Chapter 2

is these gifted minds that enliven our habitations, and contribute so largely to those _every-day_ delights, which constitute, after all, the chief part of mortal happiness. Such minds are ever active--their light, like the vestal lamp, is ever burning--and in my opinion the man who refines the common intercourse of life, and wreaths the altars of our household gods with flowers, is more deserving of respect and gratitude than all the sages who waste their lives in elaborate speculations, which tend to nothing, and which _we_ cannot comprehend--nor they neither.

On June 2, however, "J.C.H." intervened to correct what he considered the "dangerous spirit" of Lamb's essay, which said so little of the hardships of the sweeps, but rather suggested that they were a happy class. J.C.H. then put the case of the unhappy sweep with some eloquence, urging upon all householders the claims of the mechanical sweeping machine.

* * * * *

Page 130. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS.

_London Magazine_, June, 1822.

The origin of this essay was the activity at that time of the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity, founded in 1818, of which a Mr. W.H. Bodkin was the Hon. Secretary. The Society's motto was "Benefacta male collocata, malefacta existima;" and it attempted much the same work now performed by the Charity Organisation Society. Perhaps the delight expressed in its annual reports in the exposure of impostors was a shade too hearty--at any rate one can see therein cause sufficient for Lamb's counter-blast. Lamb was not the only critic of Mr. Bodkin's zeal. Hood, in the _Odes and Addresses_, published in 1825, included a remonstrance to Mr. Bodkin.

The Society's activity led to a special commission of the House of Commons in 1821 to inquire into the laws relating to vagrants, concerning which Lamb speaks, the clergyman alluded to being Dr. Henry Butts Owen, of Highgate. The result of the commission was an additional stringency, brought about by Mr. George Chetwynd's bill.

It was this essay, says Hood, which led to his acquaintance with Charles Lamb. After its appearance in the _London Magazine_, of which Hood was then sub-editor, he wrote Lamb a letter on coarse paper purporting to come from a grateful beggar; Lamb did not admit the discovery of the perpetrator of the joke, but soon afterwards Lamb called on Hood when he was ill, and a friendship followed to which we owe Hood's charming recollections of Lamb--among the best that were written of him by any one.

Page 131, line 14. _The Blind Beggar_. The reference is to the ballad of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The version in the _Percy Reliques_ relates the adventures of Henry, Earl of Leicester, the son of Simon de Montfort, who was blinded at the battle of Evesham and left for dead, and thereafter begged his way with his pretty Bessee. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb had written "Earl of Flanders," which he altered to "Earl of Cornwall" in _Elia_. The ballad says Earl of Leicester.

Page 131, line 28. _Dear Margaret Newcastle_. One of Lamb's recurring themes of praise (see "The Two Races of Men," "Mackery End in Hertfordshire," and "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading"). "Romancical," according to the _New English Dictionary_, is Lamb's own word. This is the only reference given for it.

Page 133, line 7. _Spital sermons_. On Monday of Easter week it was the custom for the Christ's Hospital boys to walk in procession to the Royal Exchange, and on Tuesday to the Mansion House; on each occasion returning with the Lord Mayor to hear a special sermon--a spital sermon, as it was called--and an anthem. The sermon is now preached only on Easter Tuesday.

Page 133, line 24. _Overseers of St. L----_. Lamb's Key states that both the overseers and the mild rector were inventions. In the _London Magazine_ the rector's parish is "P----."

Page 133, line 27. _Vincent Bourne_. See Lamb's essay on Vincent Bourne, Vol. I. This poem was translated by Lamb himself, and was first published in _The Indicator_ for May 3, 1820. See Vol. IV. for Lamb's other translations from Bourne.

Page 135, line 2. _A well-known figure_. This beggar I take to be Samuel Horsey. He is stated to have been known as the King of the Beggars, and a very prominent figure in London. His mutilation is ascribed to the falling of a piece of timber in Bow Lane, Cheapside, some nineteen years before; but it may have been, as Lamb says, in the Gordon Riots of 1780.

There is the figure of Horsey on his little carriage, with several other of the more notable beggars of the day plying their calling, in an etching of old houses at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, made by J.T. Smith in 1789 for his _Ancient Topography of London_, 1815. I give it in my large edition.

Page 137, end of essay. _Feigned or not._ In the _London Magazine_ the essay did not end here. It continued thus:--

"'Pray God your honour relieve me,' said a poor beadswoman to my friend L---- one day; 'I have seen better days.' 'So have I, my good woman,' retorted he, looking up at the welkin which was just then threatening a storm--and the jest (he will have it) was as good to the beggar as a tester.

"It was at all events kinder than consigning her to the stocks, or the parish beadle--

"But L. has a way of viewing things in rather a paradoxical light on some occasions.

"ELIA.

"P.S.--My friend Hume (not MP.) has a curious manuscript in his possession, the original draught of the celebrated 'Beggar's Petition' (who cannot say by heart the 'Beggar's Petition?') as it was written by some school usher (as I remember) with corrections interlined from the pen of Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen of the doctor's improvement, I recollect one most judicious alteration--

"_A pamper'd menial drove me from the door._

"It stood originally--

"_A livery servant drove me, &c._

"Here is an instance of poetical or artificial language properly substituted for the phrase of common conversation; against Wordsworth.

"I think I must get H. to send it to the LONDON, as a corollary to the foregoing."

The foregoing passage needs some commentary. Lamb's friend L---- was Lamb himself. He tells the story to Manning in the letter of January 2,1810.--Lamb's friend Hume was Joseph Hume of the victualling office, Somerset House, to whom letters from Lamb will be found in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900. Hume translated _The Inferno_ of Dante into blank verse, 1812.--The "Beggar's Petition," a stock piece for infant recitation a hundred years ago, was a poem beginning thus:--

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.

In the reference to Wordsworth Lamb pokes fun at the statement, in his friend's preface to the second edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, that the purpose of that book was to relate or describe incidents and situations from common life as far as possible in a selection of language really used by men.

Lamb's _P.S._ concerning the "Beggar's Petition" was followed in the _London Magazine_ by this _N.B._:--

"N.B. I am glad to see JANUS veering about to the old quarter. I feared he had been rust-bound.

"C. being asked why he did not like Gold's 'London' as well as ours--it was in poor S.'s time--replied--

"_--Because there is no WEATHERCOCK And that's the reason why._"

The explanation of this note is that "Janus Weathercock"--one of the pseudonyms of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright--after a long absence from its pages, had sent to the previous month's _London Magazine_, May, 1822, an amusing letter of criticism of that periodical, commenting on some of its regular contributors. Therein he said: "Clap Elia on the back for such a series of good behaviour."--Who C. is cannot be said; possibly Lamb, as a joke, intends Coleridge to be indicated; but poor S. would be John Scott, the first editor of the _London Magazine_, who was killed in a duel. C.'s reply consisted of the last lines of Wordsworth's "Anecdote for Fathers; or, Falsehood Corrected." Accurately they run:--

At Kelve there was no weather-cock And that's the reason why.

The hero of this poem was a son of Lamb's friend Basil Montagu.

Gold's _London Magazine_ was a contemporary of the better known London magazine of the same name. In Vol. III. appeared an article entitled "The Literary Ovation," describing an imaginary dinner-party given by Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock & Joy in February, 1821, at which Lamb was supposed to be present and to sing a song by Webster, one of his old dramatists. Mr. Bertram Dobell conjectures that Wainewright may have written this squib.

* * * * *

Page 137. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG.

_London Magazine_, September, 1822.

There has been some discussion as to the origin of the central idea of this essay. A resemblance is found in a passage in _The Turkish Spy_, where, after describing the annual burnt-offering of a bull by the Athenians, _The Spy_ continues:--

In process of time a certain priest, in the midst of his bloody sacrifice, taking up a piece of the broiled flesh which had fallen from the altar on the ground, and burning his fingers therewith, suddenly clapt them to his mouth to mitigate the pain. But, when he had once tasted the sweetness of the fat, not only longed for more of it, but gave a piece to his assistant; and he to others; who, all pleased with the new-found dainties, fell to eating of flesh greedily. And hence this species of gluttony was taught to other mortals.

"Este," a contributor to _Notes and Queries_, June 21, 1884, wrote:--

A quarto volume of forty-six pages, once in "Charles Lamb's library" (according to a pencilled note in the volume) is before me, entitled: _Gli Elogi del Porco, Capitoli Berneschi di Tigrinto Bistonio P.A., E. Accademico Ducale de' Dissonanti di Modena. In Modena per gli Eredi di Bartolmeo Soliani Stampatori Ducali MDCCLXI. Con Licenza de' Superiori_, [wherein] some former owner of the volume has copied out Lamb's prose with many exact verbal resemblances from the poem.

It has also been suggested that Porphyry's tract on _Abstinence from Animal Food_, translated by William Taylor, bears a likeness to the passage. Taylor's translation, however, was not published till 1823, some time after Lamb's essay.

These parallels merely go to show that the idea was a commonplace; at the same time it is not Lamb, but Manning, who told him the story, that must declare its origin. Not only in the essay, but in a letter to Barton in March, 1823, does Lamb express his indebtedness to his traveller friend. Allsop, indeed, in his _Letters of Coleridge_, claims to give the Chinese story which Manning lent to Lamb and which produced the "Dissertation." It runs thus:--

A child, in the early ages, was left alone by its mother in a house in which was a pig. A fire took place; the child escaped, the pig was burned. The child scratched and pottered among the ashes for its pig, which at last it found. All the provisions being burnt, the child was very hungry, and not yet having any artificial aids, such as golden ewers and damask napkins, began to lick or suck its fingers to free them from the ashes. A piece of fat adhered to one of his thumbs, which, being very savoury alike in taste and odour, he rightly judged to belong to the pig. Liking it much, he took it to his mother, just then appearing, who also tasted it, and both agreed that it was better than fruit or vegetables.

They rebuilt the house, and the woman, after the fashion of good wives, who, says the chronicle, are now very scarce, put a pig into it, and was about to set it on fire, when an old man, one whom observation and reflection had made a philosopher, suggested that a pile of wood would do as well. (This must have been the father of economists.) The next pig was killed before it was roasted, and thus

"From low beginnings, We date our winnings."

Manning, by the way, contributed articles on Chinese jests to the _New Monthly Magazine_ in 1826.

A preliminary sketch of the second portion of this essay will be found in the letter to Coleridge dated March 9, 1822. See also the letters to Mr. and Mrs. Bruton, January 6, 1823, to Mrs. Collier, November 2, 1824, and to H. Dodwell, October 7, 1827, all in acknowledgment of pigs sent to Lamb probably from an impulse found in this essay.

Later, Lamb abandoned the extreme position here taken. In the little essay entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," 1833 (see Vol. I.), he says: "Time was, when Elia ... preferred to all a roasted pig. But he disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in future."

Page 141, verse. "Ere sin could blight ..." From Coleridge's "Epitaph on an Infant."

Page 142, line 7 from foot. _My good old aunt_. Probably Aunt Hetty. See the essay on "Christ's Hospital," for another story of her. The phrase, "Over London Bridge," unless an invention, suggests that before this aunt went to live with the Lambs--probably not until they left the Temple in 1792--she was living on the Surrey side. But it was possibly an Elian mystification. Lamb had another aunt, but of her we know nothing.

Page 143, line 11 from foot. _St. Omer's_. The French Jesuit College. Lamb, it is unnecessary to say, was never there.

* * * * *

Page 144. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE.

This is, by many years, the earliest of these essays. It was printed first in _The Reflector_, No. IV., in 1811 or 1812. When Lamb brought his _Works_ together, in 1818, he omitted it. In September, 1822, it appeared in the _London Magazine_ as one of the reprints of Lamb's earlier writings, of which the "Confessions of a Drunkard" (see Vol. I.)was the first. In that number also appeared the "Dissertation upon Roast Pig," thereby offering the reader an opportunity of comparing Lamb's style in 1811 with his riper and richer style of 1822. The germ of the essay must have been long in Lamb's mind, for we find him writing to Hazlitt in 1805 concerning Mrs. Rickman: "A good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with as a bachelor."

Page 147, line 6. "_Love me, love my dog_." See "Popular Fallacies," page 302, for an expansion of this paragraph.

* * * * *

Page 150. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS.

In February, 1822, Lamb began a series of three articles in the _London Magazine_ on "The Old Actors." The second was printed in April and the third in October of the same year. Afterwards, in reprinting them in _Elia_, he rearranged them into the essays, "On Some of the Old Actors," "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "On the Acting of Munden," omitting a considerable portion altogether. The essay in its original tripart form will be found in the Appendix to this volume.

In one of his theatrical notices in _The Examiner_ (see Vol. I.) Lamb remarks, "Defunct merit comes out upon us strangely," and certain critics believe that he praised some of the old actors beyond their deserts. But no one can regret any such excesses.

Page 150, beginning. _Twelfth Night_. When recalling early playgoing days in "Old China," Lamb refers again to this play--Viola in Illyria.

Page 150, foot. _Whitfield, Packer, Benson, Burton, Phillimore_ and _Barrymore_. Whitfield, who made his London début as Trueman in "George Barnwell" about 1776, was a useful man at Covent Garden and Drury Lane.--John Hayman Packer (1730-1806), known in Lamb's time for his old men. He acted at Drury Lane until 1805.--Benson, who married a sister of Mrs. Stephen Kemble, wrote one or two plays, and was a good substitute in emergencies. He committed suicide during brain fever in 1796.--Burton was a creditable utility actor at Covent Garden and Drury Lane.--Phillimore filled small parts at Drury Lane.--Barrymore was of higher quality, a favourite character actor both at Drury Lane and the Haymarket.

Page 151, line 6. _Mrs. Jordan_. Mrs. Jordan, born in 1762, ceased to act in England in 1814 and died in 1816. Nell was her famous part, in Coffey's "The Devil to Pay." Miss Hoyden is in Vanbrugh's "Relapse." Lamb is referring to Viola in Act I., Scene 5, and Act II., Scene 4, of "Twelfth Night."

Page 151, line 8 from foot. _Mrs. Powel_. Mrs. Powel, previously known as Mrs. Farmer, and afterwards Mrs. Renaud, was at Drury Lane from 1788 to 1811. She ended her London career in 1816 and died in 1829.

Page 152, line 8. _Of all the actors_. The _London Magazine_ article began at this point. Robert Bensley (1738?-1817?) was at Drury Lane from 1775 to 1796, when he retired (alternating it with the Haymarket). G.H. Boaden and George Colman both bear out Lamb's eulogy of Bensley as Malvolio; but otherwise he is not the subject of much praise.

Page 152, line 15. _Venetian incendiary_. Pierre in Otway's "Venice Preserved." Lamb appended the passage in a footnote in the _London Magazine_.

Page 153, line 12. _Baddeley ... Parsons ... John Kemble_. Robert Baddeley (1733-1794), the husband of Mrs. Baddeley, and the original Moses in the "School for Scandal." William Parsons (1736-1795), the original Crabtree in the "School for Scandal," and a favourite actor of Lamb's. John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), who managed Drury Lane from 1788 to 1801.

Page 153, line 11 from foot. _Of birth and feeling_. In the _London Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316).

Page 153, line 6 from foot. _Length of service_. In the _London Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316).

Page 154, line 24. _House of misrule_. A long passage came here in the _London Magazine_ (see page 317).

Page 154, line 8 from foot. _Hero of La Mancha_. Compare a similar analysis of Don Quixote's character on page 264.

Page 155, line 23. _Dodd_. James William Dodd (1740?-1796).

Page 155, line 24. _Lovegrove_. William Lovegrove (1778-1816), famous in old comedy parts and as Peter Fidget in "The Boarding House."

Page 155, foot. _The gardens of Gray's Inn._ These gardens are said to have been laid out under the supervision of Bacon, who retained his chambers in the Inn until his death. As Dodd died in 1796 and Lamb wrote in 1822, it would be fully twenty-six years and perhaps more since Lamb met him.

Page 156, lines 26-29. _Foppington, etc._ Foppington in Vanbrugh's "Relapse," Tattle in Congreve's "Love for Love," Backbite in Sheridan's "School for Scandal," Acres in "The Rivals" by the same author, and Fribble in Garrick's "Miss in her Teens."

Page 157, line 13. _If few can remember._ The praise of Suett that follows is interpolated here from the third part of Lamb's original essay (see page 332). Richard Suett, who had been a Westminster chorister (not St. Paul's), left the stage in June, 1805, and died in July.

Page 157, footnote, _Jem White_. See note above.

Page 158, line 22. _His friend Mathews._ Charles Mathews (1776-1835), whom Lamb knew.

Page 159, line 1. _Jack Bannister._ John Bannister retired from the stage in 1815. He died in 1836.

Page 159, line 7. _Children in the Wood._ Morton's play, of which Lamb was so fond. It is mentioned again in "Barbara S----" and "Old China."

Page 159, line 19. _The elder Palmer._ The first part of the essay is here resumed again. The elder Palmer was John Palmer, who died on the stage, in 1798, when playing in "The Stranger." Lamb's remarks tend to confuse him with Gentleman Palmer, who died before Lamb was born. Robert Palmer, John's brother, died about 1805.

Page 159, line 22. _Moody_. John Moody (1727?-1812), famous as Teague in "The Committee."

Page 159, lines 31 to 36. _The Duke's Servant, etc._ The Duke's servant in Garrick's "High Life below Stairs," Captain Absolute in Sheridan's "Rivals," Dick Amlet in Vanbrugh's "Confederacy."

Page 160, line 1. _Young Wilding ... Joseph Surface._ In Foote's "Liar" and Sheridan's "School for Scandal."

* * * * *

Page 161. ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY.

See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors."

See also "A Vision of Horns" (Vol. I.) for, as it seems to me, a whimsical extension to the point of absurdity of the theory expressed in this essay--a theory which Lord Macaulay, in his review of Leigh Hunt's edition of the Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, etc., in 1840, opposed with characteristic vigour.

Hartley Coleridge, in a letter to Edward Moxon concerning Leigh Hunt's edition of Wycherley and Congreve, happily remarked: "Nothing more or better can be said in defence of these writers than what Lamb has said in his delightful essay ... which is, after all, rather an apology for the audiences who applauded and himself who delighted in their plays, than for the plays themselves.... But Lamb always took things by the better handle."

Page 163, line 16. _The Fainalls, etc_. Fainall in Congreve's "Way of the World," Mirabel in Farquhar's "Inconstant," Dorimant in Etheredge's "Man of Mode," and Lady Touchstone in Congreve's "Double Dealer."

Page 163, line 12 from foot. _Angelica_. In "Love for Love."

Page 164, line 26, etc. _Sir Simon, etc_. All these characters are in Wycherley's "Love in a Wood."

Page 166, line 21. _King_. Thomas King (1730-1805), at one time manager of Drury Lane, the original Sir Peter Teazle, on May 8, 1777, the first night of the "School for Scandal," and the most famous actor in the part until he retired in 1802.

Page 167, line 14. _Miss Pope_. Jane Pope (1742-1818), the original Mrs. Candour, left the stage in 1808.

Page 167, line 15 from foot. _Manager's comedy_. Sheridan was manager of Drury Lane when the "School for Scandal" was produced.

Page 167, same line. _Miss Farren ... Mrs. Abingdon_. Elizabeth Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby, played Lady Teazle for the last time in 1797. Mrs. Abingdon had retired from Drury Lane in 1782.

Page 167, line 10 from foot. _Smith_. "Gentleman" Smith took his farewell of the stage, as Charles Surface, in 1788.

Page 168, end of essay. _Fashionable tragedy_. See page 328, line 21, for the continuation of this essay in the _London Magazine_.

* * * * *

Page 168. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN.

See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors" above. Lamb lifted this essay into the _London Magazine_ from _The Examiner_, where it had appeared on November 7 and 8, 1819, with slight changes.

Page 168, title. _Munden_. Joseph Shepherd Munden (1758-1832) acted at Covent Garden practically continuously from 1790 to 1811. He moved to Drury Lane in 1813, and remained there till the end. His farewell performance was on May 31, 1824. We know Lamb to have met Munden from Raymond's _Memoirs of Elliston_.

Page 168, line 2 of essay. _Cockletop_. In O'Keeffe's farce "Modern Antiques." This farce is no longer played, although a skilful hand might, I think, make it attractive to our audiences. Barry Cornwall in his memoir of Lamb has a passage concerning Munden as Cockletop, which helps to support Lamb's praise. Support is not necessary, but useful; it is one of the misfortunes of the actor's calling that he can live only in the praise of his critics.

In the Drama of "Modern Antiques," especially, space was allowed him for his movements. The words were nothing. The prosperity of the piece depended exclusively on the genius of the actor. Munden enacted the part of an old man credulous beyond ordinary credulity; and when he came upon the stage there was in him an almost sublime look of wonder, passing over the scene and people around him, and settling apparently somewhere beyond the moon. What he believed in, improbable as it was to mere terrestrial visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,--to be true. The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognised it. "What a large tear!" he exclaimed. Then they place in his hands a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern gridiron. He touches the chords gently: "pipes to the spirit ditties of no tone;" and you imagine Æolian strains. At last, William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the scull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of acting that I ever witnessed. Munden accepts the accredited cap of Tell, with confusion and reverence. He places it slowly and solemnly on his head, growing taller in the act of crowning himself. Soon he swells into the heroic size; a great archer; and enters upon his dreadful task. He weighs the arrow carefully; he tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly, and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you tremble;--at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile, and are satisfied that the son is saved!--It is difficult to paint in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several times seen; but you feel that it is transcendent. You think of Sagittarius, in the broad circle of the Zodiac; you recollect that archery is as old as Genesis; you are reminded that Ishmael, the son of Hagar, wandered about the Judæan deserts and became an archer.

Page 169, line 16. _Edwin_. This would probably be John Edwin the Elder (1749-1790). But John Edwin the Younger (1768-1805) might have been meant. He was well known in Nipperkin, one of Munden's parts.

Page 169, line 21. _Farley...Knight...Liston_. Charles Farley (1771-1859), mainly known as the deviser of Covent Garden pantomimes; Edward Knight (1774-1826), an eccentric little comedian; John Listen (1776?-1846), whose mock biography Lamb wrote (see Vol. I.).

Page 169, line 7 from foot. _Sir Christopher Curry...Old Dornton_. Sir Christopher in "Inkle and Yarico," by the younger Colman; Old Dornton in Holcroft's "Road to Ruin."

Page 170, line 6. _The Cobbler of Preston_. A play, founded on "The Taming of the Shrew," by Charles Johnson, written in 1716.

THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA

Page 171. PREFACE.

_London Magazine_, January, 1823, where it was entitled "A Character of the late Elia. By a Friend." Signed Phil-Elia. Lamb did not reprint it for ten years, and then with certain omissions.

In the _London Magazine_ the "Character" began thus:--

"A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA

"BY A FRIEND

"This gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. He just lived long enough (it was what he wished) to see his papers collected into a volume. The pages of the LONDON MAGAZINE will henceforth know him no more.

"Exactly at twelve last night his queer spirit departed, and the bells of Saint Bride's rang him out with the old year. The mournful vibrations were caught in the dining-room of his friends T. and H.; and the company, assembled there to welcome in another First of January, checked their carousals in mid-mirth and were silent. Janus wept. The gentle P----r, in a whisper, signified his intention of devoting an Elegy; and Allan C----, nobly forgetful of his countrymen's wrongs, vowed a Memoir to his _manes_, full and friendly as a Tale of Lyddal-cross."

_Elia_ had just been published when this paper appeared, and it was probably Lamb's serious intention to stop the series. He was, however, prevailed to continue. T. and H. were Taylor & Hessey, the owners of the _London Magazine_. Janus was Janus Weathercock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright; P----r was Bryan Waller Procter, or Barry Cornwall, who afterwards wrote Lamb's life, and Allan C---- was Allan Cunningham, who called himself "Nalla" in the _London Magazine_. "The Twelve Tales of Lyddal Cross" ran serially in the magazine in 1822.

Page 171, line 9 from foot. _A former Essay_. In the _London Magazine_ "his third essay," referring to "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago."

Page 172, line 7. _My late friend_. The opening sentences of this paragraph seem to have been deliberately modelled, as indeed is the whole essay, upon Sterne's character of Yorick in _Tristram Shandy_, Vol. I., Chapter XI.

Page 172, line 12 from foot. _It was hit or miss with him_. Canon Ainger has pointed out that Lamb's description of himself in company is corroborated by Hazlitt in his essay "On Coffee-House Politicians":--

I will, however, admit that the said Elia is the worst company in the world in bad company, if it be granted me that in good company he is nearly the best that can be. He is one of those of whom it may be said, _Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your manners_. He is the creature of sympathy, and makes good whatever opinion you seem to entertain of him. He cannot outgo the apprehensions of the circle; and invariably acts up or down to the point of refinement or vulgarity at which they pitch him. He appears to take a pleasure in exaggerating the prejudices of strangers against him; a pride in confirming the prepossessions of friends. In whatever scale of intellect he is placed, he is as lively or as stupid as the rest can be for their lives. If you think him odd and ridiculous, he becomes more and more so every minute, _à la folie_, till he is a wonder gazed at by all--set him against a good wit and a ready apprehension, and he brightens more and more ...

P.G. Patmore's testimony is also corroborative:--

To those who did not know him, or, knowing, did not or could not appreciate him, Lamb often passed for something between an imbecile, a brute, and a buffoon; and the first impression he made on ordinary people was always unfavourable--sometimes to a violent and repulsive degree.

Page 174, line 3. _Some of his writings_. In the _London Magazine_ the essay did not end here. It continued:--

"He left property behind him. Of course, the little that is left (chiefly in India bonds) devolves upon his cousin Bridget. A few critical dissertations were found in his escritoire, which have been handed over to the Editor of this Magazine, in which it is to be hoped they will shortly appear, retaining his accustomed signature.

"He has himself not obscurely hinted that his employment lay in a public office. The gentlemen in the Export department of the East India House will forgive me, if I acknowledge the readiness with which they assisted me in the retrieval of his few manuscripts. They pointed out in a most obliging manner the desk at which he had been planted for forty years; showed me ponderous tomes of figures, in his own remarkably neat hand, which, more properly than his few printed tracts, might be called his 'Works.' They seemed affectionate to his memory, and universally commended his expertness in book-keeping. It seems he was the inventor of some ledger, which should combine the precision and certainty of the Italian double entry (I think they called it) with the brevity and facility of some newer German system--but I am not able to appreciate the worth of the discovery. I have often heard him express a warm regard for his associates in office, and how fortunate he considered himself in having his lot thrown in amongst them. There is more sense, more discourse, more shrewdness, and even talent, among these clerks (he would say) than in twice the number of authors by profession that I have conversed with. He would brighten up sometimes upon the 'old days of the India House,' when he consorted with Woodroffe, and Wissett, and Peter Corbet (a descendant and worthy representative, bating the point of sanctity, of old facetious Bishop Corbet), and Hoole who translated Tasso, and Bartlemy Brown whose father (God assoil him therefore) modernised Walton--and sly warm-hearted old Jack Cole (King Cole they called him in those days), and Campe, and Fombelle--and a world of choice spirits, more than I can remember to name, who associated in those days with Jack Burrell (the _bon vivant_ of the South Sea House), and little Eyton (said to be a _facsimile_ of Pope--he was a miniature of a gentleman) that was cashier under him, and Dan Voight of the Custom House that left the famous library.

"Well, Elia is gone--for aught I know, to be reunited with them--and these poor traces of his pen are all we have to show for it. How little survives of the wordiest authors! Of all they said or did in their lifetime, a few glittering words only! His Essays found some favourers, as they appeared separately; they shuffled their way in the crowd well enough singly; how they will _read_, now they are brought together, is a question for the publishers, who have thus ventured to draw out into one piece his 'weaved-up follies.'

"PHIL-ELIA."

This passage calls for some remark. Cousin Bridget was, of course, Mary Lamb.--Lamb repeated the joke about his _Works_ in his "Autobiography" (see Vol. I.) and in "The Superannuated Man."--Some record of certain of the old clerks mentioned by Lamb still remains; but I can find nothing of the others. Whether or not Peter Corbet really derived from the Bishop we do not know, but the facetious Bishop Corbet was Richard Corbet (1582-1635), Bishop of Oxford and Norwich, whose conviviality was famous and who wrote the "Fairies' Farewell." John Hoole (1727-1803), who translated Tasso and wrote the life of Scott of Amwell and a number of other works, was principal auditor at the end of his time at the India House. He retired about 1785, when Lamb was ten years old. Writing to Coleridge on January 5, 1797, Lamb speaks of Hoole as "the great boast and ornament of the India House," and says that he found Tasso, in Hoole's translation, "more vapid than smallest small beer sun-vinegared." The moderniser of Walton would be Moses Browne (1704-1787), whose edition of _The Complete Angler_, 1750, was undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. Johnson.

* * * * *

Page 174. BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE

_London Magazine_, September, 1824.

With this essay Lamb made his reappearance in the magazine, after eight months' absence.

By Blakesmoor Lamb meant Blakesware, the manor-house near Widford, in Hertfordshire, where his grandmother, Mary Field, had been housekeeper for many years. Compare the essay "Dream-Children."

Blakesware, which was built by Sir Francis Leventhorpe about 1640, became the property of the Plumers in 1683, being then purchased by John Plumer, of New Windsor, who died in 1718. It descended to William Plumer, M.P. for Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, and afterwards for Hertfordshire, who died in 1767, and was presumably Mrs. Field's first employer. His widow and the younger children remained at Blakesware until Mrs. Plumer's death in 1778, but the eldest son, William Plumer, moved at once to Gilston, a few miles east of Blakesware, a mansion which for a long time was confused with Blakesware by commentators on Lamb. This William Plumer, who was M.P. for Lewes, for Hertfordshire, and finally for Higham Ferrers, and a governor of Christ's Hospital, kept up Blakesware after his mother's death in 1778 (when Lamb was three) exactly as before, but it remained empty save for Mrs. Field and the servants under her. Mrs. Field became thus practically mistress of it, as Lamb says in "Dream-Children." Hence the increased happiness of her grandchildren when they visited her. Mrs. Field died in 1792, when Lamb was seventeen. William Plumer died in 1822, aged eighty-six, having apparently arranged with his widow, who continued at Gilston, that Blakesware should be pulled down--a work of demolition which at once was begun. This lady, _née_ Jane Hamilton, afterwards married a Mr. Lewin, and then, in 1828, Robert Ward (1765-1846), author of _Tremaine_ and other novels, who took the name of Plumer-Ward, and may be read of, together with curious details of Gilston House, in P.G. Patmore's _My Friends and Acquaintances_.

Nothing now remains but a few mounds, beneath which are bricks and rubble. The present house is a quarter of a mile behind the old one, high on the hill. In Lamb's day this hillside was known as the Wilderness, and where now is turf were formal walks with clipped yew hedges and here and there a statue. The stream of which he speaks is the Ashe, running close by the walls of the old house. Standing there now, among the trees which mark its site, it is easy to reconstruct the past as described in the essay.

The Twelve Cæsars, the tapestry and other more notable possessions of Blakesware, although moved to Gilston on the demolition of Blakesware, are there no longer, and their present destination is a mystery. Gilston was pulled down in 1853, following upon a sale by auction, when all its treasures were dispersed. Some, I have discovered, were bought by the enterprising tenant of the old Rye House Inn at Broxbourne, but absolute identification of anything now seems impossible.

Blakesware is again described in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in Mary Lamb's story of "The Young Mahometan." There the Twelve Cæsars are spoken of as hanging on the wall, as if they were medallions; but Mr. E.S. Bowlby tells me that he perfectly remembers the Twelve Cæsars at Gilston, about 1850, as busts, just as Lamb says. In "Rosamund Gray" (see Vol. I.) Lamb describes the Blakesware wilderness. See also notes to "The Last Peach," Vol. I., to "Dream-Children" in this volume, and to "Going or Gone," Vol. IV.

Lamb has other references to Blakesware and the irrevocability of his happiness there as a child, in his letters. Writing to Southey on October 31, 1799, he says:--"Dear Southey,--I have but just got your letter, being returned from Herts, where I have passed a few red-letter days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to you, as you have done by Devonshire; but alas! I am a poor pen at that same. I could tell you of an old house with a tapestry bedroom, the 'Judgment of Solomon' composing one pannel, and 'Actæon spying Diana naked' the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's prints, and the Roman Cæsars in marble hung round. I could tell of a _wilderness_, and of a village church, and where the bones of my honoured grandam lie; but there are feelings which refuse to be translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be naturalised in another soil. Of this nature are old family faces, and scenes of infancy."

And again, to Bernard Barton, in August, 1827:--"You have well described your old-fashioned grand paternall Hall. Is it not odd that every one's earliest recollections are of some such place. I had my Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the 'London'). Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old Mansion ... better if un- or partially-occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the County and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of one, with my feelings at 7 years old!

"Those marble busts of the Emperors, they seem'd as if they were to stand for ever, as they had stood from the living days of Rome, in that old Marble Hall, and I to partake of their permanency; Eternity was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old Dwelling and its princely gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that chirping about the grounds escaped his scythe only by my littleness. Ev'n now he is whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. Well!"

Writing to Barton in August, 1824, concerning the present essay, Lamb describes it as a "futile effort ... 'wrung from me with slow pain'."

Page 175, line 15 from foot. _Mrs. Battle_. There was a haunted room at Blakesware, but the suggestion that the famous Mrs. Battle died in it was probably due to a sudden whimsical impulse. Lamb states in "Dream-Children" that Mrs. Field occupied this room.

Page 177, line 22. _The hills of Lincoln_. See Lamb's sonnet "On the Family Name," Vol. IV. Lamb's father came from Lincoln.

Page 177, line 11 from foot. _Those old W----s_. Lamb thus disguised the name of Plumer. He could not have meant Wards, for Robert Ward did not marry William Plumer's widow till four years after this essay was printed.

Page 178, line 2. _My Alice_. See notes to "Dream-Children."

Page 178, line 2. _Mildred Elia, I take it_. Alter these words, in the _London Magazine_, came this passage:--

"From her, and from my passion for her--for I first learned love from a picture--Bridget took the hint of those pretty whimsical lines, which thou mayst see, if haply thou hast never seen them, Reader, in the margin.[1] But my Mildred grew not old, like the imaginery Helen."

This ballad, written in gentle ridicule of Lamb's affection for the Blakesware portrait, and Mary Lamb's first known poem, was printed in the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, and in the _Works_, 1818.

[Footnote 1: "High-born Helen, round your dwelling, These twenty years I've paced in vain: Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty Hath been to glory in his pain.

"High-born Helen, proudly telling Stories of thy cold disdain; I starve, I die, now you comply, And I no longer can complain.

"These twenty years I've lived on tears, Dwelling for ever on a frown; On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; I perish now you kind are grown.

"Can I, who loved ray beloved But for the scorn 'was in her eye,' Can I be moved for my beloved, When she returns me sigh for sigh?

"In stately pride, by my bedside, High-born Helen's portrait hung; Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays Are nightly to the portrait sung.

"To that I weep, nor ever sleep, Complaining all night long to her.-- Helen, grown old, no longer cold, Said--'you to all men I prefer.'"]

* * * * *

Page 178. POOR RELATIONS.

_London Magazine_, May, 1823.

Page 179, line 10. _A pound of sweet._ After these words, in the _London Magazine_, came one more descriptive clause--"the bore _par excellence_."

Page 181, line 4, _Richard Amlet, Esq._ In "The Confederacy" by Sir John Vanbrugh--a favourite part of John Palmer's (see the essay "On Some of the Old Actors").

Page 181, line 16. _Poor W----_. In the Key Lamb identifies W---- with Favell, who "left Cambridge because he was asham'd of his father, who was a house-painter there." Favell has already been mentioned in the essay on "Christ's Hospital."

Page 183, line 22. _At Lincoln._ The Lambs, as we have seen, came from Lincolnshire. The old feud between the Above and Below Boys seems now to have abated, but a social gulf between the two divisions of the city remains.

Page 184, line 11 from foot. _John Billet_. Probably not the real name. Lamb gives the innkeeper at Widford, in "Rosamund Gray," the name of Billet, when it was really Clemitson.

* * * * *

Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION.

_London Magazine_, August, 1825, where it was entitled "Imperfect Dramatic Illusion."

This was, I think, Lamb's last contribution to the _London_, which had been growing steadily heavier and less hospitable to gaiety. Some one, however, contributed to it from time to time papers more or less in the Elian manner. There had been one in July, 1825, on the Widow Fairlop, a lady akin to "The Gentle Giantess." In September, 1825, was an essay entitled "The Sorrows of ** ***" (an ass), which might, both from style and sympathy, be almost Lamb's; but was, I think, by another hand. And in January, 1826, there was an article on whist, with quotations from Mrs. Battle, deliberately derived from her creator. These and other essays are printed in Mr. Bertram Dobell's _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903, with interesting comments.

The present essay to some extent continues the subject treated of in "The Artificial Comedy," but it may be taken also as containing some of the matter of the promised continuation of the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakspeare," which was to deal with the comic characters of that dramatist (see Vol. I.).

Page 185, line 15 from foot. _Jack Bannister_. See notes to the essay on "The Old Actors." His greatest parts were not those of cowards; but his Bob Acres was justly famous. Sir Anthony Absolute and Tony Lumpkin were perhaps his chief triumphs. He left the stage in 1815.

Page 186, line 24. _Gatty_. Henry Gattie (1774-1844), famous for old-man parts, notably Monsieur Morbleu in Moncrieffs "Monsieur Tonson." He was also the best Dr. Caius, in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," of his time. He left the stage in 1833, and settled down as a tobacconist and raconteur at Oxford.

Page 186, line 30. _Mr. Emery._ John Emery (1777-1822), the best impersonator of countrymen in his day. Zekiel Homespun in Colman's "Heir at Law" was one of his great parts. Tyke was in Morton's "School of Reform," produced in 1805, and no one has ever played it so well. He also played Caliban with success.

Page 187, line 4 from foot. _A very judicious actor._ This actor I have not identified. Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843) was a dashing comedian, a Wyndham of his day. In "Free and Easy" he played Sir John Freeman.

* * * * *

Page 188. To THE SHADE OF ELLISTON.

_Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831, where it formed, with the following essay, one article, under the title "Reminiscences of Elliston."

Robert William Elliston (1774-1831), actor and manager, famous for his stage lovers, both in comedy and tragedy. His Charles Surface was said to be unequalled, and both in Hotspur and Hamlet he was great. His last performance was in June, 1831, a very short time before his death.

Page 189, line 7. _Thin ghosts._ In the _London Magazine_ the passage ran:--

"Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) admire, while with uplifted toe retributive you inflict vengeance incorporeal upon the shadowy rear of obnoxious author, just arrived:--

"'what _seem'd_ his tail The likeness of a kingly kick had on. * * * * * "'Yet soon he heals: for spirits, that live throughout Vital in every part, not as frail man In entrails, head, or heart, liver or veins, Can in the liquid texture mortal wound Receive no more, than can the liquid air, All heart they live, all head, all eye.'"

Page 189, line 11 from foot. _À la Foppington_. In Vanbrugh's "Relapse."

In the _Englishman's Magazine_ the article ended, after "Plaudito, et Valeto," with: "Thy friend upon Earth, though thou did'st connive at his d----n."

The article was signed Mr. H., the point being that Elliston had played Mr. H. at Drury Lane in Lamb's unlucky farce of that name in 1806.

* * * * *

Page 190. ELLISTONIANA.

See note at the head of "To the Shade of Elliston," above.

Page 190, line 3 of essay. _My first introduction._ This paragraph was a footnote in the _Englishman's Magazine_. Elliston, according to the _Memoirs_ of him by George Raymond, which have Lamb's phrase, "Joyousest of once embodied spirits," for motto, opened a circulating library at Leamington in the name of his sons William and Henry, and served there himself at times.

Possibly Lamb was visiting Charles Chambers at Leamington when he saw Elliston. That he did see him there we know from Raymond's book, where an amusing occurrence is described, illustrating Munden's frugality. It seems that Lamb, Elliston and Munden drove together to Warwick Castle. On returning Munden stopped the carriage just outside Leamington, on the pretext that he had to make a call on an old friend--a regular device, as Elliston explained, to avoid being present at the inn when the hire of the carriage was paid.

Page 191, line 11. _Wrench_. See notes to "The Old Actors." Wrench succeeded Elliston at Bath, and played in the same parts, and with something of the same manner.

Page 191, line 11 from foot. _Appelles ... G.D._ Apelles, painter to Alexander the Great, was said to let no day pass without experimenting with his pencil. G.D. was George Dyer, whom we first met in "Oxford in the Vacation."

Page 192, line 6. _Ranger_. In Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," one of Elliston's great parts.

Page 192, line 17 from foot. _Cibber_. Colley Cibber (1671-1757), the actor, who was a very vain man, created the part of Foppington in 1697--his first great success.

Page 192, last line. _St. Dunstan's ... punctual giants._ Old St. Dunstan Church, in Fleet Street, had huge figures which struck the hours, and which disappeared with the church, pulled down to make room for the present one some time before 1831. They are mentioned in Emily Barton's story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.). Moxon records that Lamb shed tears when the figures were taken away.

Page 193, line 6. _Drury Lane_. Drury Lane opened, under Elliston's management, on October 4, 1819, with "Wild Oats," in which he played Rover. He left the theatre, a bankrupt, in 1826.

Page 193, line 19. _The ... Olympic._ Lamb is wrong in his dates. Elliston's tenancy of the Olympic preceded his reign at Drury Lane. It was to the Surrey that he retired after the Drury Lane period, producing there Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan" in 1829.

Page 193, line 12 from foot. _Sir A---- C----_. Sir Anthony Carlisle (see note to "A Quakers' Meeting").

Page 194, line 7. _A Vestris_. Madame Vestris (1797-1856), the great comédienne, who was one of Elliston's stars at Drury Lane.

Page 195, line 6. _Latinity_. Elliston was buried in St. John's Church, Waterloo Road, and a marble slab with a Latin inscription by Nicholas Torre, his son-in-law, is on the wall. Elliston was the nephew of Dr. Elliston, Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, who sent him to St. Paul's School--not, however, that founded by Colet--but to St. Paul's School, Covent Garden. He was intended for the Church.

* * * * *

Page 195. DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING.

_London Magazine_, July, 1822, where, at the end, were the words, "To be continued;" but Lamb did not return to the topic.

For some curious reason Lamb passed over this essay when collecting _Elia_ for the press. It was not republished till 1833, in the _Last Essays_.

Page 195, motto. _The Relapse_. The comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh. Lamb liked this quotation. He uses it in his letter about William Wordsworth, junior, to Dorothy Wordsworth, November 25, 1819; and again in his "Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan" (see Vol. I.).

Page 195, foot. _I can read any thing which I call a book_. Writing to Wordsworth in August, 1815, Lamb says: "What any man can write, surely I may read."

Page 195, last line. _Pocket Books_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb added in parenthesis "the literary excepted," the reference being to the _Literary Pocket Book_ which Leigh Hunt brought out annually from 1819 to 1822.

Page 196, line 2. _Hume ... Jenyns_. Hume would be David Hume (1711-1776), the philosopher and historian of England; Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), historian of Rome; William Robertson, D.D. (1721-1793), historian of America, Charles V., Scotland and India; James Beattie (1735-1803), author of "The Minstrel" and a number of essays, who had, however, one recommendation to Lamb, of which Lamb may have been unaware--he loved Vincent Bourne's poems and was one of the first to praise them; and Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), author of _The Art of Dancing_, and the _Inquiry into Evil_ which Johnson reviewed so mercilessly. It is stated in Moore's _Diary_, according to Procter, that Lamb "excluded from his library Robertson, Gibbon and Hume, and made instead a collection of the works of the heroes of _The Dunciad_."

Page 196, line 14. _Population Essay_. That was the day of population essays. Malthus's _Essay on Population_, 1798, had led to a number of replies.

Page 196, line 22. _My ragged veterans_. Crabb Robinson recorded in his diary that Lamb had the "finest collection of shabby books" he ever saw; "such a number of first-rate works in very bad condition is, I think, nowhere to be found." Leigh Hunt stated in his essay on "My Books" in _The Literary Examiner_, July 5, 1823, that Lamb's library had

an handsome contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;--now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high fantastical" Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids.

It is in the same essay that Leigh Hunt mentions that he once saw Lamb kiss an old folio--Chapman's Homer--the work he paraphrased for children under the title _The Adventures of Ulysses_.

Page 197, line 15. _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_. Lamb's copy, a folio containing also the "Philosophical Letters," is in America.

Page 197, line 20. _Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton_... I cannot say where are Lamb's copies of Sidney and Fuller; but the British Museum has his Milton, rich in MS. notes, a two-volume edition, 1751. The Taylor, which Lamb acquired in 1798, is the 1678 folio _Sermons_. I cannot say where it now is.

Page 197, line 26. _Shakspeare_. Lamb's Shakespeare was not sold at the sale of his library; only a copy of the _Poems_, 12mo, 1714. His annotated copy of the _Poems_, 1640, is in America. There is a reference to one of Rowe's plates in the essay "My First Play." The Shakespeare gallery engravings were the costly series of illustrations to Shakespeare commissioned by John Boydell (1719-1804), Lord Mayor of London in 1790. The pictures were exhibited in the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, and the engravings were published in 1802.

After the word "Shakespeare," in the _London Magazine_, came the sentence: "You cannot make a _pet_ book of an author whom everybody reads."

In a letter to Wordsworth, February 1, 1806, Lamb says: "Shakespear is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book." In the same letter he says of binding: "The Law Robe I have ever thought as comely and gentlemanly a garb as a Book would wish to wear."

Page 197, line 7 from foot. _Beaumont and Fletcher._ See note to "The Two Races of Men" for an account of Lamb's copy, now in the British Museum.

Page 197, line 5 from foot. _No sympathy with them._ After these words, in the _London Magazine_, came, "nor with Mr. Gifford's Ben Jonson." This edition by Lamb's old enemy, William Gifford, editor of the _Quarterly_, was published in 1816. Lamb's copy of Ben Jonson was dated 1692, folio. It is now in America, I believe.

Page 197, foot. _The reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy_. This reprint was, I think, published in 1800, in two volumes, marked ninth edition. Lamb's copy was dated 1621, quarto. I do not know where it now is.

Page 198, line 4. _Malone_. This was Edmund Malone (1741-1812), the critic and editor of Shakespeare, who in 1793 persuaded the Vicar of Stratford-on-Avon to whitewash the coloured bust of the poet in the chancel. A _Gentleman's Magazine_ epigrammatist, sharing Lamb's view, wrote:--

Stranger, to whom this monument is shown, Invoke the poet's curse upon Malone; Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste betrays, And daubs his tombstone, as he mars his plays.

Lamb has been less than fair to Malone. To defend his action in the matter of the bust of Shakespeare is impossible, except by saying that he acted in good faith and according to the fashion of his time. But he did great service to the fame of Shakespeare and thus to English literature, and was fearless and shrewd in his denunciation of the impostor Ireland.

Page 198, line 26. _The Fairy Queen_. Lamb's copy was a folio, 1617, 12, 17, 13. Against Canto XI., Stanza 32, he has written: "Dear Venom, this is the stave I wot of. I will maintain it against any in the book."

Page 199, line 14. _Nando's_. A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the east corner of Inner Temple Lane, and thus at one time close to Lamb's rooms.

Page 199, line 16. "_The Chronicle is in hand, Sir._" In the _London Magazine_ the following paragraph was here inserted:--

"As in these little Diurnals I generally skip the Foreign News, the Debates--and the Politics--I find the Morning Herald by far the most entertaining of them. It is an agreeable miscellany, rather than a newspaper."

The _Morning Herald_, under Alexander Chalmers, had given more attention to social gossip than to affairs of State; but under Thomas Wright it suddenly, about the time of Lamb's essay, became politically serious and left aristocratic matters to the _Morning Post_.

Page 199, line 20. _Town and Country Magazine_. This magazine flourished between 1769 and 1792.

Page 199, line 26. _Poor Tobin_. Possibly John Tobin (1770-1804), the playwright, though I think not. More probably the Tobin mentioned in Lamb's letter to Wordsworth about "Mr. H." in June, 1806 (two years after John Tobin's death), to whom Lamb read the manager's letter concerning the farce. This would be James, John Tobin's brother.

Page 200, line 13. _The five points_. After these words came, in the _London Magazine_, the following paragraph:--

"I was once amused--there is a pleasure in _affecting_ affectation--at the indignation of a crowd that was justling in with me at the pit-door of Covent Garden theatre, to have a sight of Master Betty--then at once in his dawn and his meridian--in Hamlet. I had been invited quite unexpectedly to join a party, whom I met near the door of the playhouse, and I happened to have in my hand a large octavo of Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, which, the time not admitting of my carrying it home, of course went with me to the theatre. Just in the very heat and pressure of the doors opening--the _rush_, as they term it--I deliberately held the volume over my head, open at the scene in which the young Roscius had been most cried up, and quietly read by the lamplight. The clamour became universal. 'The affectation of the fellow,' cried one. 'Look at that gentleman _reading_, papa,' squeaked a young lady, who in her admiration of the novelty almost forgot her fears. I read on. 'He ought to have his book knocked out of his hand,' exclaimed a pursy cit, whose arms were too fast pinioned to his side to suffer him to execute his kind intention. Still I read on--and, till the time came to pay my money, kept as unmoved, as Saint Antony at his Holy Offices, with the satyrs, apes, and hobgoblins, mopping, and making mouths at him, in the picture, while the good man sits undisturbed at the sight, as if he were sole tenant of the desart.--The individual rabble (I recognised more than one of their ugly faces) had damned a slight piece of mine but a few nights before, and I was determined the culprits should not a second time put me out of countenance."

Master Betty was William Henry West Betty (1791-1874), known as the "Young Roscius," whose Hamlet and Douglas sent playgoers wild in 1804-5-6. Pitt, indeed, once adjourned the House in order that his Hamlet might be witnessed. His most cried-up scenes in "Hamlet" were the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, and the fencing scene before the king and his mother. The piece of Lamb's own which had been hissed was, of course, "Mr. H.," produced on December 10, 1806; but very likely he added this reference as a symmetrical afterthought, for he would probably have visited Master Betty much earlier in his career, that phenomenon's first appearance at Covent Garden being two years before the advent of the ill-fated Hogsflesh.

Page 200, line 22. _Martin B----_. Martin Charles Burney, son of Admiral Burney, and a lifelong friend of the Lambs--to whom Lamb dedicated the prose part of his _Works_ in 1818 (see Vol. IV.).

Page 200, line 28. _A quaint poetess_. Mary Lamb. The poem is in _Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. III. of this edition). In line 17 the word "then" has been inserted by Lamb. The punctuation also differs from that of the _Poetry for Children_.

* * * * *

Page 201. THE OLD _MARGATE HOY_.

_London Magazine_, July, 1823. This, like others of Lamb's essays, was translated into French and published in the _Revue Britannique_ in 1833. It was prefaced by the remark: "L'auteur de cette délicieuse esquisse est Charles Lamb, connu sous le nom d'Eliah."

Page 201, beginning. _I have said so before._ See "Oxford in the Vacation."

Page 201, line 5 of essay. _My beloved Thames._ Lamb describes a riparian holiday at and about Richmond in a letter to Robert Lloyd in 1804.

Page 201, line 8 of essay. _Worthing_... There is no record of the Lambs' sojourn at Worthing or Eastbourne. They were at Brighton in 1817, and Mary Lamb at any rate enjoyed walking on the Downs there; in a letter to Miss Wordsworth of November 21, 1817, she described them as little mountains, _almost as good as_ Westmoreland scenery. They were at Hastings--at 13 Standgate Street--in 1823 (see Lamb's letters to Bernard Barton, July 10, 1823, to Hood, August 10, 1824, and to Dibdin, June, 1826). The only evidence that we have of Lamb knowing Worthing is his "Mr. H.". That play turns upon the name Hogsflesh, afterwards changed to Bacon. The two chief innkeepers at Worthing at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of its prosperity were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, and there was a rhyme concerning them which was well known (see notes to "Mr. H." in Vol. IV.).

Page 201, line 11 of essay. _Many years ago_. A little later Lamb says he was then fifteen. This would make the year 1790. It was probably on this visit to Margate that Lamb conceived the idea of his sonnet, "O, I could laugh," which Coleridge admired so much (see Vol. IV.).

Page 201, line 17 of essay. _Thou old Margate Hoy_. This old sailing-boat gave way to a steam-boat, the _Thames_, some time after 1815. The _Thames_, launched in 1815, was the first true steam-boat the river had seen. The old hoy, or lighter, was probably sloop rigged.

Page 202, foot. _Our enemies_. Lamb refers here to the attacks of _Blackwood's Magazine_ on the Cockneys, among whom he himself had been included. In the _London Magazine_ he had written "unfledged" for "unseasoned."

Page 206, line 14. _Gebir_. _Gebir_, by Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), who was a fortnight older than Lamb, and who afterwards came to know him personally, was published in 1798.

Page 206, line 16. _This detestable Cinque Port_. A letter from Mary Lamb to Randal Norris, concerning this, or another, visit to Hastings, says: "We eat turbot, and we drink smuggled Hollands, and we walk up hill and down hill all day long." Lamb, in a letter to Barton, admitted a benefit: "I abused Hastings, but learned its value."

Page 208, line 5. _Lothbury_. Probably in recollection of Wordsworth's "Reverie of Poor Susan," which Lamb greatly liked.

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Page 208. THE CONVALESCENT.

_London Magazine_, July, 1825.

We learn from the _Letters_ that Lamb had a severe nervous breakdown in the early summer of 1825 after liberation from the India House. Indeed, his health was never sound for long together after he became a free man.

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Page 212. SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS.

_New Monthly Magazine_, May, 1826, where it appeared as one of the Popular Fallacies under the title, "That great Wit is allied to Madness;" beginning: "So far from this being true, the greatest wits will ever be found to be the sanest writers..." and so forth. Compare the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," Vol. I. Lamb's thesis is borrowed from Dryden's couplet (in _Absalom and Achitophel_, Part I., lines 163, 164):--

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

Page 213, line 14. _Kent ... Flavius_. Lamb was always greatly impressed by the character of Kent (see his essay on "Hogarth," Vol. I.; his "Table Talk," Vol. I.; and his versions, in the _Tales from Shakespear_, of "King Lear" and "Timon," Vol. III.).

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Page 215. CAPTAIN JACKSON.

_London Magazine_, November, 1824.

No one has yet been able to identify Captain Jackson. The suggestion has been made that Randal Norris sat for the picture; but the circumstance that Lamb, in the first edition of the _Last Essays_, included "A Death-Bed," with a differing portrait of Randal Norris therein, is, I think, good evidence against this theory. Perhaps the captain was one of the imaginary characters which Lamb sent out every now and then, as he told Bernard Barton (in the letter of March 20, 1826), "to exercise the ingenuity of his friends;" although his reality seems overpowering.

Apart from his own interest, the captain is noteworthy in constituting, with Ralph Bigod (see page 27), a sketch (possibly unknown to Dickens) for Wilkins Micawber.

Page 217, line 22. _Glover ... Leonidas_. Richard Glover (1712-1785), the poet, author of _Leonidas_, 1737. I cannot find that he ever lived at Westbourne Green.

Page 218, foot. _The old ballad_. The old ballad "Waly, Waly." This was among the poems copied by Lamb into Miss Isola's Extract Book.

Page 219, line 8. _Tibbs, and Bobadil_. Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," and Bobadil in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour."

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Page 219. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN.

_London Magazine_, May, 1825.

Except that Lamb has disguised his real employment, this essay is practically a record of fact. After thirty-three years of service at the East India House he went home "for ever" on Tuesday, March 29, 1825, with a pension of £441, or two-thirds of his regular salary, less a small annual deduction as a provision for his sister. At a Court of Directors held on that day this minute was drawn up: "Resolved that the resignation of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant General's office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years, and is now in receipt of an income of £730 per annum, he be allowed a pension of £450 ... to commence from this day." Lamb's letters to Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story. This is how Lamb put it to Barton:--

"DEAR B.B.--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much more mind, to compose a letter.

"I am free, B.B.--free as air.

"The little bird that wings the sky Knows no such Liberty!

"I was set free on Tuesday in last week at 4 o'clock.

"I came home for ever!...

"I went and sat among 'em all at my old 33 years desk yester morning; and deuce take me if I had not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry sociable lads, at leaving them in the Lurch, fag, fag, fag.

"I would not serve another 7 years for seven hundred thousand pound."

To Miss Hutchinson Lamb said; "I would not go back to my prison for seven years longer for £10000 a year."

In the _London Magazine_ the essay was divided into two parts, with the two quotations now at the head apportioned each to one part.