Page 315. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, ETC.
See notes to the essays "On Some of the Old Actors," "The Artificial
Comedy" and "The Acting of Munden." Two portions of these essays, not
reprinted by Lamb, call for comment: the story of the first night of
"Antonio," and the account of Charles Mathews' collection of pictures.
Page 328, line 14 from foot. _My friend G.'s "Antonio."_ William
Godwin's tragedy, produced on December 13, 1800, at Drury Lane. Lamb
had written the epilogue (see Vol. IV.). Compare the letter to Manning
of December 16, 1800.
Page 329, line 28. _M. wiped his cheek_. Writing to Godwin after the
failure Lamb says: "The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector,
looked not to be more lovely than Marshal's forehead when it spit
forth sweat, at Critic-swords contending. I remember two honest lines
by Marvel ...
"'Where every Mower's wholesome heat
Smells like an Alexander's sweat.'"
And again, to Manning: "His [Marshal's] face was lengthened, and all
over perspiration; I never saw such a care-fraught visage; I could
have hugged him, I loved him so intensely. 'From every pore of him a
perfume fell.'"
Page 329, foot. _R----s the dramatist_. I imagine this to be Frederic
Reynolds (1764-1841), author of "The Dramatist" and many other plays.
We know Lamb to have known him later, from a mention in a letter to
J.B. Dibdin.
Page 330, foot, _Brutus ... Appius_. Brutus in "Julius Cæsar," or
possibly in the play called "Brutus," by John Howard Payne, Lamb's
friend (produced December 3, 1818), in which Brutus kills his son--a
closer parallel. Appius was probably a slip of the pen for Virginius,
who in Sheridan Knowles' drama that bears his name kills his daughter
to protect her from Appius.
Page 331, line 7. _G. thenceforward_. Godwin did, however, write
another play, "Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote the prologue. It was
moderately successful.
Page 331, 1st line of essay. _I do not know, etc_. The paragraph
beginning with these words is often printed by editors of Lamb as
a separate article entitled "The Old Actors." Charles Mathews'
collection of theatrical portraits is now in the Garrick Club. In
his lifetime it occupied the gallery at Ivy Lodge, Highgate (or more
properly Kentish Town). A year or so before Mathews' death in 1835,
his pictures were exhibited at the Queen's Bazaar in Oxford Street,
Lamb's remarks being printed in the catalogue _raisonné_.