The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 by Charles Lamb (page 9)

the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton is a glorious woman.

“Hail, Mackery End!

“This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but got no further.”

Page 89, verse. “_But thou, that didst appear so fair …_” From Wordsworth’s “Yarrow Visited,” Stanza 6. Writing to Wordsworth in 1815, Lamb said of this stanza that he thought “no lovelier” could be found in “the wide world of poetry.” From a letter to Taylor, of the _London Magazine_, belonging to the summer of 1821, we gather that the proof-reader had altered the last word of the third line to “air” to make it rhyme to “fair.” Lamb says: “_Day_ is the right reading, and _I implore you to restore it_.”

Page 90, line 4. _B.F._ Barron Field (see note to “Distant Correspondents”), then living in Sydney, where he composed, and had printed for private circulation in 1819, a volume of poems reviewed by Lamb (see Vol. I.), in 1819, one of which was entitled “The Kangaroo.” It was the first book printed in Australia. Field edited Heywood for the old Shakespeare Society. Although a Field, he was no kinsman of Lamb’s.

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Page 90. MODERN GALLANTRY.

_London Magazine_, November, 1822.

De Quincey writes in “London Reminiscences” concerning the present essay:–

Among the prominent characteristics of Lamb, I know not how it is that I have omitted to notice the peculiar emphasis and depth of his courtesy. This quality was in him a really chivalrous feeling, springing from his heart, and cherished with the sanctity of a duty. He says somewhere in speaking of himself[?] under the mask of a third person, whose character he is describing, that, in passing a servant girl, even at a street-crossing, he used to take off his hat. Now, the _spirit_ of Lamb’s gallantry would have prompted some such expression of homage, though the customs of the country would not allow it to be _literally_ fulfilled, for the very reason that would prompt it–_viz_., in order to pay respect–since the girl would, in such a case, suppose a man laughing at her. But the instinct of his heart was to think highly of female nature, and to pay a real homage (not the hollow demonstration of outward honour which a Frenchman calls his “homage,” and which is really a mask for contempt) to the sacred _idea_ of pure and virtuous womanhood.

Barry Cornwall has the following story in his Memoir of Lamb:–

Lamb, one day, encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy package of grocery. It caused him to tremble and stop. Charles inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place of destination. Finding that the purchaser of the grocery was a female, he went with the urchin before her, and expressed a hope that she would intercede with the poor boy’s master, in order to prevent his being over-weighted in future. “Sir,” said the dame, after the manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, “I buy my sugar and have nothing to do with the man’s manner of sending it.” Lamb at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off his hat, said, humbly, “Then I hope, ma’am, you’ll give me a drink of small beer.” This was of course refused. He afterwards called upon the grocer, on the boy’s behalf. With what effect I do not know.

Page 90, line 2 of essay. _Upon the point of gallantry_. Here, in the _London Magazine_, came the words:–

“as upon a thing altogether unknown to the old classic ages. This has been defined to consist in a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, paid to females, as females.”

Page 92, line 3. _Joseph Paice_. Joseph Paice was, as Lamb pointed out to Barton in a letter in January, 1830, a real person, and all that Lamb records. According to Miss Anne Manning’s _Family Pictures_, 1860, Joseph Paice, who was a friend of Thomas Coventry, took Lamb into his office at 27 Bread Street Hill somewhere in 1789 or 1790 to learn book-keeping and business habits. He passed thence to the South-Sea House and thence to the East India House. Miss Manning (who was the author of _Flemish Interiors_) helps to fill out Lamb’s sketch into a full-length portrait. She tells us that Mr. Paice’s life was one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities.

Charles Lamb speaks of his holding an umbrella over a market-woman’s fruit-basket, lest her store should be spoilt by a sudden shower; and his uncovering his head to a servant-girl who was requesting him to direct her on her way. These traits are quite in keeping with many that can still be authenticated:–his carrying presents of game _himself_, for instance, to humble friends, who might ill have spared a shilling to a servant; and his offering a seat in his hackney-coach to some poor, forlorn, draggled beings, who were picking their way along on a rainy day. Sometimes these chance guests have proved such uncongenial companions, that the kind old man has himself faced the bad weather rather than prolong the acquaintance, paying the hackney-coachman for setting down the stranger at the end of his fare. At lottery times, he used to be troubled with begging visits from certain improvident hangers-on, who had risked their all in buying shares of an unlucky number. About the time the numbers were being drawn, there would be a ring at the gate-bell, perhaps at dinner time. His spectacles would be elevated, an anxious expression would steal over his face, as he half raised himself from his seat, to obtain a glance at the intruder–“Ah, I thought so, I expected as much,” he would gently say. “I expected I should soon have a visit from poor Mrs. —- or Mrs. —-. Will you excuse me, my dear madam,” (to my grandmother) “for a moment, while I just tell her it is quite out of my power to help her?” counting silver into his hand all the time. Then, a parley would ensue at the hall-door–complainant telling her tale in a doleful voice: “My good woman, I really cannot,” etc.; and at last the hall-door would be shut. “Well, sir,” my grandmother used to say, as Mr. Paice returned to his seat, “I do not think you have sent Mrs. —- away quite penniless.” “Merely enough for a joint of meat, my good madam–just a trifle to buy her a joint of meat.”

_Family Pictures_ should be consulted by any one who would know more of this gentleman and of Susan Winstanly.

Page 92, line 5. _Edwards_. Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), author of _Canons of Criticism_, 1748. The sonnet in question, which was modelled on that addressed by Milton to Cyriack Skinner, was addressed to Paice, as the author’s nephew, bidding him carry on the family line. Paice, however, as Lamb tells us, did not marry.

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Page 94. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE.

_London Magazine_, September, 1821.

Lamb’s connection with the Temple was fairly continuous until 1817, when he was thirty-eight. He was born at No. 2 Crown Office Row in 1775, and he did not leave it, except for visits to Hertfordshire, until 1782, when he entered Christ’s Hospital. There he remained, save for holidays, until 1789, returning then to Crown Office Row for the brief period between leaving school and the death of Samuel Salt, under whose roof the Lambs dwelt, in February, 1792. The 7 Little Queen Street, the 45 and 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, and the first 34 Southampton Buildings (with Gutch) periods, followed; but in 1801 Lamb and his sister were back in the Temple again, at 16 Mitre Court Buildings, since rebuilt. They moved from there, after a brief return to 34 Southampton Buildings, to 4 Inner Temple Lane (since rebuilt and now called Johnson’s Buildings) in 1809, where they remained until the move to 20 Great Russell Street in 1817. With each change after that (except for another and briefer sojourn in Southampton Buildings in 1830), Lamb’s home became less urban. His last link with the Temple may be said to have snapped with the death of Randal Morris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, in 1827 (see “A Death-Bed”), although now and then he slept at Crabb Robinson’s chambers.

The Worshipful Masters of the Bench of the Hon. Society of the Inner Temple–to give the Benchers their full title–have the government of the Inner Temple in their hands.

Page 97, line 12 from foot, _J—-ll_. Joseph Jekyll, great-nephew of Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, well known as a wit and diner-out. He became a Bencher in 1795, and was made a Master in Chancery in 1815, through the influence of the Prince Regent. Under his direction the hall of the Inner Temple and the Temple Church were restored, and he compiled a little book entitled _Facts and Observations relating to the Temple Church and the Monuments contained in it_, 1811. He became a K.C. in 1805, and died in 1837, aged eighty-five. Jekyll was a friend of George Dyer, and was interested in Lamb’s other friends, the Norrises. & letter from him, thanking Lamb for a copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_, is printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt’s _The Lambs_. He had another link of a kind with Lamb in being M.P. for “sweet Calne in Wiltshire.” Jekyll’s chambers were at 6 King’s Bench Walk. On the same staircase lived for a while George Colman the Younger.

Page 97, line 9 from foot. _Thomas Coventry_. Thomas Coventry became a Bencher in 1766. He was the nephew of William, fifth Earl of Coventry, and resided at North Cray Place, near Bexley, in Kent, and in Serjeant’s Inn, where he died in 1797, in his eighty-fifth year. He is buried in the Temple Church. Coventry was a sub-governor of the South-Sea House, and it was he who presented Lamb’s friend, James White, to Christ’s Hospital. He was M.P. for Bridport from 1754 to 1780. As an illustration of Coventry’s larger benefactions it may be remarked that he presented L10,000 worth of South Sea stock to Christ’s Hospital in 1782.

Page 98, line 9. _Samuel Salt_. Samuel Salt was the son of the Rev. John Salt, of Audley, in Staffordshire; and he married a daughter of Lord Coventry, thus being connected with Thomas Coventry by marriage. He was M.P. for Liskeard for some years, and a governor of the South-Sea House. Samuel Salt, who became a Bencher in 1782, rented at No. 2 Crown Office Row two sets of chambers, in one of which the Lamb family dwelt. John Lamb, Lamb’s father, who is described as a scrivener in Charles’s Christ’s Hospital application form, was Salt’s right-hand man, not only in business, but privately, while Mrs. Lamb acted as housekeeper and possibly as cook. Samuel Salt played the part of tutelary genius to John Lamb’s two sons. It was he who arranged for Charles to be nominated for Christ’s Hospital (by Timothy Yeats); probably he was instrumental also in getting him into the East India House; and in all likelihood it was he who paved the way for the younger John Lamb’s position in the South-Sea House. It was also Samuel Salt who gave to Charles and Mary the freedom of his library (see the reference in the essay on “Mackery End”): a privilege which, to ourselves, is the most important of all. Salt died in February, 1792, and is buried in the vault of the Temple Church. He left to John Lamb L500 in South Sea stock and a small annual sum, and to Elizabeth Lamb L200 in money; but with his death the prosperity of the family ceased.

Page 98, line 21. _Lovel_. See below.

Page 98, line 9 from foot. _Miss Blandy_. Mary Blandy was the daughter of Francis Blandy, a lawyer at Henley-on-Thames. The statement that she was to inherit L10,000 induced an officer in the marines, named Cranstoun, a son of Lord Cranstoun, to woo her, although he already had a wife living. Her father proving hostile, Cranstoun supplied her with arsenic to bring about his removal. Mr. Blandy died on August 14, 1751. Mary Blandy was arrested, and hanged on April 6 in the next year, after a trial which caused immense excitement. The defence was that Miss Blandy was ignorant of the nature of the powder, and thought it a means of persuading her father to her point of view. In this belief the father, who knew he was being tampered with, also shared. Cranstoun avoided the law, but died in the same year. Lamb had made use of Salt’s _faux pas_, many years earlier, in “Mr. H.” (see Vol. IV.).

Page 99, line 13. _His eye lacked lustre_. At these words, in the _London Magazine_, came this passage:–

“Lady Mary Wortley Montague was an exception to her sex: she says, in one of her letters, ‘I wonder what the women see in S. I do not think him by any means handsome. To me he appears an extraordinary dull fellow, and to want common sense. Yet the fools are all sighing for him.'”

I have not found the passage.

Page 99, line 14. _Susan P—-_. This is Susannah Peirson, sister of the Peter Peirson to whom we shall come directly. Samuel Salt left her a choice of books in his library, together with a money legacy and a silver inkstand, hoping that reading and reflection would make her life “more comfortable.” B—-d Row would be Bedford Row.

Page 99, line 12 from foot, _F., the counsel_. I cannot be sure who this was. The Law Directory of that day does not help.

Page 99, foot. _Elwes_. John Elwes, the miser (1714-1789), whose _Life_ was published in 1790 after running through _The World_–the work of Topham, that paper’s editor, who is mentioned in Lamb’s essay on “Newspapers.”

Page 100, line 15. _Lovel_. Lovel was the name by which Lamb refers to his father, John Lamb. We know nothing of him in his prime beyond what is told in this essay, but after the great tragedy, there are in the _Letters_ glimpses of him as a broken, querulous old man. He died in 1799. Of John Lamb’s early days all our information is contained in this essay, in his own _Poetical Pieces_, where he describes his life as a footman, and in the essay on “Poor Relations,” where his boyish memories of Lincoln are mentioned. Of his verses it was perhaps too much (though prettily filial) to say they were “next to Swift and Prior;” but they have much good humour and spirit. John Lamb’s poems were printed in a thin quarto under the title _Poetical Pieces on Several Occasions_. The dedication was to “The Forty-Nine Members of the Friendly Society for the Benefit of their Widows, of whom I have the honour of making the Number Fifty,” and in the dedicatory epistle it is stated that the Society was in some degree the cause of Number Fifty’s commencing author, on account of its approving and printing certain lines which were spoken by him at an annual meeting it the Devil Tavern. The first two poetical pieces are apologues on marriage and the happiness that it should bring, the characters being drawn from bird life. Then follow verses written for the meetings of the Society, and miscellaneous compositions. Of these the description of a lady’s footman’s daily life, from within, has a good deal of sprightliness, and displays quite a little mastery of the mock-heroic couplet. The last poem is a long rhymed version of the story of Joseph. With this exception, for which Lamb’s character-sketch does not quite prepare us, it is very natural to think of the author as Lovel. One of the pieces, a familiar letter to a doctor, begins thus:–

My good friend,
For favours to my son and wife,
I shall love you whilst I’ve life, Your clysters, potions, help’d to save, Our infant lambkin from the grave.

The infant lambkin was probably John Lamb, but of course it might have been Charles. The expression, however, proves that punning ran in the family. Lamb’s library contained his father’s copy of _Hudibras_.

Lamb’s phrase, descriptive of his father’s decline, is taken with a variation from his own poems–from the “Lines written on the Day of my Aunt’s Funeral” (_Blank Verse_, 1798):–

One parent yet is left,–a wretched thing, A sad survivor of his buried wife
A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, A semblance most forlorn of what he was– A merry cheerful man.

Page 100, line 17. “_Flapper_.” This is probably an allusion to the flappers in _Gulliver’s Travels_–the servants who, in Laputa, carried bladders with which every now and then they flapped the mouths and ears of their employers, to recall them to themselves and disperse their meditations.

Page 100, line 9 from foot. _Better was not concerned_. At these words, in the _London Magazine_, came:–

“He pleaded the cause of a delinquent in the treasury of the Temple so effectually with S. the then treasurer–that the man was allowed to keep his place. L. had the offer to succeed him. It had been a lucrative promotion. But L. chose to forego the advantage, because the man had a wife and family.”

Page 101, line 10. _Bayes_. Mr. Bayes is the author and stage manager in Buckingham’s “Rehearsal.” This phrase is not in the play and must have been John Lamb’s own, in reference to Garrick.

Page 101, line 23. _Peter Pierson_. Peter Peirson (as his name was rightly spelled) was the son of Peter Peirson of the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, who lived probably in Bedford Row. He became a Bencher in 1800, died in 1808, and is buried in the Temple Church. When Charles Lamb entered the East India House in April, 1792, Peter Peirson and his brother, John Lamb, were his sureties.

Page 101, line 11 from foot. _Our great philanthropist_. Probably John Howard, whom, as we have seen in the essay on “Christ’s Hospital,” Lamb did not love. He was of singular sallowness.

Page 101, line 9 from foot. _Daines Barrington_. Daines Barrington (1727-1800), the correspondent of Gilbert White, many of whose letters in _The Natural History of Selborne_ are addressed to him. Indeed it was Barrington who inspired that work:–a circumstance which must atone for his exterminatory raid on the Temple sparrows. His Chambers were at 5 King’s Bench Walk. Barrington became a Bencher in 1777 and died in 1800. He is buried in the Temple Church. His Episcopal brother was Shute Barrington (1734-1826), Bishop successively of Llandaff, Salisbury and Durham.

Page 102, line 1. _Old Barton_. Thomas Barton, who became a Bencher in 1775 and died in 1791. His chambers were in King’s Bench Walk. He is buried in the vault of the Temple Church.

Page 102, line 6. _Read_. John Reade, who became a Bencher in 1792 and died in 1804. His rooms were in Mitre Court Buildings.

Page 102, line 6. _Twopenny_. Richard, Twopenny was not a Bencher, but merely a resident in the Temple. He was strikingly thin. Twopenny was stockbroker to the Bank of England, and died in 1809.

Page 102, line 8. _Wharry_. John Wharry, who became a Bencher in 1801, died in 1812, and was buried in the Temple Church.

Page 102, line 22. _Jackson_. This was Richard Jackson, some time M.P. for New Romney, to whom Johnson, Boswell tells us, refused the epithet “Omniscient” as blasphemous, changing it to “all knowing.” He was made a Bencher in 1770 and died in 1787.

Page 102, foot. _Mingay_. James Mingay, who was made a Bencher in 1785, died in 1812. He was M.P. for Thetford and senior King’s Counsel. He was also Recorder of Aldborough, Crabbe’s town. He lived at 4 King’s Bench Walk.

Page 103, line 1. _Baron Maseres_. This was Francis Maseres (1731-1824), mathematician, reformer and Cursiter Baron of the Exchequer. He lived at 5 King’s Bench Walk, and at Reigate, and wore a three-cornered hat and ruffles to the end. In April, 1801, Lamb wrote to Manning:–“I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres’. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring the Baron and me together.”

Baron Maseres, who was made a Bencher in 1774, died in 1824.

Page 104, line 13. _Hookers and Seldens_. Richard Hooker (1554?-1600), the “judicious,” was Master of the Temple. John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist, who lived in Paper Buildings and practised law in the Temple, was buried in the Temple Church with much pomp.

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Page 104. GRACE BEFORE MEAT.

_London Magazine_, November, 1821.

This was the essay, Lamb suggested, which Southey may have had in mind when in an article in the _Quarterly Review_ he condemned _Elia_ as wanting “a sounder religious feeling.” In his “Letter to Southey” (Vol. I.), which contained Lamb’s protest against Southey’s strictures, he wrote:–“I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost.–Perhaps the Paper on ‘Saying Graces’ was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty–good in place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded–from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it.”

Page 108, line 12 from foot. _C—-_. Coleridge; but Lamb may really have said it.

Page 108, foot. _The author of the Rambler_. Veal pie with prunes in it was perhaps Dr. Johnson’s favourite dish.

Page 109, line 10. _Dagon_. The fish god worshipped by the Philistines. See Judges xvi. 23 and I Samuel v. for the full significance of Lamb’s reference.

Page 110, line 16. _C.V.L._ Charles Valentine le Grice. Later in life, in 1798, Le Grice himself became a clergyman.

Page 110, line 19. _Our old form at school_. The Christ’s Hospital graces in Lamb’s day were worded thus:–

GRACE BEFORE MEAT

Give us thankful hearts, O Lord God, for the Table which thou hast spread for us. Bless thy good Creatures to our use, and us to thy service, for Jesus Christ his sake. _Amen_.

GRACE AFTER MEAT

Blessed Lord, we yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving for our Founders and Benefactors, by whose Charitable Benevolence thou hast refreshed our Bodies at this time. So season and refresh our Souls with thy Heavenly Spirit, that we may live to thy Honour and Glory. Protect thy Church, the King, and all the Royal Family. And preserve us in peace and truth through Christ our Saviour. _Amen_.

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Page 110. MY FIRST PLAY.

_London Magazine_, December, 1821.

Lamb had already sketched out this essay in the “Table Talk” in Leigh Hunt’s _Examiner_, December 9, 1813, under the title “Playhouse Memoranda” (see Vol. I.). Leigh Hunt reprinted it in _The Indicator_, December 13, 1820.

Page 111, line 1. _Garrick’s Drury_. Garrick’s Drury Lane was condemned in 1791, and superseded in 1794 by the new theatre, the burning of which in 1809 led to the _Rejected Addresses_. It has recently come to light that Lamb was among the competitors who sent in to the management the real addresses. The present Drury Lane Theatre dates from 1812.

Page 111, line 11. _My godfather F._ Lamb’s godfather was Francis Fielde. _The British Directory_ for 1793 gives him as Francis Field, oilman, 62 High Holborn. Whether or no he played the part in Sheridan’s matrimonial comedy that is attributed to him, I do not know (Moore makes the friend a Mr. Ewart); but it does not sound like an invented story. Richard Brinsley Sheridan carried Miss Linley, the oratorio singer, from Bath and the persecutions of Major Mathews, in March, 1772, and placed her in France. They were married near Calais, and married again in England in April, 1773. Sheridan became manager of Drury Lane, in succession to Garrick, in 1776, the first performance under his control being on September 21. Lamb is supposed to have had some personal acquaintance with Sheridan. Mary Lamb speaks of him as helping the Sheridans, father and son, with a pantomime; but of the work we know nothing definite. I do not consider the play printed in part in the late Charles Kent’s edition of Lamb, on the authority of P.G. Patmore, either to be by Lamb or to correspond to Mary Lamb’s description.

Page 118, line 8. _His testamentary beneficence_. Lamb was not joking. Writing to _The Athenaeum_, January 5, 1901, Mr. Thomas Greg says:–

Three-quarters of a century after it passed out of Lamb’s possession I am happy to tell the world–or that small portion of it to whom any fact about his life is precious–exactly where and what this landed property is. By indentures of lease and release dated March 23 and 24, 1779, George Merchant and Thomas Wyman, two yeomen of Braughing in the county of Hertford, conveyed to Francis Fielde, of the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, in the county of Middlesex, oilman, for the consideration of L20., all that messuage or tenement, with the orchard, gardens, yards, barns, edifices, and buildings, and all and singular the appurtenances therewithal used or occupied, situate, lying, and being at West Mill Green in the parish of Buntingford West Mill in the said county of Hertford, etc. On March 5, 1804, Francis Fielde, of New Cavendish Street, Esq., made his will, and, with the exception of two, annuities to female relatives, left all his residuary estate, real and personal, to his wife Sarah Fielde.

This will was proved on November 5, 1809. By indentures of lease and release dated August 20 and 21, 1812, Sarah Fielde conveyed the said property to Charles Lamb, of Inner Temple Lane, gentleman. By an indenture of feoffment dated February 15, 1815, made between the said Charles Lamb of the first part, the said Sarah Fielde of the second part, and Thomas Greg the younger, of Broad Street Buildings, London, Esq., the said property was conveyed to the said Thomas Greg the younger for L50.

The said Thomas Greg the younger died in 1839, and left the said property to his nephew, Robert Philips Greg, now of Coles Park, West Mill, in the same county; and the said Robert Philips Greg in 1884 conveyed it to his nephew, Thomas Tylston Greg, of 15 Clifford’s Inn, London, in whose possession it now is in substantially the same condition as it was in 1815.

The evidence that the Charles Lamb who conveyed the property in 1815 is Elia himself is overwhelming.

1. The essay itself gives the locality correctly: it is about two and a half miles from Puckeridge.

2. The plot of land contains as near as possible three-quarters of an acre, with an old thatched cottage and small barn standing upon it. The barn, specially mentioned in all the deeds, is a most unusual adjunct of so small a cottage. The property, the deeds of which go back to 1708, appears to have been isolated and held by small men, and consists of a long narrow tongue of land jutting into the property now of the Savile family (Earls of Mexborough), but formerly of the Earls of Hardwicke.

3. The witness to Charles Lamb’s signature on the deed of 1815 is William Hazlitt, of 19, York Street, Westminster.

4. Lamb was living in Inner Temple Lane in 1815, and did not leave the Temple till 1817.

5. The essay was printed in the _London Magazine_ for December, 1821, six years after “the estate has passed into more prudent hands.”

6. And lastly, the following letter in Charles Lamb’s own handwriting, found with the deeds which are in my possession, clinches the matter:–

“MR. SARGUS,–This is to give you notice that I have parted with the Cottage to Mr. Grig Junr. to whom you will pay rent from Michaelmas last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas I do not wish you to pay me. I forgive it you as you may have been at some expences in repairs.

“Yours

“CH. LAMB.

“Inner Temple Lane, London,

“_23 Feb., 1815._”

It is certainly not the fact that Lamb acquired the property, as he states, by the will of his godfather, for it was conveyed to him some three years after the latter’s death by Mrs. Fielde. But strict accuracy of fact in Lamb’s ‘_Essays_’ we neither look for nor desire. In all probability Mrs. Fielde conveyed him the property in accordance with an expressed wish of her husband in his lifetime. Reading also between the lines of the essay, it is interesting to notice that Francis Fielde, the Holborn oilman of 1779, in 1809 has become Francis Fielde, Esq., of New Cavendish Street. In the letter quoted above Lamb speaks of his purchaser as “Mr. Grig Junr.,” more, I am inclined to think, from his desire to have his little joke than from mere inaccuracy, for he must have known the correct name of his purchaser. But Mr. Greg, Jun., was only just twenty-one when he bought the property, and the expression “as merry as a grig” running in Lamb’s mind might have proved irresistible to him. Lastly, the property is now called, and has been so far back as I can trace, “Button Snap.” No such name is found in any of the title-deeds, and it was impossible before to understand whence it arose. Now it is not: Lamb must have so christened his little property in jest, and the name has stuck.

THOMAS GREG.

Page 113, line 1. _The maternal lap_. With the exception of a brief mention on page 33–“the gentle posture of maternal tenderness”–this is Lamb’s only reference to his mother in all the essays–probably from the wish not to wound his sister, who would naturally read all he wrote; although we are told by Talfourd that she spoke of her mother with composure. But it is possible to be more sensitive for others than they are for themselves.

Page 113, line 3. _The play was Artaxerxes_. The opera, by Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), produced in 1762, founded on Metastasio’s “Artaserse.” The date of the performance was in all probability December 1, 1780, although Lamb suggests that it was later; for that was the only occasion in 1780-81-82 on which “Artaxerxes” was followed by “Harlequin’s Invasion,” a pantomime dating from 1759, the work of Garrick. It shows Harlequin invading the territory of Shakespeare; Harlequin is defeated and Shakespeare restored.

Page 113, line 20. _The Lady of the Manor_. Here Lamb’s memory, I fancy, betrayed him. This play (a comic opera by William Kenrick) was not performed at Drury Lane or Covent Garden in the period mentioned. Lamb’s pen probably meant to write “The Lord of the Manor,” General Burgoyne’s opera, with music by William Jackson, of Exeter, which was produced in 1780. It was frequently followed in the bill by “Robinson Crusoe,” but never by “Lun’s Ghost,” whereas Wycherley’s “Way of the World” was followed by “Lun’s Ghost” at Drury Lane on January 9, 1782. We may therefore assume that Lamb’s second visit to the theatre was to see “The Lord of the Manor,” followed by “Robinson Crusoe,” some time in 1781, and his third to see “The Way of the World,” followed by “Lun’s Ghost” on January 9, 1782. “Lun’s Ghost” was produced on January 3, 1782. Lun was the name under which John Rich (1682?-1761), the pantomimist and theatrical manager, had played in pantomime.

Page 113, last line. _Round Church … of the Templars_. This allusion to the Temple Church and its Gothic heads was used before by Lamb in his story “First Going to Church” in _Mrs. Leicester’s School_ (see Vol. III.). In that volume Mary Lamb had told the story of what we may take to be her first play (see “Visit to the Cousins”), the piece being Congreve’s “Mourning Bride.”

Page 114, line 1. _The season 1781-2_. Lamb was six on February 10, 1781. He says, in his “Play-house Memoranda,” of the same occasion, “Oh when shall I forget first seeing a play, at the age of five or six?”

Page 114, line 3. _At school_. Lamb was at Christ’s Hospital from 1782 to 1789.

Page 114, end. _Mrs. Siddons in “Isabella.”_ Mrs. Siddons first played this part at Drury Lane on October 10, 1782. The play was “Isabella,” a version by Garrick of Southerne’s “Fatal Marriage.” Mrs. Siddons also appeared frequently as Isabella in “Measure for Measure;” but Lamb clearly says “in” Isabella, meaning the play. Lamb’s sonnet, in which he collaborated with Coleridge, on Mrs. Siddons, which was printed in the _Morning Chronicle_ in December, 1794 (see Vol. IV.), was written when he was nineteen. It runs (text of 1797):–

As when a child on some long winter’s night Affrighted clinging to its Grandam’s knees With eager wond’ring and perturb’d delight Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees Mutter’d to wretch by necromantic spell; Or of those hags, who at the witching time Of murky midnight ride the air sublime, And mingle foul embrace with fiends of Hell: Cold Horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell Of pretty babes, that lov’d each other dear, Murder’d by cruel Uncle’s mandate fell: Ev’n such the shiv’ring joys thy tones impart, Ev’n so thou, SIDDONS! meltest my sad heart!

* * * * *

Page 115. DREAM-CHILDREN.

_London Magazine_, January, 1822.

John Lamb died on October 26, 1821, leaving all his property to his brother. Charles was greatly upset by his loss. Writing to Wordsworth in March, 1822, he said: “We are pretty well save colds and rheumatics, and a certain deadness to every thing, which I think I may date from poor John’s Loss…. Deaths over-set one, and put one out long after the recent grief.” (His friend Captain Burney died in the same month.) Lamb probably began “Dream-Children,”–in some ways, I think, his most perfect prose work–almost immediately upon his brother’s death. The essay “My Relations” may be taken in connection with this as completing the picture of John Lamb. His lameness was caused by the fall of a stone in 1796, but I doubt if the leg were really amputated.

The description in this essay of Blakesware, the seat of the Plumers, is supplemented by the essay entitled “Blakesmoor in H—-shire.” Except that Lamb substitutes Norfolk for the nearer county, the description is accurate; it is even true that there is a legend in the Plumer family concerning the mysterious death of two children and the loss of the baronetcy thereby–Sir Walter Plumer, who died in the seventeenth century, being the last to hold the title. In his poem “The Grandame” (see Vol. IV.), Lamb refers to Mrs. Field’s garrulous tongue and her joy in recounting the oft-told tale; and it may be to his early associations with the old story that his great affection for Morton’s play, “The Children in the Wood,” which he so often commended–particularly with Miss Kelly in the caste–was due. The actual legend of the children in the wood belongs, however, to Norfolk.

William Plumer’s newer and more fashionable mansion was at Gilston, which is not in the adjoining county, but also in Hertfordshire, near Harlow, only a few miles distant from Blakesware. Mrs. Field died of cancer in the breast in August, 1792, and was buried in Widford churchyard, hard by Blakesware.

According to Lamb’s Key the name Alice W—-n was “feigned.” If by Alice W—-n Lamb, as has been suggested, means Ann Simmons, of Blenheims, near Blakesware, he was romancing when he said that he had courted her for seven long years, although the same statement is made in the essay on “New Year’s Eve.” We know that in 1796 he abandoned all ideas of marriage. Writing to Coleridge in November of that year, in reference to his love sonnets, he says: “It is a passion of which I retain nothing…. Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me.” This was 1796. Therefore, as he was born in 1775, he must have begun the wooing of Alice W—-n when he was fourteen in order to complete the seven long years of courtship. My own feeling, as I have stated in the notes to the love sonnets in Vol. IV., is that Lamb was never a very serious wooer, and that Alice W—-n was more an abstraction around which now and then to group tender imaginings of what might have been than any tangible figure.

A proof that Ann Simmons and Alice W—-n are one has been found in the circumstance that Miss Simmons did marry a Mr. Bartrum, or Bartram, mentioned by Lamb in this essay as being the father of Alice’s real children. Bartrum was a pawnbroker in Princes Street, Coventry Street. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that Hazlitt had seen Lamb wandering up and down before the shop trying to get a glimpse of his old friend.

* * * * *

Page 118. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS.

_London Magazine_, March, 1822.

The germ of this essay will be found in a letter to Barron Field, to whom the essay is addressed, of August 31, 1817. Barron Field was a son of Henry Field, apothecary to Christ’s Hospital. His brother, Francis John Field, through whom Lamb probably came to know Barron, was a clerk in the India House.

Barron Field was associated with Lamb on Leigh Hunt’s _Reflector_ in 1810-1812. He also was dramatic critic for _The Times_ for a while. In 1816 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, where he remained until 1824. For other information see the note, in Vol. I., to his _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_, reviewed by Lamb. In the same number of the _London Magazine_ which included the present essay was Field’s account of his outward voyage to New South Wales.

Page 119, line 24. _Our mutual friend P._ Not identifiable: probably no one in particular. The Bench would be the King’s Bench Prison. A little later one of Lamb’s friends, William Hone, was confined there for three years.

Page 121, line 8. _The late Lord C._ This was Thomas Pitt, second Baron Camelford (1775-1804), who after a quarrelsome life, first in the navy and afterwards as a man about town, was killed in a duel at Kensington, just where Melbury Road now is. The spot chosen by him for his grave was on the borders of the Lake of Lampierre, near three trees; but there is a doubt if his body ever rested there, for it lay for years in the crypt of St. Anne’s, Soho. Its ultimate fate was the subject of a story by Charles Reade.

Page 123, line 11. _Bleach_. Illegitimacy, according to some old authors, wears out in the third generation, enabling a natural son’s descendant to resume the ancient coat-of-arms. Lamb refers to this sanction.

Page 123, line 20. _Hare-court_. The Lambs lived at 4 Inner Temple Lane (now rebuilt as Johnson’s Buildings) from 1809 to 1817. Writing to Coleridge in June, 1809, Lamb says:–“The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it’s like living in a garden.”

Barron Field was entered on the books of the Inner Temple in 1809 and was called to the Bar in 1814.

Page 123, last paragraph. _Sally W—-r_. Lamb’s Key gives “Sally Winter;” but as to who she was we have no knowledge.

Page 123, end. _J.W._ James White. See next essay.

* * * * *

Page 124. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.

_London Magazine_, May, 1822, where it has a sub-title, “A May-Day Effusion.”

This was not Lamb’s only literary association with chimney-sweepers. In Vol. I. of this edition will be found the description of a sweep in the country which there is good reason to believe is Lamb’s work. Again, in 1824, James Montgomery, the poet, edited a book–_The Chimney-Sweepers’ Friend and Climbing Boys’ Album_–with the benevolent purpose of interesting people in the hardships of the climbing boys’ life and producing legislation to alleviate it. The first half of the book is practical: reports of committees, and so forth; the second is sentimental; verses by Bernard Barton, William Lisle Bowles, and many others; short stories of kidnapped children forced to the horrid business; and kindred themes. Among the “favourite poets of the day” to whom Montgomery applied were Scott, Wordsworth, Rogers, Moore, Joanna Baillie and Lamb. Lamb replied by copying out (with the alteration of Toddy for Dacre) “The Chimney-Sweeper” from Blake’s _Songs of Innocence_, described by Montgomery as “a very rare and curious little work.” In that poem it will be remembered the little sweep cries “weep, weep, weep.” Lamb compares the cry more prettily to the “peep, peep” of the sparrow.

Page 125, line 6. _Shop …_ Mr. Thomas Read’s Saloop Coffee House was at No. 102 Fleet Street. The following lines were painted on a board in Read’s establishment:–

Come, all degrees now passing by,
My charming liquor taste and try;
To Lockyer come, and drink your fill; Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill.
The fumes of wine, punch, drams and beer, It will expell; your spirits cheer;
From drowsiness your spirits free. Sweet as a rose your breath will be,
Come taste and try, and speak your mind; Such rare ingredients here are joined,
Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind.

Page 127, line 12 from foot. _The young Montagu_. Edward Wortley Montagu (1713-1776), the traveller, ran away from Westminster School more than once, becoming, among other things, a chimney-sweeper.

Page 127, line 9 from foot. _Arundel Castle_. The Sussex seat of the Dukes of Norfolk. The “late duke” was Charles Howard, eleventh duke, who died in 1815, and who spent enormous sums of money on curiosities. I can find no record of the story of the sweep. Perhaps Lamb invented it, or applied it to Arundel.

Page 128, line 14 from foot. _Jem White_. James White (1775-1820), who was at Christ’s Hospital with Lamb, and who wrote _Falstaff’s Letters_, 1796, in his company (see Vol. I.). “There never was his like,” Lamb told another old schoolfellow, Valentine Le Grice, in 1833; “we shall never see such days as those in which he flourished.” See the essay “On Some of the Old Actors,” for an anecdote of White.

Page 128, line 8 from foot. _The fair of St. Bartholomew_. Held on September 3 at Smithfield, until 1855. George Daniel, in his recollections of Lamb, records a visit they paid together to the Fair. Lamb took Wordsworth through its noisy mazes in 1802.

Page 129, line 14. _Bigod_. John Fenwick (see note to “The Two Races of Men”).

Leigh Hunt, in _The Examiner_ for May 5, 1822, quoted some of the best sentences of this essay. On May 12 a correspondent (L.E.) wrote a very agreeable letter supporting Lamb’s plea for generosity to sweeps and remarking thus upon Lamb himself:–

I read the modicum on “Chimney-Sweepers,” which your last paper contained, with pleasure. It appears to be the production of that sort of mind which you justly denominate “gifted;” but which is greatly undervalued by the majority of men, because they have no sympathies in common with it. Many who might partially appreciate such a spirit, do nevertheless object to it, from the snap-dragon nature of its coruscations, which shine themselves, but shew every thing around them to disadvantage. Your deep philosophers also, and all the laborious professors of the art of sinking, may elevate their nasal projections, and demand “cui bono”? For my part I prefer a little enjoyment to a great deal of philosophy. It 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 debut 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 AEolian 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 Judaean 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, _a 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, _nee_ 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 Caesars, 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 Caesars 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 Caesars 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 ‘Actaeon spying Diana naked’ the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth’s prints, and the Roman Caesars 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. _A 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 comedienne, 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.