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 them in others. He looked only on the sunshine. Hazlitt, speaking of him in his "Conversation of Authors," says, "He lives amongst the old authors, if he does not enter much into their spirit. He handles the covers, and turns over the pages, and is familiar with the names and dates. He is busy and self-involved. He hangs like a film and cobweb upon letters, or is like the dust upon the outside of knowledge, which should not too rudely be brushed aside. He follows learning as its shadow, but as such he is respectable. He browses on the husks and leaves of books." And Lamb says, "The gods, by denying him the very faculty of discrimination, have effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom."