ng for and nursing his sister Mary,
which then devolved upon Charles, put an end to any dreams of private
happiness that he may have been indulging; and his little romance was
over. How deep his passion was we are not likely ever to know; but Lamb
thenceforward made very light of it, except in the pensive recollections
in the essays twenty-five years later. In November, 1796, when sending
Coleridge poems for his second edition, he says: "Do not entitle any of
my _things_ Love Sonnets, as I told you to call 'em; 'twill only make me
look little in my own eyes; for it is a passion of which I retain
nothing.... Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even a review
of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me...." Again, in November,
1796, in another letter to Coleridge, about his poems in the 1797
edition, Lamb says: "Oh, my friend! I think sometimes, could I recall
the days that are past, which among them should I choose? not those
'merrier days,' not the 'pleasant days of hope,' not 'those wanderings
with a fair-hair'd maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly
regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her
_school-boy_." Lamb printed this sonnet three times--in 1796, 1797 and
1818.

* * * * *

Page 5. _Methinks how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd._

When this sonnet was printed by Coleridge in 1796 the sestet
was made to run thus:--

But ah! sweet scenes of fancied bliss, adieu!
On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers
I all too long have lost the dreamy hours!
Beseems it now the sterner Muse to woo,
If haply she her golden meed impart,
To realise the vision of the heart.

Lamb remonstrated: "I had rather have seen what I wrote myself, though
they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines--

"On rose-leaf'd beds, amid your faery bowers, etc.

I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my Own
feelings at different times." This sonnet was printed by Lamb three
times--in 1796, 1797 and 1798.

Page 5. _O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind,_

This sonnet, written probably at Margate, was entitled, in 1796,
"Written at Midnight, by the Seaside, after a Voyage." The last
lines then ran:--

And almost wish'd it were no crime to die!
How Reason reel'd! What gloomy transports rose!
Till the rude dashings rock'd them to repose.

The couplet was Coleridge's, and Lamb pr