“To think [Lamb wrote to Barton, on February 17, 1823, of Sara Coleridge] that she should have had to toil thro’ five octavos of that cursed (I forget I write to a Quaker) Abbey pony History, and then to abridge them to 3, and all for L113.  At her years, to be doing stupid Jesuits’ Latin into English, when she should be reading or writing Romances.”  Sara Coleridge’s romance-writing came later, in 1837, when her fairy tale, Phantasmion, appeared.

In its original form this sonnet in its fifth line ran thus:—­

      (In new tasks hardest still the first appears).

Derwent Coleridge read the sonnet in 1853 in Mrs. Moxon’s album, and copying it out, sent it to his wife, saying that he wished Sissy (his daughter Christabel) to get it by heart.  He added this note:  “Charles Lamb having discovered that this Sonnet consisted but of thirteen lines, Miss Lamb inserted the 5th, which interrupts the flow and repeats a rhime.”  Derwent Coleridge goes on to suggest two alternative lines:—­

      And hope may surely chase desponding fears

or

      Let hope encouraged chase desponding fears.

Lamb, however, had already amended the fifth line (as in Blackwood’s Magazine) to—­

       To young beginnings natural are these fears.

Page 93. Lines addressed to Lieut.  R.W.H.  Hardy, R.N.

First printed in The Athenaeum, January 10, 1846, contributed by an anonymous correspondent (probably Thomas Westwood the Younger) who sent also “The First Leaf of Spring” (page 105). Travels in the Interior of Mexico in 1825 ... 1828, by Robert William Hale Hardy, was published in 1829.  Lamb made an exception in favour of Hardy’s book.  Writing to Dilke for something to read from The Athenaum office, in 1833, he particularly desired that “no natural history or useful learning, such as Pyramids, Catacombs, Giraffes, or Adventures in Southern Africa” might be sent.

* * * * *

Page 94. Lines for a Monument....

First printed in The Athenaeum, November 5, 1831, and again in The Tatler, Hunt’s paper, December 31, 1831.  In August, 1830, four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg, of York, were drowned in the Ouse.  Several literary persons were asked for inscriptions for the monument, erected at York in 1831, and that by James Montgomery, of Sheffield, was chosen.  Lamb sent his verses to Vincent Novello, through whom he seems to have been approached in the matter, on November 8, 1830, adding:  “Will these lines do?  I despair of better.  Poor Mary is in a deplorable state here at Enfield.”

Page 94. To C. Aders, Esq.

First printed in Hone’s Year Book (March 19), 1831 (see note to “Angel
Help,” above).

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Page 95. Hercules Pacificatus.