ate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar
objects, and snakes and the shutting up of wombs are in their way. I
don't know that this last charge has been before brought against 'em nor
either the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things
a witch would do if she could."]

Lamb proposes also to adopt an emendation of Southey's in the "Dying
Lover"--"though I do not feel the objection against 'Silent Prayer,'"
and in the event he did very sensibly stick to his own opinion, for in
the _London Magazine_ the line runs, as first written:--

He put a silent prayer up for the bride.

One wonders what harm Southey can have seen in it. At this time Southey
was collecting verses for the first volume of his _Annual Anthology_
(provisionally called the _Kalendar_), and inviting contributions from
Lamb. In writing before November 28, 1798, "This ['The Witch'] and the
'Dying Lover' I gave you are the only extracts I can give without
mutilation," Lamb may have meant that Southey was at liberty to print
them in the _Anthology_. A year later, October 31, 1799, when the second
volume was in preparation, Lamb wrote:--"I shall have nothing to
communicate, I fear, to the _Anthology_. You shall have some fragments
of my play if you desire them; but I think I would rather print it
whole."

As a matter of fact, Lamb contributed nothing to the collection except
the lines "Living without God in the World," printed in the first volume
[see page 19. To _Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History,_ etc.,
1801, edited by Dr. James Anderson, a friend of George Dyer, Lamb,
however, sent "Description of a Forest Life," "The General Lover" (What
is it you love?) and the "Dying Lover," called "Fragment in Dialogue."
There are slight differences in the text, the chief alteration being in
line 3 of the "Description of a Forest Life":--

Bursting the lubbar bonds of sleep that bound him.]

Reverting to the letter of November 28, one learns Lamb's intentions as
to the play:--"My Tragedy will be a medley (as I intend it to be a
medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places
rhyme, songs, wit, pathos, humour, and, if possible, sublimity; at least
it is not a fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of
these discordant atoms. Heaven send they dance not the 'Dance of
Death'!"

The composition went on slowly and in a very casual way, for on January
21, 1799, he writes again to Southey:--"I