est avowed appearance as an author was in Coleridge's first
volume of poems, published by Cottle, of Bristol, in 1796. "The
effusions signed C.L.," says Coleridge in the preface, "were written by
Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House. Independently of the signature,
their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them." The
"effusions" were four sonnets, two of them--the most noteworthy--
touching upon the one love-romance of Lamb's life, [9]--his early
attachment to the "fair-haired" Hertfordshire girl, the "Anna" of the
Sonnets, the "Alice W---n" of the Essays. We remember that Ella in
describing the gallery of old family portraits, in the essay,
"Blakesmoor in H---shire," dwells upon "that beauty with the cool, blue,
pastoral drapery, and a lamb, that hung next the great bay window, with
the bright yellow Hertfordshire hair, _so like my Alice_."

In 1797 Cottle issued a second edition of Coleridge's poems, this time
with eleven additional pieces by Lamb,--making fifteen of his in
all,--and containing verses by their friend Charles Lloyd. "It is
unlikely," observes Canon Ainger, "that this little venture brought any
profit to its authors, or that a subsequent volume of blank verse by
Lamb and Lloyd in the following year proved more remunerative." In 1798
Lamb, anxious for his sister's sake to add to his slender income,
composed his "miniature romance," as Talfourd calls it, "Rosamund Gray;"
and this little volume, which has not yet lost its charm, proved a
moderate success. Shelley, writing from Italy to Leigh Hunt in 1819,
said of it: "What a lovely thing is his 'Rosamund Gray'! How much
knowledge of the sweetest and deepest part of our nature in it! When I
think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things
of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself
if I had not higher objects in view than fame?"

It is rather unpleasant, in view of this generous--if overstrained--
tribute, to find the object of it referring later to the works of his
encomiast as "thin sown with profit or delight." [10]

In 1802 Lamb published in a small duodecimo his blank-verse tragedy,
"John Woodvil,"--it had previously been declined by John Kemble as
unsuited to the stage,--and in 1806 was produced at the Drury Lane
Theatre his farce "Mr. H.," the summary failure of which is chronicled
with much humor in the Letters. [11]

The "Tales from Shakspeare," by Charles and Mary Lamb, were pu