The burial-register of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in which church-yard Lamb's father, mother and aunt Hetty were buried, shows that the father survived his wife's tragic death nearly three years instead of only a few months as Talfourd, and others following him, have supposed. It is a date of some interest because not till then did brother and sister begin together their life of "double singleness" and entire mutual devotion. Also, in sifting the letters for facts and dates, I find that Lamb lived in Chapel Street, Pentonville not, as Talfourd and Proctor thought, a few months, but three years, removing thither almost immediately after the mother's death. It is a trifle, yet not without interest to the lovers of Lamb, for these were the years in which he met in his daily walks, and loved but never accosted, the beautiful Quakeress "Hester," whose memory is enshrined in the poem beginning "When Maidens such as Hester die."
CHAPTER I. PAGE Parentage and Childhood. 1
CHAPTER II. Birth of Charles.--Coleridge.--Domestic Toils and Trials.--Their Tragic Culmination.--Letters to and from Coleridge. 18
CHAPTER III. Death of Aunt Hetty.--Mary removed from the Asylum.--Charles Lloyd.--A Visit to Nether Stowey, and Introduction to Wordsworth and his Sister.--Anniversary of the Mother's Death.--Mary ill again.--Estrangement between Lamb and Coleridge.--Speedy Reconcilement. 36
CHAPTER IV. Death of the Father.--Mary comes Home to live.--A Removal.--First Verses.--A Literary Tea-Party.--Another Move.--Friends increase. 55
CHAPTER V. Personal Appearance and Manners.--Health.--Influence of Mary's Illnesses upon her Brother. 64
CHAPTER VI. Visit to Coleridge at Greta Hall.--Wordsworth and his Sister in London.--Letters to Miss Stoddart.--Coleridge goes to Malta.--Letter to Dorothy Wordsworth on the Death of her Brother John. 81
CHAPTER VII. Mary in the Asylum again.--Lamb's Letter with a Poem of hers.--Her slow Recovery.--Letters to Sarah Stoddart.--The _Tales from Shakespeare_ begun.--Hazlitt's Portrait of Lamb.--Sarah's Lovers.--The Farce of _Mr. H._ 99
CHAPTER VIII. The _Tales from Shakespeare_.--Letters to Sarah Stoddart. 118
CHAPTER IX. Correspondence with Sarah Stoddart.--Hazlitt.--A Courtship and Wedding at which Mary is Bridesmaid. 129