though I have heard you complain of a certain over-imitation of the
antique in the style. If I could see any way of getting rid of the
objection, without re-writing it entirely, I would make some sacrifices.
But when I wrote John Woodvil, I never proposed to myself any distinct
deviation from common English. I had been newly initiated in the
writings of our elder dramatists; Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger,
were then a _first love_; and from what I was so freshly conversant in,
what wonder if my language imperceptibly took a tinge? The very _time_,
which I have chosen for my story, that which immediately followed the
Restoration, seemed to require, in an English play, that the English
should be of rather an older cast, than that of the precise year in
which it happened to be written. I wish it had not some faults, which I
can less vindicate than the language.

I remain,
My dear Coleridge,
Your's,
With unabated esteem,
C. LAMB.




LAMB'S EARLIEST POEM

MILLE VIAE MORTIS

(1789)