friendship.

It is clear that Lamb's judgment was at this time becoming independent. In
one of his letters to Coleridge, when comparing his friend's merits with
those of Southey, he says, "Southey has no pretensions to vie with you in
the sublime of poetry, but he tells a plain story better." Even to Southey
he is equally candid. Writing to him on the subject of a volume of poems
which he had lately published, he remarks, "The Rose is the only insipid
poem in the volume; it has neither thorns nor sweetness."

In 1798 or 1799, Lamb contributed to the Annual Anthology (which Mr.
Cottle, a bookseller of Bristol, published), jointly with Coleridge and
Southey. In 1800 he was introduced by Coleridge to Godwin. It is clear
that Charles's intimacy with Coleridge, and Southey, and Lloyd, was not
productive of unmitigated pleasure. For the "Antijacobin" made its
appearance about this time, and denounced them all in a manner which in
the present day would itself be denounced as infamous. Some of these
gentlemen (Lamb's friends), in common with many others, augured at first
favorably of the actors in the great French Revolution, and this had
excited much displeasure in the Tory ranks. Accordingly they were
represented as being guilty of blasphemy and slander, and as being adorers
of a certain French revolutionist, named Lepaux, of whom Lamb, at all
events, was entirely ignorant. They wore, moreover, the subject of a
caricature by Gilray, in which Lamb and Lloyd were portrayed as toad and
frog. I cannot think, with Sir T. Talfourd, that all these libels were
excusable, on the ground of the "sportive wit" of the offending parties.
Lamb's writings had no reference whatever to political subjects; they
were, on the contrary, as the first writings of a young man generally are,
serious,--even religious. Referring to Coleridge, it is stated that he
"was dishonored at Cambridge for preaching Deism, and that he had since