Yet ever when he smiled,
              There was a mystery legible in his face,
              That whoso saw him said he was a man
              Not long for this world.——­
              And true it was, for even then
              The silent love was feeding at his heart
              Of which he died: 
              Nor ever spake word of reproach,
              Only he wish’d in death that his remains[36]
              Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far
              From his mistress’ family vault, “being the place
              Where one day Anna should herself be laid.”

(So far in the Magazine.)

[Footnote 32:  “With” (London Magazine).]

[Footnote 33:  “In festive bravery deck’d” (London Magazine).]

[Footnote 34:  This line erased in MS. and nothing substituted.  In the London Magazine this took its place:—­“For so his moving lip interpreted.”]

[Footnote 35:  “Death” (London Magazine).]

[Footnote 36:  Lamb drew his pen through the four concluding lines, and wrote in the margin “very bad.”]

Simon.  A melancholy catastrophe.  For my part I shall never die for love, being as I am, too general-contemplative for the narrow passion.  I am in some sort a general lover.

Margaret.  In the name of the Boy-god who plays at blind man’s buff with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches; what is it you love?

And so on until the end of Simon’s famous description of the delights of forest life [page 173].  To this

Margaret (smiling).  And afterwards them paint in simile.

(To Sir Walter.) I had some foolish questions to put concerning your son, Sir.—­Was John so early valiant as hath been reported?  I have heard some legends of him.

Sir Walter.  You shall not call them so.  Report, in most things superfluous, in many things altogether an inventress, hath been but too modest in the delivery of John’s true stories.

Margaret.  Proceed, Sir.

Sir Walter.  I saw him on the day of Naseby Fight—­
              To which he came at twice seven years,
              Under the discipline of the Lord Ashley,
              His uncle by the mother’s side,
              Who gave his early principles a bent
              Quite from the politics of his father’s house.

Margaret.  I have heard so much.

Sir Walter.  There did I see this valiant Lamb of Mars,
              This sprig of honour, this unbearded John,
              This veteran in green years, this sprout, this Woodvil,
              With dreadless ease, guiding a fire-hot steed
              Which seem’d to scorn the manage of a boy,
              Prick forth with such an ease into the field
              To