_Mary Lamb had something of her brother’s gift of writing; it was she indeed to whom you owe many of the Tales of Shakespeare you are so fond of. They loved children, and they loved Shakespeare, and their stories from Shakespeare have been and are still read by boys and girls all the world over. They wrote, too, a whole collection of Poetry for Children, and here also Mary’s share was much greater than her brother’s. “Mine,” wrote Charles, “are but one-third in quantity of the whole.” ... “Perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old bachelor and an old maid. Many parents would not have found so many.” This collection of “Poetry for Children” in two small volumes, was so much liked by the children that all the copies were soon bought up, and Charles Lamb himself could not get a copy, when later in life he sought one far and wide. So rare is the book now that only one or two copies are known to exist, and even the British Museum does not possess these precious little volumes. A small selection of the poems are now once again offered to boys and girls: if this prove welcome, more will follow. They are simple little poems such as children should care for, and even grown-up people, for whom they were never intended, cherish every word written by Mary and Charles Lamb, because they know how much goodness and humility dwelt in their souls. If there were any wish to be learned and to explain how they came to write these verses, one would have to tell you something about other writers who were then living and writing, more especially about Lamb’s friend “S. T. C.,” who, together with an even greater poet, William Wordsworth, had published ten years before, in 1798, a small volume of simple English poems, which was destined to have the greatest influence on English poetry for long years to come. In that volume Wordsworth first printed the sweet little poem I am sure you know, called_ We Are Seven, _and Coleridge, “the inspired charity boy,” as Charles Lamb called him, gave the world the magical ballad of_ The Ancient Mariner. _One verse from this ballad ought to be printed on the title-page of this little book of poems by Mary and Charles Lamb:--_ _“He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.”_ _I. G._ [Illustration: CONTENTS] PAGE I. The First Tooth 11 II. The Boy and the Skylark--A Fable 14 III. The Rainbow 18 IV. Queen Oriana’s Dream 21 V. The Sister’s Expostulation on the Brother’s learning Latin 23