s reference:--

----An eye
That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why.
"Rosamund's Epistle."

But, of course, he misquotes both line and title--though Southey would
feel flattered in finding that his friend's memory had done so well. As
the editors have not annotated the passage, I will say here that Lamb
should have quoted

The modest eye
That met the glance, or turn'd, it knew not why.
"Rosamund to Henry."

The poem is one of those in the now scarce volume which Southey and
Lovel published jointly at Bath in 1795, _Poems: containing "The
Retrospect."_ [It was this forest passage which, as Hazlitt tells us in
his _Spirit of the Age_, so puzzled Godwin. After looking in vain
through the old dramatists for it, he applied to Lamb himself.]

[Footnote 31: Sir Jacob Astley(?), but he too was ennobled _after_
Naseby.]

By the end of October the play had evidently been completed (though not
yet named), for on the 31st Southey was asked, "Have you seen it, or
shall I lend you a copy? I want your opinion of it." None is recorded
here, but more than two years later, when Southey was in London, he gave
it to Danvers (_Letters of R.S._, II., 184): "Lamb and his sister see us
often: he is printing his play, which will please you by the exquisite
beauty of its poetry, and provoke you by the exquisite silliness of its
story."

The play must have been baptised as "Pride's Cure" soon after
Hallowe'en, for at Christmas it was submitted under that title to
Kemble, and about the same time (December 28, 1799) we find Lamb
defending the title (with the vehemence and subtlety of a doubter, as I
read) against the adverse criticism of Manning and Mrs. Charles Lloyd.
Lamb had lately been on a visit to these friends at Cambridge, and had
doubtless taken a copy of his play with him and received their
objections there and then--for his defence does not seem to have been
provoked by a letter. [In a letter to Charles Lloyd that has come to
light since Mr. Dykes Campbell wrote, belonging to middle December,
1799, Lamb asks for his play to be returned to him, suggesting that Mrs.
Lloyd shall despatch it. It was probably in the letter that accompanied
the parcel that the criticism of the title was found. Lamb thus defended
it:--"By-the-bye, I think you and Sophia both in