is sentence in the letter to
Manning of February 15, 1801:--"I lately received from Wordsworth a copy
of the second volume [of the _Lyrical Ballads_] accompanied by an
acknowledgment of having received from me _many months since_ a copy of
a certain Tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment
sooner."

Lamb's reply to Wordsworth (January 30, 1801) is so very dry--"Thank you
for Liking my Play!!"--that we may suppose that Wordsworth's expression
of "liking" was not very enthusiastic.

Things become clearer when we reach November 3, 1800, on which day Lamb
thus addressed Manning (I quote verbatim from the original letter):--"At
last I have written to Kemble to know the event of my play, which was
presented last Christmas. As I suspected, came an answer back that the
copy was lost ... with a courteous (reasonable!) request of another copy
(if I had one by me), and a promise of a definite answer in a week. I
could not resist so facile and moderate demand: so scribbled out
another, omitting sundry things, such as the witch story, about half the
forest scene (which is too leisurely for _story_), and transposing that
damn'd soliloquy about England getting drunk, which like its reciter
stupidly stood alone nothing prevenient, or antevenient, and cleared
away a good deal besides ... I sent it last night, and am in weekly
expectation of the Tolling Bell and death warrant."

It will be observed that that second copy sent to Kemble must have
differed essentially from the one sent to Manning, for the latter
includes the witch story, and retains in its original place the
soliloquy about England getting drunk.

To this copy sent to Manning we now come in chronological order, but the
exact date of its despatch must remain uncertain. Clearly it was
subsequent, but probably not long subsequent, to Kemble's rejection of
the play, which took place soon after All Souls' Day, for Kemble must
have made up his mind within half an hour of taking up the manuscript. I
venture to assume that the argosy which bore all the treasures recounted
in the following bill of lading sailed about Christmas, 1800. It is sad
to think that the bill of lading itself and the MS. of "Pride's Cure"
are the only salvage.

"I send you all of Coleridge's letters to me which I have preserved;
some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's
two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious
critique on 'Pride's