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.
* * * * *
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 £10,000 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 £500 in South Sea stock and a small annual sum, and to Elizabeth
Lamb £200 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 £10,000 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.'"