Jove's endeared Ganimed," for the meaningless "endured" of the text before him. Against a couplet now made famous by his enthusiastic citation of it—
"Thoughts too deep to be expressed
And too strong to be suppressed—"
he has written—"Two eminently beautiful lines." Opposite the couplet in which Wither mentions the poets
"whose verse set forth
Rosalind and Stella's worth"