Again did brother and sister collaborate in the next of the children's books associated with the name of Lamb, and again Charles was responsible for but about a third of the whole. Of the ten tales in "Mrs. Leicester's School" he wrote but three. These stories, which are supposed to be told by young girls to their school-mates, are simple records of childish experiences recounted with childish naïveté. They met with some success during the lifetime of their authors—ten editions being disposed of in something under twenty years—and still hold their own, both as gift books for the young and as parts of that wonderfully varied, yet almost wholly delightful body of literature, associated with the name of Lamb. Here, as later in the "Essays of Elia," we have recollections of the actual events of their own childhood permeating the invented narratives and imparting a new interest to the whole. Coleridge prophesied remarkably about this little book, when in talking to a friend he said:
It at once soothes and amuses me to think—nay, to know—that the time will come when this little volume of my dear and well-nigh oldest friend, Mary Lamb, will be not only enjoyed but acknowledged as a rich jewel in the treasury of our permanent English literature; and I cannot help running over in my mind the long list of celebrated writers, astonishing geniuses, Novels, Romances, Poems, Histories, and dense Political Economy quartos, which, compared with "Mrs. Leicester's School," will be remembered as often and praised as highly as Wilkie's and Glover's Epics and Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophies compared with "Robinson Crusoe!"
In the "Adventures of Ulysses" Lamb sought to provide what he termed a supplement to Fénelon's long-popular "Adventures of Telemachus." He took the story from Chapman's translation of Homer's "Odyssey," that translation which a few years later was to inspire John Keats with one of his finest sonnets. In a preface, a model of concise expression, the author of the tale explained:
By avoiding the prolixity which marks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidity to the narration which I hope will make it more attractive, and give it more the air of a romance, to young readers; though I am sensible that, by the curtailment, I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interests of the story. The attempt is not to be considered as seeking a comparison with any of the direct translations of the "Odyssey," either in prose or verse; though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsolete version, I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slender degree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the present undertaking.
If Chapman's translation of Homer was "obsolete" in 1808, it was yet to be restored to the favour of readers, thanks to the loving homage of Lamb and Keats. "Chapman is divine," wrote the author of the "Adventures of Ulysses" to a friend, "and my abridgement has not quite emptied him of his divinity." In his story Lamb shows how he had recognized the moral value of the story of Ulysses, of "a brave man struggling with adversity," but wisely leaves that moral to be insensibly impressed upon the reader, for he not only refrained from formulating a definite "moral" in such a case, but has explicitly recorded his repugnance from the method.
VERSES
In "Poetry for Children" we have again a work for which brother and sister were jointly responsible, and again—though we cannot exactly allot the parts—Charles, as we learn from his letters, wrote but about one third of the whole. Three years after publication the two small volumes in which this work had been issued were out of print, though a number of the pieces were included by the publisher in a "Poetry Book" compilation. In 1827 Lamb wanted a copy and could not get it, indeed the little work had disappeared in the most complete fashion, and another half century was to pass before a copy was to be recovered, and then it came from Australia, closely followed by one of an American edition, "pirated" in 1812. It is strange that Charles and Mary Lamb, "an old bachelor and an old maid," as he put it, should have been so successful as caterers for children. That they were successful there is no doubt, and there is no reason why this "Poetry for Children" of theirs should not—now happily recovered in its entirety—go on pleasing and influencing many generations of young readers; that they do please the little ones of to-day I have readily proved. The verses are on the simplest themes, set forth in varied metres, but chiefly such metres as children can most readily remember, and though they are for the most part didactic, they are didactic in a way which the child does not resent. There is no telling a tale and then trying to enforce a moral from its consideration, but the moral is a natural part of the whole, and doubtless has its healthy effect.
"Prince Dorus" is a pleasant little story in easy verse, telling of a king who fell in love with a great Princess, but was in despair because his love was not requited:
"This to the King a courteous Fairy told
And bade the Monarch in his suit be bold;
For he that would the charming Princess wed,
Had only on her cat's black tail to tread,
When straight the Spell would vanish into air,
And he enjoy for life the yielding fair."
At length he succeeds in this seemingly simple exploit, and in place of the cat there springs up a huge man who foretells that when married the King shall have a son afflicted with a huge nose, a son who shall never be happy in his love: