any kind of publicity after the
unhappy publicity which she had once gained by her misfortune.

* * * * *

Page 240. THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.

Lamb must have been as busy in the years 1806-1808 as in any of his
life; for he then not only had his India House work, but wrote his
share of the _Tales from Shakespear_, _Mrs. Leicester's School_ and
_Poetry for Children_, wrote all of _The Adventures of Ulysses_, and
finally prepared his _Dramatic Specimens_. Moreover in 1806 he had the
harassment of the alterations and impending production of "Mr. H."

On February 26, 1808, he tells Manning that he has just finished _The
Adventures of Ulysses_ and the _Specimens_, describing _The Adventures
of Ulysses_ as "intended to be an introduction to the reading of
Telemachus! it is done out of the Odyssey, not from the Greek. I
would not mislead you: nor yet from Pope's Odyssey, but from an older
translation of one Chapman. The 'Shakspeare Tales' suggested the doing
it." Many years after Lamb wrote to Barton (August 10, 1827): "Did
you ever read my 'Adventures of Ulysses,' founded on Chapman's old
translation of it? for children or _men_. Ch. is divine, and my
abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity."

Chapman's _Homer_ was the folio which Leigh Hunt tells us he once saw
Lamb kiss.

Writing to Coleridge on October 23, 1802, Lamb says:--

"I have just finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it?--it
has most the continuous power of interesting you all along, like a
rapid original, of any; and in the uncommon excellence of the more
finished parts goes beyond Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is
fourteen syllables, and capable of all sweetness and grandeur.
Cowper's ponderous blank verse detains you every step with some
heavy Miltonism; Chapman gallops off with you his own free
pace....

"I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my
next. I am much interested in him."

A brief correspondence which passed between Godwin and Lamb just
before the publication of _The Adventures of Ulysses_ may be given
here.

WILLIAM GODWIN TO CHARLES LAMB

Skinner Street, _March_ 10, 1808.

Dear Lamb,--I address you with all humility, because I know you to
be _tenax propositi_. Hear me, I entreat you, with patience.

It is strange with what different feelings an author and
a bookseller looks at the same manuscript.