When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Hath struck a bliss upon the day, A bliss that will not go away, A sweet forewarning. [1] The most convincing evidence of Coleridge's powers is to be found in his Table Talk. It appears from it that he was ready to discuss (almost) any subject, and that he was capable of talking ably upon most, and cleverly upon all. CHAPTER IV. _(Migrations.)--"John Woodvil."--Blackesmoor.--Wordsworth.--Rickman.-- Godwin.--Visit to the Lakes.--Morning Post.--Hazlitt.--Nelson.--Ode to Tobacco.--Dramatic Specimens, &c.--Inner Temple Lane.--Reflector.--Hogarth and Sir J. Reynolds.--Leigh Hunt.--Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt.--Russell Street and Theatrical Friends._ It is not always easy to fix Charles Lamb's doings (writings or migrations) to any precise date. The year may generally be ascertained; but the day or month is often a matter of surmise only. Even the dates of the letters are often derived from the postmarks, or are sometimes conjectured from circumstances. [1] Occasionally the labors of a drama or of lyric poems traverse several years, and are not to be referred to any one definite period. Thus "John Woodvil" (his tragedy) was begun in 1799, printed in 1800, and submitted to Mr. Kemble (then manager of Drury Lane Theatre) in the Christmas of that year, but was not published until 1801. After this tragedy had been in Mr. Kemble's hands for about a year, Lamb naturally became urgent to hear his decision upon it. Upon applying for this he found that his play was--lost! This was at once acknowledged, and a "courteous request made for another copy, if I had one by me." Luckily, another copy existed. The "first runnings" of a genius were not, therefore, altogether lost, by having been cast, without a care, into the dusty limbo of the theatre. The other copy was at once supplied, and the play very speedily rejected. It was afterwards facetiously brought forward in one of the early numbers of the Edinburgh Review, and there noticed as a rude specimen of the earliest age of the drama, "older than AEschylus!"