it, but being dressed in new clothes
for the marriage, she runs up to her mother's chamber, filled with
the idea how happy that dear mother would be at seeing her in all
her glory--not reflecting, poor soul! that it was only by her
mother's death that she appeared in it. How natural, how novel is
all this! Did you ever imagine that a fresh source of the pathetic
would burst forth before us in this trodden and hardened world? I
never did, and when I found myself upon it, I pressed my temples
with both hands, and tears ran down to my elbows.

And Coleridge remarked to Allsop:--

It at once soothes and amuses me to think--nay, to know--that
the time will come when this little volume of my dear and
well-nigh oldest friend, Mary Lamb, will be not only enjoyed but
acknowledged as a rich jewel in the treasury of our permanent
English literature; and I cannot help running over in my mind the
long list of celebrated writers, astonishing geniuses, Novels,
Romances, Poems, Histories and dense Political Economy quartos
which, compared with _Mrs. Leicester's School_, will be remembered
as often and prized as highly as Wilkie's and Glover's _Epics_ and
Lord Bolingbroke's _Philosophies_ compared with _Robinson Crusoe_.

I have set up the book from the second edition, 1809, because the
Lambs' final text is probably to be found there. Although certain
additional minor differences were made in the eighth and ninth
editions, 1821 and 1825, I think it very unlikely that they were
made by Mary or Charles Lamb. The principal alteration between the
second and first editions is page 317, line 6, "your eyes were red
with weeping," for "The traces of tears might still be seen on your
cheeks." The other differences are very slight, mostly being in
punctuation, but there are also a few changes of word. I leave these,
however, to the Bibliographer.

The eighth edition was furnished with the following preface; which,
though it is signed "The Author," is not, I think, from either Mary or
Charles Lamb's pen. I rather suspect Mrs. Godwin.

"Tell me a story, Mamma," was almost the first request my own
child made me when she understood the meaning of a story, and
I soon discovered I had no easier method of managing a very
difficult temper than by adapting my stories to the errors she
committed, or the good qualities she announced; but as I found it
a ve