A few months later, writing again to Moxon, he says:—­“I am heartily sorry my Devil does not answer.  We must try it a little longer; and, after all, I think I must insist on taking a portion of its loss upon myself.  It is too much that you should lose by two adventures.”

According to some reminiscences of Lamb by Mr. J. Fuller Russell, printed in Notes and Queries, April 1, 1882, Lamb suppressed “Satan in Search of a Wife,” for the reason that the Vicar of Enfield, Dr. Cresswell, also had married a tailor’s daughter, and might be hurt by the ballad.  The correspondence quoted above does not, I think, bear out Mr. Russell’s statement.  If the book were still being advertised in 1833, we can hardly believe that any consideration for the Vicar of Enfield would cause its suppression.  This gentleman had been at Enfield for several years, and Lamb would have either suppressed the book immediately or not at all; but possibly his wish to disassociate the name of Elia from the work was inspired by the coincidence.

The ballad does not call for much annotation.  The legend mentioned in the dedication tells how Cecilia, by her music, drew an angel from heaven, who brought her roses of Paradise.  The ballad of King Cophetua and the beggar maid may be read in the Percy Reliques.  Hecate is a triple deity, known as Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpine in hell.  In the reference to Milton I think Lamb must have been thinking of the lines, Paradise Lost, I., 27-28:—­

      Say first, for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view,
      Nor the deep tract of Hell....

or, Paradise Lost, V., 542:—­

      And so from Heav’n to deepest Hell.

Alecto (Part I., Stanza II.) was one of the Furies.—­Old Parr (Stanza IV.) lived to be 152; he died in 1635.—­Semiramis (Stanza XVII.) was Queen of Assyria, under whom Babylon became the most wonderful city in the world; Helen was Helen of Troy, the cause of the war between the Greeks and Trojans; Medea was the cruel lover of Jason, who recovered the Golden Fleece.—­Clytemnestra (Stanza XVIII.) was the wife and murderer of Agamemnon; Joan of Naples was Giovanna, the wife of Andrea of Hungary, who was accused of assassinating him.  Landor wrote a play, “Giovanna of Naples,” to “restore her fame” and “requite her wrongs;” Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt, and lover of Mark Antony; Jocasta married her son Oedipus unknowing who he was.—­A tailor’s “goose” (Stanza XXII.) is his smoothing-iron, and his “hell” (Stanza XXIII.) the place where he throws his shreds and debris.—­Lamb’s own “Vision of Horns” (see Vol.  I.) serves as a commentary on Stanza XXVII.; and in his essay “On the Melancholy of Tailors” (Vol.  I.) are further remarks on the connection between tailors and cabbage in Stanza I. of Part II.—­The two Miss Crockfords of Stanza XVIII. would be the daughters of William Crockford, of Crockford’s Club, who, after succeeding to his father’s business of