POETRY FOR CHILDREN, 1809. Lamb claimed about one-third of the book as his own. Mr. Lucas believes that Mrs. Godwin issued these verses to compete with the Taylors and Adelaide O’Keeffe. PRINCE DORUS OR FLATTERY PUT OUT OF COUNTENANCE, 1811. Robinson wrote: “I this year tried to persuade him [Lamb] to make a new version of the old Tale of Reynard the Fox. He said he was sure it would not succeed--sense for humour, said L., is extinct.” “Prince Dorus” was done instead. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 1811. Authorship doubtful. There is something keenly pathetic in noting the brother and sister at work in the interests of children, hoping to add to their yearly income--sitting down together and thinking out conceptions for their juvenile poems and stories. Mary Lamb reveals, by those smaller elements in her prose, a keener discernment of what a child’s book should be; she is far more successful than her brother in entering into the spirit of the little lives she writes about, while Lamb himself is happiest in his touches where he is handling the literary subjects.[39] But on the whole, Lamb’s style was not suited to the making of children’s books. We see them, while writing the Shakespeare Tales, seated at one table, “an old literary Darby and Joan,” Mary tells Sarah Stoddart, “I taking snuff and he groaning all the while, and saying he can make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he finds out he has made something of it....” Mrs. Godwin doubtless conceived her system of advertising direct from Newbery; in the story of “Emily Barton,” which forms part of “Mrs. Leicester’s School,” Mary Lamb tells how Emily’s papa ordered the coachman to drive to the Juvenile Library in Skinner street [No. 41], where seven books were bought, “and the lady in the shop persuaded him to take more, but mamma said that was quite enough at present.” By this, the Lambs indicated a willingness to accord with any business suggestions which might further the interests of the Godwins; nevertheless, they were not so bound that they could not act independently. And, in view of the fact that Lamb disliked Mrs. Godwin, there was a certain graciousness revealed in the concessions they did make from time to time. Elia was to discover that Godwin had his eye alert for any unnecessary element of cruelty which might creep into their books for children. When the publishers were given the manuscript of “Ulysses,” Godwin wrote a letter to Lamb, on March 10, 1808, which, with the answer, is worth quoting, since the attitude is one to be considered by all writers and by all library custodians. DEAR LAMB: I address you with all humility, because I know you to be _tenax propositi_. Hear me, I entreat you, with patience.