In The Examiner for December 20, 1818, after Leigh Hunt's criticism of Kenney's comedy "A Word for the Ladies" is the following paragraph. Leigh Hunt's criticism is signed: this is not, nor is it joined to the article. There is, I think, good reason to believe it to be Lamb's:—
"It was not without a feeling of pain, that we observed Miss Kelly among the spectators on the first night of the new comedy. What does she do before the curtain? She should have been on the stage. With such youth, such talents,—
Those powers of pleasing, with that will to please,
it is too much that she should be forgotten, discarded, laid aside like an old fashion. It really is not yet the season for her 'among the wastes of time to go.' Is it Mr. Stephen Kemble, or the Sub-Committee; or what heavy body is it, which interposes itself between us and this light of the stage?"
With these Eulogies of Miss Kelly is associated one of the most interesting days in Lamb's life, as the note on page 487 tells.
[Page 215.] I.—Mrs. Gould (Miss Burrell) in "Don Giovanni in London."
The Examiner, November 22, 1818. Signed †.
This criticism we know to be Lamb's upon Talfourd's testimony. He writes:—
Miss Burrell, a lady of more limited powers, but with a frank and noble style, was discovered by Lamb on one of the visits which he paid, on the invitation of his old friend Elliston, to the Olympic, where the lady performed the hero of that happy parody of Moncrieff's, "Giovanni in London." To her Lamb devoted a little article, which he sent to The Examiner