You will smile to see the slender labours 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 * Prefixed to the Author's works published in 1818. 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 had 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, Yours, With unabated esteem, C. LAMB. THE THREE FRIENDS. THREE young maids in friendship met; If the first excell'd in feature, Th' other's grace and ease were greater; In their best gifts equall'd both. A most constant friendship proving, Fortune upon each one smiled, As upon a fav'rite child; Well to do and well to see Were the parents of all three; Till on Martha's father crosses Brought a flood of worldly losses, And his fortunes rich and great Changed at once to low estate; Under which o'erwhelming blow Martha's mother was laid low; She a hapless orphan left, Of maternal care bereft, Trouble following trouble fast, Lay in a sick bed at last. In the depth of her affliction Martha now receiv'd conviction, That a true and faithful friend Can the surest comfort lend. Night and day, with friendship tried, Ever constant by her side Was her gentle Mary found, With a love that knew no bound; And the solace she imparted Saved her dying broken-hearted. In this scene of earthly things Not one good unmixèd springs. That which had to Martha proved A sweet consolation, moved Different feelings of regret In the mind of Margaret. She, whose love was not less dear, Nor affection less sincere To her friend, was, by occasion Martha's heart should steal away. That whole heart she ill could spare her, Mary, who had quick suspicion Less demanded now her presence, Truth explain'd is to suspicion Evermore the best physician. Soon her visits had the effect; All that Margaret did suspect, From her fancy vanish'd clean; She was soon what she had been, And the colour she did lack To her faded cheek came back. Wounds which love had made her feel, Love alone had power to heal. Martha, who the frequent visit Now had lost, and sore did miss it, With impatience waxed cross, Counted Margaret's gain her loss: All that Mary did confer On her friend, thought due to her. Whether Mary was sincere; |