138 368
      Prologue to Godwin's Tragedy of "Faulkener" 140 369
      Epilogue to Henry Siddons' Farce, "Time's a Tell-Tale" 140 369
      Prologue to Coleridge's Tragedy of "Remorse" 142 369
      Epilogue to Kenney's Farce, "Debtor and Creditor" 143 371
      Epilogue to an Amateur Performance of "Richard II." 145 371
      Prologue to Sheridan Knowles' Comedy, "The Wife" 146 372
      Epilogue to Sheridan Knowles' Comedy, "The Wife" 147 372
    John Woodvil 149 372
    The Witch 199 392
    Mr. H——— 202 392
    The Pawnbroker's Daughter 238 397
    The Wife's Trial 273 —-
    Poems in the Notes:—
      Lines to Dorothy Wordsworth. By Mary Lamb 328
      Lines on Lamb's Want of Ear. By Mary Lamb 345
      A Lady's Sapphic. By Mary Lamb (?) 356
      An English Sapphic. By Charles Lamb (?) 357
      Two Epigrams. By Charles Lamb (?) 359
      The Poetical Cask. By Charles Lamb (?) 363

NOTES 307

INDEX 399

INDEX OF FIRST LINES 409

FRONTISPIECE

CHARLES LAMB (AGE 23)

From the Drawing by Robert Hancock, now in the National Portrait
Gallery.

DEDICATION (1818) TO S.T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

My Dear Coleridge,

You will smile to see the slender labors of your friend designated by the title of Works; but such was the wish of the gentlemen who have kindly undertaken the trouble of collecting them, and from their judgment could be no appeal.

It would be a kind of disloyalty to offer to any one but yourself a volume containing the early pieces, which were first published among your poems, and were fairly derivatives from you and them. My friend Lloyd and myself came into our first battle (authorship is a sort of warfare) under cover of the greater Ajax. How this association, which shall always be a dear and proud recollection to me, came to be broken, —who snapped the three-fold cord,—whether yourself (but I know that was not the case) grew ashamed of your former companions,—or whether (which is by much the more probable) some ungracious bookseller was author of the separation,—I cannot tell;—but wanting the support of your friendly elm, (I speak for myself,) my vine has, since that time, put forth few or no fruits; the sap (if ever it had any) has become, in a manner, dried up and extinct; and you will find your old associate, in his second volume, dwindled into prose and criticism.

Am I right in assuming this as the cause? or is it that, as years come upon us, (except with some more healthy-happy spirits,) Life itself loses much of its Poetry for us? we transcribe but what we read in the great volume of Nature; and, as the characters grow dim, we turn off, and look another way. You yourself write no Christabels, nor Ancient Mariners, now.

Some of the Sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances, which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct—the memory

Of summer days and of delightful years—

even so far back as to those old suppers at our old ****** Inn,—when life was fresh, and topics exhaustless,—and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness.—

            What words have I heard
            Spoke at the Mermaid!

The world has given you many a shrewd nip and gird since that time, but either my eyes are grown dimmer, or my old friend is the same, who stood before me three and twenty years ago—his hair a little confessing the hand of time, but still shrouding the same capacious brain,—his heart not altered, scarcely where it "alteration finds."

One piece, Coleridge, I have ventured to publish in its original form, though I have heard you complain of a certain over-imitation of the antique in the style. If I could see any way of getting rid of the objection, without re-writing it entirely, I would make some sacrifices. But when I wrote John Woodvil, I never proposed to myself any distinct deviation from common English. I had been newly initiated in the writings of our elder dramatists; Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, were then a first love; and from what I was so freshly conversant in, what wonder if my language imperceptibly took a tinge? The very time, which I have chosen for my story, that which immediately followed the Restoration, seemed to require, in an English play, that the English should be of rather an older cast, than that of the precise year in which it happened to be written. I wish it had not some faults, which I can less vindicate than the language.

I remain,
  My dear Coleridge,
    Your's,
      With unabated esteem,
        C. LAMB.

LAMB'S EARLIEST POEM

MILLE VIAE MORTIS

(1789)

        What time in bands of slumber all were laid,
        To Death's dark court, methought I was convey'd;
        In realms it lay far hid from mortal sight,
        And gloomy tapers scarce kept out the night.

        On ebon throne the King of Terrors sate;
        Around him stood the ministers of Fate;
        On fell destruction bent, the murth'rous band
        Waited attentively his high command.

        Here pallid Fear & dark Despair were seen.
        And Fever here with looks forever lean,
        Swoln Dropsy, halting Gout, profuse of woes,
        And Madness fierce & hopeless of repose,

        Wide-wasting Plague; but chief in honour stood
        More-wasting War, insatiable of blood;
        With starting eye-balls, eager for the word;
        Already brandish'd was the glitt'ring sword.

        Wonder and fear alike had fill'd my breast,
        And thus the grisly Monarch I addrest—

        "Of earth-born Heroes why should Poets sing,
        And thee neglect, neglect the greatest King?
        To thee ev'n Caesar's self was forc'd to yield
        The glories of Pharsalia's well-fought field."

        When, with a frown, "Vile caitiff, come not here,"
        Abrupt cried Death; "shall flatt'ry soothe my ear?"
        "Hence, or thou feel'st my dart!" the Monarch said.
        Wild terror seiz'd me, & the vision fled.

POEMS IN COLERIDGE'S POEMS ON