A few years passed, not altogether without brightness, though much dimmed by the growing imbecility of the father, and the sickness and helplessness of the mother. In 1795 her father was pensioned by his kind old master, and the family removed into lodgings in Little Queen Street. The following year proved to the Lambs a disastrous one indeed. First Charles himself, from some immediate cause not very clear, became the victim of the fatal heritage. Mrs. Gilchrist suggests that it was the first and only love of which he was able to dream that "took deep hold of him, conspiring with the cares and trials of home life." Charles was, from whatever cause, for six weeks confined in an asylum. Writing to Coleridge, with whom he had kept up a constant intercourse, he says: "In your absence the tide of melancholy rushed in, and did its worst mischief by overwhelming my reason." It was during his confinement that, in one of his lucid intervals, he wrote the following sonnet to his sister:-- If from my lips some angry accents fell, Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, 'Twas the error of a sickly mind And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well, And waters clear of reason; and for me Let this my verse the poor atonement be-- My verse, which thou to praise wert ere inclined Too highly, and with a partial eye to see No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show Kindest affection; and would ofttimes lend An ear to the desponding love-sick lay, Weeping my sorrows with me, and repay But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend. It was in the month of September in that year, a little while after the return of Charles to his home, that there occurred therein the saddest of domestic tragedies. The constant and increasing helplessness of the father and mother had necessitated no small amount of care and nursing on the part of Mary; following which had come the temporary madness of her brother, who had been to her a tower of strength and consolation. Finally selfish John, who generally lived from home at his ease, having met with an accident, had come home to be nursed, to be a further burden upon his much suffering sister--the last straw to the patient back. The unevenly balanced brain at last gave way, reason tottered, and in a fit of frenzy, Mary Lamb, the kind-hearted young woman, the loving daughter, the devoted sister, became the instrument of her mother's death. The _Weekly Register_ contains the following account of the event:--