principal variation is this, after the curse:--

_Margaret_. A terrible curse!

_Old Steward_. O Lady! such bad things are said of that old woman,
You would be loth to hear them!
Namely, that the milk she gave was sour,
And the babe, who suck'd her, shrivell'd like a mandrake,
And things besides, with a bigger horror in them,
Almost, I think, unlawful to be told!

In the penultimate line "The mystery of God" was "Creation's beauteous
workmanship."

* * * * *

Page 202. "MR. H----."

Lamb composed this farce in the winter 1805-1806. Writing to Hazlitt on
February 19, 1806, he says: "Have taken a room at 3s. a week to be in
between 5 and 8 at night, to avoid my _nocturnal_ alias _knock-eternal_
visitors. The first-fruits of my retirement has been a farce which goes
to manager tomorrow." Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart at about the
same time, says: "Charles is gone [to the lodging] to finish the farce,
and I am to hear it read this night. I am so uneasy between my hopes and
fears of how I shall like it, that I do not know what I am doing." The
next day or so, February 21, she says that she liked the farce "very
much, and cannot help having great hopes of its success"--stating that
she has carried it to Mr. Wroughton at Drury Lane.

The reply came on June n, 1806, saying that the farce was accepted,
subject to a few alterations, and would be produced in due course (see
Lamb's letter to Wordsworth, written in "wantonness of triumph," of June
26). Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart, probably in October, 1806,
says that

Charles took an emendated copy of his farce to Mr. Wroughton, the
Manager, yesterday. Mr. Wroughton was very friendly to him, and
expressed high approbation of the farce; but there are two, he tells
him, to come out before it.... We are pretty well, and in fresh
hopes about this farce.

Lamb tells Manning about it, on December 5, adding after an outline of
the plot:--"That's the idea--how flat it is here--but how whimsical in
the farce!" Later he says: "I shall get L200 from the theatre if 'Mr.
H----' has a good run, and, I hope, L100 for the copyright. Nothing if
it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The whole depends
on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I value myself on,
as a _chef-d'oeuvre_." And a little later still: "N.B. If