think she would not turn away from
me.

"Oftentimes a feeling, more vivid than memory, brings her before me--I
see her sit in her old elbow chair--her arms folded upon her lap--a tear
upon her cheek, that seems to upbraid her unkind daughter for some
inattention--I wipe it away and kiss her honored lips.

"Maria! when I have been fancying all this, Allan will come in, with his
poor eyes red with weeping, and taking me by the hand, destroy the
vision in a moment.

"I am prating to you, my sweet cousin, but it is the prattle of the
heart, which Maria loves. Besides, whom have I to talk to of these
things but you--you have been my counsellor in times past, my companion,
and sweet familiar friend. Bear with me a little--I mourn the
'cherishers of my infancy.'"

* * * * *

Page 25. _Written on Christmas Day, 1797_.

Mary Lamb, to whom these lines were addressed, after seeming to be on
the road to perfect recovery, had suddenly had a relapse necessitating a
return to confinement from the lodging in which her brother had placed
her.

Page 25. _The Old Familiar Faces_.

This, the best known of all Lamb's poems, was written in January, 1798,
following, it is suggested, upon a fit of resentment against Charles
Lloyd. Writing to Coleridge in that month Lamb tells of that little
difference, adding, "but he has forgiven me." Mr. J.A. Rutter, who,
through Canon Ainger, enunciated this theory, thinks that Lloyd may be
the "friend" of the fourth stanza, and Coleridge the "friend" of the
sixth. The old--but untenable--supposition was that it was Coleridge
whom Lamb had left abruptly. On the other hand it might possibly have
been James White, especially as he was of a resolutely high-spirited
disposition.

In its 1798 form the poem began with this stanza:--

Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?
I had a mother, but she died, and left me,
Died prematurely in a day of horrors--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

And the last stanza began with the word "For," and italicised the words

_And some are taken from me_.

I am inclined to think from this italicisation that it was Mary Lamb's
new seizure that was the real impulse of the poem.

The poem was dated January, 1798. Lamb printed it twice--in 1798 and
1818.

* * * * *

Page 26. _Composed at Midnight_.

On the appearance of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, Leigh Hun