Charles Lloyd left Coleridge early in 1797, and was in the winter 1797-1798 living in London, sharing lodgings with James White (Lamb’s friend and the author of Original Letters, etc., of Sir John Falstaff, 1796).  It was then that the joint production of this volume was entered upon.  Of the seven poems contributed by Lamb only “The Old Familiar Faces” (shorn of one stanza) and the lines “Composed at Midnight” were reprinted by him:  on account, it may be assumed, of his wish not to revive in his sister, who would naturally read all that he published, any painful recollections.  Not that she refused in after years to speak of her mother, but Lamb was, I think, sensitive for her and for himself and the family too.  As a matter of fact the circumstances of Mrs. Lamb’s death were known only to a very few of the Lambs’ friends until after Charles’ death.  It must be remembered that when Blank Verse was originally published, in 1798, Mary Lamb was still living apart, nor was it known that she, would ever be herself again.

It was this little volume which gave Gillray an opportunity for introducing Lamb and Lloyd into his cartoon “The New Morality,” published in the first number of The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine (which succeeded Canning’s Anti-Jacobin), August 1, 1798.  Canning’s lines, “The New Morality,” had been published in The Anti-Jacobin on July 9, 1798, containing the couplets:—­

      And ye five other wandering Bards that move
      In sweet accord of harmony and love,
      C——­dge and S—­th—­y, L——­d, and L——­be and Co.,
      Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux!

In the picture Gillray introduced “Coleridge” as a donkey offering a volume of “Dactylics,” and Southey as another donkey, flourishing a volume of “Saphics.”  Behind them, seated side by side, poring over a manuscript entitled “Blank Verse, by Toad and Frog,” are a toad and frog which the Key states to be Lloyd and Lamb.  It was in reference to this picture that Godwin, on first meeting Lamb, asked him, “Pray, Mr. Lamb, are you toad or frog?”

Page 21. To Charles Lloyd.

The Monthly Magazine, October, 1797.  Signed.

Lamb sent these lines to Coleridge in September, 1797, remarking:  “The following I wrote when I had returned from Charles Lloyd, leaving him behind at Burton, with Southey.  To understand some of it you must remember that at that time he was very much perplexed in mind.”  Lloyd throughout his life was given to religious speculations which now and then disturbed his mind to an alarming extent, affecting him not unlike the gloomy forebodings and fears that beset Cowper.  On this particular occasion he was in difficulty also as to his engagement with Sophia Pemberton, with whom he was meditating elopement and a Scotch marriage.

Page 21. Written on the Day of my Aunt’s Funeral.