lines "Composed at Midnight" were
reprinted by him: on account, it may be assumed, of his wish not to
revive in his sister, who would naturally read all that he published,
any painful recollections. Not that she refused in after years to speak
of her mother, but Lamb was, I think, sensitive for her and for himself
and the family too. As a matter of fact the circumstances of Mrs. Lamb's
death were known only to a very few of the Lambs' friends until after
Charles' death. It must be remembered that when _Blank Verse_ was
originally published, in 1798, Mary Lamb was still living apart, nor was
it known that she, would ever be herself again.

It was this little volume which gave Gillray an opportunity for
introducing Lamb and Lloyd into his cartoon "The New Morality,"
published in the first number of _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_
(which succeeded Canning's _Anti-Jacobin_), August 1, 1798. Canning's
lines, "The New Morality," had been published in _The Anti-Jacobin_ on
July 9, 1798, containing the couplets:--

And ye five other wandering Bards that move
In sweet accord of harmony and love,
C----dge and S--th--y, L----d, and L----be and Co.,
Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux!

In the picture Gillray introduced "Coleridge" as a donkey offering a
volume of "Dactylics," and Southey as another donkey, flourishing a
volume of "Saphics." Behind them, seated side by side, poring over a
manuscript entitled "Blank Verse, by Toad and Frog," are a toad and frog
which the Key states to be Lloyd and Lamb. It was in reference to this
picture that Godwin, on first meeting Lamb, asked him, "Pray, Mr. Lamb,
are you toad or frog?"

Page 21. _To Charles Lloyd._

_The Monthly Magazine_, October, 1797. Signed.

Lamb sent these lines to Coleridge in September, 1797, remarking: "The
following I wrote when I had returned from Charles Lloyd, leaving him
behind at Burton, with Southey. To understand some of it you must
remember that at that time he was very much perplexed in mind." Lloyd
throughout his life was given to religious speculations which now and
then disturbed his mind to an alarming extent, affecting him not unlike
the gloomy forebodings and fears that beset Cowper. On this particular
occasion he was in difficulty also as to his engagement with Sophia
Pemberton, with whom he was meditating elopement and a Scotch marriage.

Page 21. _Written on the Day of my Aunt's Funeral._

"This a