this volume, and
"Estimate of Defoe's Secondary Novels" (Vol. I.). Writing to Walter
Wilson on November 15, 1829, on the receipt of his memoirs of Defoe,
Lamb exclaims: "De Foe was always my darling."

Page 140. _Epilogue to "Time's a Tell-Tale."_

A play by Henry Siddons (1774-1815), Mrs. Siddons' eldest son. It was
produced in 1807 at Drury Lane, with Lamb's prologue, which was,
however, received so badly that on the second night another was
substituted for it.

* * * * *

Page 142. _Prologue to "Remorse."_

Coleridge's tragedy "Remorse," a recasting of his "Osorio" (written at
Sheridan's instigation in 1797), was produced with success on January
23, 1813; and was printed, with the prologue, in the same year. Lamb's
prologue, "spoken by Mr. Carr," was (according to Mr. Dykes Campbell) a
recasting of some verses composed for the prize offered by the Drury
Lane Committee in the previous year, 1812, in response to their
advertisement for a suitable poem to be read at the reopening of the new
building after the fire of 1809. It was, of course, this competition
which brought forth the _Rejected Addresses_ (1812) of the brothers
James and Horace Smith.

The prologue as printed is very different from that which was spoken at
the theatre by Mr. Carr. A writer in the _Theatrical Inquisitor_ for
February, 1813, in his contemptuous criticism, refers to several
passages that are no longer extant. I quote from an account of the
matter by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell in the _Illustrated London News_,
October 22, 1892:--

I am afraid the true text of Lamb's "Rejected Address," even as
modified for use as a prologue, has not come down to us. This is how the
severe and suspicious _Inquisitor_ describes it and its twin brother the
epilogue--

The Prologue and Epilogue were among the most stupid productions of the
modern muse; the former was, in all probability, a Rejected Address, for
it contained many eulogiums on the beauty and magnificence of the "dome"
of Drury; talked of the waves being not quite dry, and expressed the
happiness of the bard at being the first whose muse had soared within
its limits. More stupid than the doggerel of Twiss, and more affected
than the pretty verses of Miles Peter Andrews, the Epilogue proclaimed
its author and the writer of the Prologue to be par nobile fratrum, in
rival dulness both pre-eminent.

The reader of Lamb's prologue will find little of all t