ows is, with an omission and addition
here and there, that compiled by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell and
contributed by him to _The Athenaeum_, October 31 and November 14, 1891.
Mr. Campbell had the opportunity of collating the edition of 1802 with a
manuscript copy made by Lamb and his sister for Manning. With that
patient thoroughness and discrimination which made his work as an
editor so valuable, Mr. Campbell minutely examined this copy and put the
results on record; and they are now for the first time, by permission of
Mrs. Dykes Campbell and the Editor of _The Athenaum_, incorporated in an
edition of Lamb's writings. The copy itself, I may add, when it came
into the market, was secured by an American collector. Mr. Campbell's
words follow, my own interpolations being within square brackets.

Lamb's first allusion to the future _John Woodvil_ occurs in a letter to
Southey (October 29, 1798), at a time when the two young men were
exchanging a good many copies of verses for mutual criticism. "Not
having anything of my own," writes Lamb, "to send you in return (though,
to tell the truth, I am at work upon something which if I were to cut
away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two that might
not displease you: but I will not do that; and whether it will come to
anything I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter, when I
compose anything) I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old
Christopher Marlowe's." Lamb must soon have got rid of his objections to
cutting away and garbling, for before a month had elapsed he had sent
Southey two extracts, first the "Dying Lover" [see "Dramatic Fragment,"
page 85], and next (November 28) "The Witch" [see page 199], both of
which passages were excluded from the printed play. [The letter, which
is wrongly dated April 20, 1799, in some editions, concludes (of "The
Witch"): "This is the extract I bragged of as superior to that I sent
you from Marlowe: perhaps you will smile."]

Charles Lloyd shared with Southey the pains and pleasures of criticising
Lamb's verses, for Lamb asks the latter if he agrees with Lloyd in
disliking something in "The Witch."

[Thus: "Lloyd objects to 'shutting up the womb of his purse' in my curse
(which, for a Christian witch in a Christian country, is not too mild, I
hope). Do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as
well as 'shaking the poor little snakes from his door,' which suits the
speaker. Witches illustr