left his native country, and left his poor children fatherless, and his
wife destitute:" _ex his disce his friends Lamb and Southey._ A scurrilous
libel of this stamp would now be rejected by all persons of good feeling
or good character. It would be spurned by a decent publication, or, if
published, would be consigned to the justice of a jury.

The little story of Rosamond Gray was wrought out of the artist's brain in
the year 1798, stimulated, as Lamb confesses, by the old ballad of "An old
woman clothed in gray," which he had been reading. It is defective as a
regular tale. It wants circumstance and probability, and is slenderly
provided with character. There is, moreover, no construction in the
narrative, and little or no progress in the events. Yet it is very
daintily told. The mind of the author wells out in the purest streams.
Having to deal with one foul incident, the tale is nevertheless without
speck or blemish. A virgin nymph, born of a lily, could not have unfolded
her thoughts more delicately. And, in spite of its improbability, Rosamond
Gray is very pathetic. It touches the sensitive points in young hearts;
and it was by no means without success--the author's first success. It
sold much better than his poems, and added "a few pounds" to his slender
income.

George Dyer, once a pupil in Christ's Hospital, possessing a good
reputation as a classical scholar, and who had preceded Lamb in the
school, about this time came into the circle of his familiars. Dyer was
one of the simplest and most inoffensive men in the world: in his heart
there existed nothing but what was altogether pure and unsophisticated. He
seemed never to have outgrown the innocence of childhood; or rather he
appeared to be without those germs or first principles of evil which
sometimes begin to show themselves even in childhood itself. He was not
only without any of the dark passions himself, but he would not perceive