MATILDA BETHAM.

"I RETURN you by a careful hand the MSS.," wrote Charles Lamb to Matilda Betham. "Did I not ever love your verses? The domestic half will be a sweet heirloom to have in the family. 'Tis fragrant with cordiality. What friends you must have had or dreamed of having! and what a widow's cruse of heartiness you have doled among them!" "I remember," wrote Southey to the same in 1815," that I did not say half as much about your poem as I ought to have done; but this shall be made amends for in proper place, for I like it so much that it will give me very sincere pleasure to say how good it is