Page 25. Written on Christmas Day, 1797.
Mary Lamb, to whom these lines were addressed, after seeming to be on the road to perfect recovery, had suddenly had a relapse necessitating a return to confinement from the lodging in which her brother had placed her.
Page 25. The Old Familiar Faces.
This, the best known of all Lamb's poems, was written in January, 1798, following, it is suggested, upon a fit of resentment against Charles Lloyd. Writing to Coleridge in that month Lamb tells of that little difference, adding, "but he has forgiven me." Mr. J.A. Rutter, who, through Canon Ainger, enunciated this theory, thinks that Lloyd may be the "friend" of the fourth stanza, and Coleridge the "friend" of the sixth. The old—but untenable—supposition was that it was Coleridge whom Lamb had left abruptly. On the other hand it might possibly have been James White, especially as he was of a resolutely high-spirited disposition.
In its 1798 form the poem began with this stanza:—
Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?
I had a mother, but she died, and left me,
Died prematurely in a day of horrors—
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
And the last stanza began with the word "For," and italicised the words
And some are taken from me.
I am inclined to think from this italicisation that it was Mary Lamb's new seizure that was the real impulse of the poem.
The poem was dated January, 1798. Lamb printed it twice—in 1798 and 1818.