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COMMENDATORY VERSES
Page 61. To the Author of Poems, published under the name of Barry
Cornwall.
Printed in the London Magazine, September, 1820.
Barry Cornwall was the pen-name of Bryan Waller Procter, 1787-1874, whose impulse to write poetry came largely from Lamb himself. In his Dramatic Scenes, 1819, was the beginning of a blank-verse treatment or adaptation of Lamb's "Rosamund Gray." Procter addressed to Lamb some excellent lines "Over a Flask of Sherris," which were printed in the London Magazine, 1825, and again in English Songs, 1832. His Martian Colonna; an Italian Tale, was published in 1820 and his Sicilian Story later in the same year. The "Dream" was printed in Dramatic Scenes. Procter in his old age wrote a charming memoir of Lamb.
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Page 62. To R.S. Knowles, Esq.
First printed in the London Magazine, September, 1820. By a curious oversight the error in Knowles's initials was repeated in the Album Verses, 1830, Knowles's first name being, of course, James. James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) had been a doctor, a schoolmaster, an actor, and a travelling elocutionist, before he took seriously to writing for the stage. His first really successful play was "Virginius," written for Edmund Kean, transferred to Macready, and produced in 1820. His greatest triumph was "The Hunchback," 1832. Lamb, who met Knowles through William Hazlitt, of Wem, the essayist's father, wrote both the prologue and epilogue for Knowles's play "The Wife," 1833 (see pages 146-7).
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Page 63. Quatrains to the Editor of the "Every-Day Book."