All this while Leucippus secretly prayed to Heaven to forgive him while

he uttered these bold untruths, since it was for the prevention of a

greater mischief only, and had no malice in it.

But, warned by the sad sequel which ensued, be thou careful, young

reader, how in any case you tell a lie. Lie not, if any man but ask you,

"How you do?" or "What o'clock it is?" Be sure you make no false excuse

to screen a friend that is most dear to you. Never let the most

well-intended falsehood escape your lips. For Heaven, which is entirely

Truth, will make the seed which you have sown of Untruth to yield

miseries a thousand-fold upon yours, as it did upon the head of the

ill-fated and mistaken Leucippus.

Leontius, finding the assurances of Bacha so confidently seconded by his

son, could no longer withhold his belief, and, only forbidding their

meeting for the future, took a courteous leave of the lady, presenting

her at the same time with a valuable ring, in recompense, as he said, of

the injustice which he had done her in his false surmises of her

guiltiness. In truth, the surpassing beauty of the lady, with her

appearing modesty, had made no less impression upon the heart of the

fond old Duke than they had awakened in the bosom of his more pardonable

son. His first design was to make her his mistress; to the better

accomplishing of which Leucippus was dismissed from the court, under the

pretext of some honorable employment abroad. In his absence, Leontius

spared no offers to induce her to comply with his purpose. Continually

he solicited her with rich offers, with messages, and by personal

visits. It was a ridiculous sight if it were not rather a sad one, to

behold this second and worse dotage, which by Cupid's wrath had fallen

upon this fantastical _old new lover_. All his occupation now was in

dressing and pranking himself up in youthful attire to please the eyes

of his new mistress. His mornings were employed in the devising of trim

fashions, in the company of tailors, embroiderers, and feather-dressers.

So infatuated was he with these vanities, that when a servant came and

told him that his daughter was dead--even she, whom he had but lately so

highly prized--the words seemed spoken to a deaf person. He either could

not or would not understand them; but, like one senseless, fell to

babbling about the shape of a new hose and doublet. His crutch, the

faithful prop of long aged years, was discarded; and he resumed the

youthful fashion of a sword by his side, when his years wanted strength

to have drawn it. In this condition of folly it was no difficult task

for the widow, by affected pretenses of honour and arts of amorous

denial, to draw in this doting Duke to that which she had all along

aimed at, the offer of his crown in marriage. She was now Duchess of

Lycia! In her new elevation the mask was quickly thrown aside, and the

impious Bacha appeared in her true qualities. She had never loved the

Duke her husband, but had used him as the instrument of her greatness.

Taking advantage of his amorous folly, which seemed to gain growth the

nearer he approached to his grave, she took upon her the whole rule of

Lycia; placing and displacing at her will all the great officers of

state; and filling the court with creatures of her own, the agents of

her guilty pleasures, she removed from the Duke's person the oldest and

trustiest of his dependents.

Leucippus, who at this juncture was returned from his foreign mission,

was met at once with the news of his sister's death and the strange

wedlock of the old Duke. To the memory of Hidaspes he gave some tears.

But these were swiftly swallowed up in his horror and detestation of the

conduct of Bacha. In his first fury he resolved upon a full disclosure

of all that had passed between him and his wicked step-mother. Again he

thought, by killing Bacha, to rid the world of a monster. But tenderness

for his father recalled him to milder counsels. The fatal secret,

nevertheless, sat upon him like lead, while he was determined to confide

it to no other. It took his sleep away, and his desire of food; and if a

thought of mirth at any time crossed him the dreadful truth would recur

to check it, as if a messenger should have come to whisper to him of

some friend's death! With difficulty he was brought to wish their

Highnesses faint joy of their marriage; and, at the first sight of

Bacha, a friend was fain to hold his wrist hard to prevent him from

fainting. In an interview which after, at her request, he had with her

alone, the bad woman shamed not to take up the subject lightly; to treat

as a trifle the marriage vow that had passed between them; and seeing

him sad and silent, to threaten him with the displeasure of the Duke,

his father, if by words or looks he gave any suspicion to the world of

their dangerous secret. "What had happened," she said, "was by no fault

of hers. People would have thought her mad if she had refused the Duke's

offer. She had used no arts to entrap his father. It was Leucippus's own

resolute denial of any such thing as a contract having passed between

them which had led to the proposal."

The Prince, unable to extenuate his share of blame in the calamity,

humbly besought her, that "since by his own great fault things had been

brought to their present pass, she would only live honest for the

future; and not abuse the credulous age of the old Duke, as he well knew

she had the power to do. For himself, seeing that life was no longer

desirable to him, if his death was judged by her to be indispensable to

her security, she was welcome to lay what trains she pleased to compass

it, so long as she would only suffer his father to go to his grave in

peace, since _he_ had never wronged her."

This temperate appeal was lost upon the heart of Bacha, who from that

moment was secretly bent upon effecting the destruction of Leucippus.

Her project was, by feeding the ears of the Duke with exaggerated

praises of his son, to awaken a jealousy in the old man that she

secretly preferred Leucippus. Next, by wilfully insinuating the great

popularity of the Prince (which was no more indeed than the truth) among

the Lycians, to instill subtle fears into the Duke that his son had laid

plots for circumventing his life and throne. By these arts, she was

working upon the weak mind of the Duke almost to distraction, when, at a

meeting, concocted by herself between the Prince and his father, the

latter taking Leucippus soundly to task for these alleged treasons, the

Prince replied only by humbly drawing his sword, with the intention of

laying it at his father's feet, and begging him, since he suspected him,

to sheathe it in his own bosom, for of his life he had been long weary.

Bacha entered at the crisis, and ere Leucippus could finish his

submission, with loud outcries alarmed the courtiers, who, rushing into

the presence, found the Prince, with sword in hand indeed, but with far

other intentions than this bad woman imputed to him, plainly accusing

him of having drawn it upon his father! Leucippus was quickly disarmed;

and the old Duke, trembling between fear and age, committed him to close

prison, from which, by Bacha's aims, he never should have come out alive

but for the interference of the common people, who, loving their Prince,

and equally detesting Bacha, in a simultaneous mutiny, arose and rescued

him from the hands of the officers.

The court was now no longer a place of living for Leucippus, and,

hastily thanking his countrymen for his deliverance, which in his heart

he rather deprecated than welcomed, as one that wished for death, he

took leave of all court hopes, and, abandoning the palace, betook

himself to a life of penitence in solitudes.

Not so secretly did he select his place of penance, in a cave among

lonely woods and fastnesses, but that his retreat was traced by Bacha;

who, baffled in her purpose, raging like some she-wolf, dispatched an

emissary of her own to destroy him privately.

There was residing at the court of Lycia at this time a young maiden,

the daughter of Bacha by her first husband, who had hitherto been

brought up in the obscurity of a poor country abode with an uncle, but

whom Bacha now publicly owned, and had prevailed upon the easy Duke to

adopt as successor to the throne in wrong of the true heir, his

suspected son Leucippus.

This young creature, Urania by name, was as artless and harmless as her

mother was crafty and wicked. To the unnatural Bacha she had been an

object of neglect and aversion; and for the project of supplanting

Leucippus only had she fetched her out of retirement. The bringing-up of

Urania had been among country hinds and lasses; to tend her flocks or

superintend her neat dairy had been the extent of her breeding. From her

calling she had contracted a pretty rusticity of dialect, which, among

the fine folks of the court, passed for simplicity and folly. She was

the unfittest instrument for an ambitious design that could be chosen,

for her manners in a palace had a tinge still of her old occupation, and

to her mind the lowly shepherdess's life was best.

Simplicity is oft a match for prudence; and Urania was not so simple but

she understood that she had been sent for to court only in the Prince's

wrong, and in her heart she was determined to defeat any designs that

might be contriving against her brother-in-law. The melancholy bearing

of Leucippus had touched her with pity. This wrought in her a kind of

love, which, for its object, had no further end than the well-being of

the beloved. She looked for no return of it, nor did the possibility of

such a blessing in the remotest way occur to her--so vast a distance she

had imaged between her lowly bringing up and the courtly breeding and

graces of Leucippus. Hers was no raging flame, such as had burned

destructive in the bosom of poor Hidaspes. Either the vindictive God in

mercy had spared this young maiden, or the wrath of the confounding

_Cupid_ was restrained by a Higher Power from discharging the most

malignant of his arrows against the peace of so much innocence. Of the

extent of her mother's malice she was too guileless to have entertained

conjecture; but from hints and whispers, and, above all, from that

tender watchfulness with which a true affection, like Urania's, tends

the safety of its object--fearing even where no cause for fear

subsists--she gathered that some danger was impending over the Prince,

and with simple heroism resolved to countermine the treason.

It chanced upon a day that Leucippus had been indulging his sad

meditations, in forests far from human converse, when he was struck with

the appearance of a human being, so unusual in that solitude. There

stood before him a seeming _youth_, of delicate appearance, clad in

coarse and peasantly attire. "He was come," he said, "to seek out the

Prince, and to be his poor boy and servant, if he would let him." "Alas!

poor youth," replied Leucippus, "why do you follow me, who am as poor as

you are?" "In good faith," was his pretty answer, "I shall be well and

rich enough if you will but love me." And saying so, he wept. The

Prince, admiring this strange attachment in a boy, was moved with

compassion; and seeing him exhausted, as if with long travel and hunger,

invited him into his poor habitation, setting such refreshments before

him as that barren spot afforded. But by no entreaties could he be

prevailed upon to take any sustenance; and all that day, and for the two

following, he seemed supported only by some gentle flame of love that

was within him. He fed only upon the sweet looks and courteous

entertainment which he received from Leucippus. Seemingly he wished to

die under the loving eyes of his master. "I can not eat," he prettily

said, "but I shall eat to-morrow." "You will be dead by that time," said

Leucippus. "I shall be well then," said he, "since you will not love

me." Then the prince asked him why he sighed so: "To think," was his

innocent reply, "that such a fine man as you should die, and no gay lady

love him." "But you will love me," said Leucippus. "Yes, sure," said he,

"till I die; and when I am in heaven I shall wish for you."--"This is a

love," thought the other, "that I never yet heard tell of: but come,

thou art sleepy, child; go in, and I will sit with thee." Then, from

some words which the poor youth dropped, Leucippus, suspecting that his

wits were beginning to ramble, said, "What portends this?"--"I am not

sleepy," said the youth, "but you are sad. I would that I could do

anything to make you merry. Shall I sing?" But soon, as if recovering

strength, "There is one approaching," he wildly cried out. "Master, look

to yourself--"

His words were true; for now entered, with provided weapon, the wicked

emissary of Bacha that we told of; and, directing a mortal thrust at the

Prince, the supposed boy, with a last effort, interposing his weak body,

received it in his bosom, thanking the Heavens in death that he had

saved "so good a master."

Leucippus, having slain the villain, was at leisure to discover, in the

features of his poor servant, the countenance of his devoted

sister-in-law! Through solitary and dangerous ways she had sought him in

that disguise; and, finding him, seems to have resolved upon a voluntary

death by fasting: partly, that she might die in the presence of her

beloved; and partly, that she might make known to him in death the love

which she wanted boldness to disclose to him while living; but chiefly,

because she knew that by her demise all obstacles would be removed that

stood between her Prince and his succession to the throne of Lycia.

Leucippus had hardly time to comprehend the strength of love in his

Urania when a trampling of horses resounded through his solitude. It was

a party of Lycian horsemen, that had come to seek him, dragging the

detested Bacha in their train, who was now to receive the full penalty

of her misdeeds. Amidst her frantic fury upon the missing of her

daughter the old Duke had suddenly died, not without suspicion of her

having administered poison to him. Her punishment was submitted to

Leucippus, who was now, with joyful acclaims, saluted as the rightful

Duke of Lycia. He, as no way moved with his great wrongs, but

considering her simply as the parent of Urania, saluting her only by the

title of "Wicked Mother," bade her to live. "That Reverend title," he

said, and pointed to the bleeding remains of her child, "must be her

pardon. He would use no extremity against her, but leave her to Heaven."

The hardened mother, not at all relenting at the sad spectacle that lay

before her, but making show of dutiful submission to the young Duke, and

with bended knees, approaching him, suddenly, with a dagger, inflicted a

mortal stab upon him; and, with a second stroke stabbing herself, ended

both their wretched lives.

Now was the tragedy of Cupid's wrath awfully completed; and, the race of

Leontius failing in the deaths of both his children, the chronicle

relates that, under their new Duke, Ismenus, the offense to the angry

Power was expiated; his statues and altars were, with more magnificence

than ever, re-edified; and he ceased thenceforth from plaguing the land.

Thus far the Pagan historians relate erring. But from this vain Idol

story a not unprofitable moral may be gathered against the abuse of the

natural, but dangerous, _passion of love_. In the story of Hidaspes we

see the preposterous linking of beauty with deformity; of princely

expectancies with mean and low conditions, in the case of the Prince,

her brother; and of decrepit age with youth in the ill end of their

doting father, Leontius. By their examples we are warned to decline all

_unequal and ill-assorted unions_.

APPENDIX

ESSAYS AND NOTES NOT CERTAIN TO BE LAMB'S, BUT PROBABLY HIS

SCRAPS OF CRITICISM

(1822)

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,

Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.

_Gray's Elegy_.

There has always appeared to me a vicious mixture of the figurative with

the real in this admired passage. The first two lines may barely pass,

as not bad. But the _hands_ laid in the earth, must mean the identical

five-finger'd organs of the body; and how does this consist with their

occupation of _swaying rods_, unless their owner had been a

schoolmaster; or _waking lyres_, unless he were literally a harper by

profession? Hands that "might have held the plough," would have some

sense, for that work is strictly manual; the others only emblematically

or pictorially so. Kings now-a-days sway no rods, _alias_ sceptres,

except on their coronation day; and poets do not necessarily strum upon

the harp or fiddle, as poets. When we think upon dead cold fingers, we

may remember the honest squeeze of friendship which they returned

heretofore; we cannot but with violence connect their living idea, as

opposed to death, with uses to which they must become metaphorical (i.e.

less real than dead things themselves) before we can so with any

propriety apply them.

* * * * *

He saw, but, blasted with excess of light,

Closed his eyes in endless night.

_Gray's Bard_.

Nothing was ever more violently distorted, than this material fact of

Milton's blindness having been occasioned by his intemperate studies,

and late hours, during his prosecution of the defence against

Salmasius--applied to the dazzling effects of too much mental vision.

His corporal sight was blasted with corporal occupation; his inward

sight was not impaired, but rather strengthened, by his task. If his

course of studies had turned his brain, there would have been some

fitness in the expression.

* * * * *

And since I cannot, I will prove a _villain_,

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

_Soliloquy in Richard III_.

The performers, whom I have seen in this part, seem to mistake the

import of the word which I have marked with italics. Richard does not

mean, that because he is by shape and temper unfitted for a _courtier_,

he is therefore determined to prove, in our sense of the word, a _wicked

man_. The word in Shakspeare's time had not passed entirely into the

modern sense; it was in its passage certainly, and indifferently used as

such; the beauty of a world of words in that age was in their being less

definite than they are now, fixed, and petrified. _Villain_ is here

undoubtedly used for a _churl_, or _clown_, opposed to a _courtier_; and

the incipient deterioration of the meaning gave the use of it in this

place great spirit and beauty. A _wicked man_ does not necessarily hate

_courtly pleasures_; a _clown_ is naturally opposed to them. The mistake

of this meaning has, I think, led the players into that hard literal

conception with which they deliver this passage, quite foreign, in my

understanding, to the bold gay-faced irony of the soliloquy. Richard,

upon the stage, looks round, as if he were literally apprehensive of

some dog snapping at him; and announces his determination of procuring a

looking-glass, and employing a tailor, as if he were prepared to put

both in practice before he should get home--I apprehend "a world of

figures here."

* * * * *

_Howell's Letters_. "The Treaty of the Match 'twixt our Prince

[afterwards Charles I.] and the Lady Infanta, is now strongly afoot; she

is a very comely Lady, _rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish,

fair hair'd_, and carrieth a most pure mixture of red and white in her

Face. She is full and _big-lipp'd, which is held a Beauty rather than a

Blemish or any Excess in the Austrian Family, it being a thing incident

to most of that Race_; she goes now upon 16, and is of a tallness

agreeable to those years." This letter bears date, 5th Jan. 1622. Turn

we now to a letter dated 16th May, 1626. The wind was now changed about,

the Spanish match broken off, and Charles had become the husband of

Henrietta. "I thank you for your late Letter, and the several good

Tidings sent me from Wales. In requital I can send you gallant news, for

we have now a most Noble new Queen of England, who in true Beauty is

beyond the Long-woo'd Infanta; for she was of a _fading Flaxen-hair,

Big-lipp'd_, and somewhat Heavy-eyed; but this Daughter of France, this

youngest Branch of Bourbon (being but in her Cradle when the Great

Henry her Father was put out of the World) is of a more _lovely and

lasting Complexion_, a dark brown; she hath Eyes that sparkle like

Stars; and for her Physiognomy, she may be said to be a Mirror of

Perfection." He hath a rich account, in another letter, of Prince

Charles courting this same Infanta. "There are Comedians once a week

come to the Palace [at Madrid], where under a great Canopy, the Queen

and the Infanta sit in the middle, our Prince and Don Carlos on the

Queen's right hand, the king and the little Cardinal on the Infanta's

left hand. I have seen the Prince have his eyes immovably fixed upon the

Infanta half an hour together in a thoughtful speculative posture,

_which sure would needs be tedious, unless affection did sweeten it_."

Again, of the Prince's final departure from that court. "The king and

his two Brothers accompanied his Highness to the Escurial some twenty

miles off, and would have brought him to the Sea-side, but that the

Queen is big, and hath not many days to go. When the King and he parted,

there past wonderful great Endearments and Embraces _in divers postures_

between them a long time; and in that place there is a Pillar to be

erected as a monument to Posterity." This scene of royal congées

assuredly gave rise to the popular, or reformed sign (as Ben Jonson

calls it), of _The Salutation_. In the days of Popery, this sign had a

more solemn import.

THE MISCELLANY

(1822)

THE CHOICE OF A GRAVE

In Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead, Mary Stuart meets Rizzio, and by

way of reconciling him to the violence he had suffered, says to him, "I

have honoured thy memory so far as to place thee in the tomb of the

Kings of Scotland." "How," says the musician, "my body entombed among

the Scottish Kings?" "Nothing more true," replies the queen. "And I,"

says Rizzio, "I have been so little sensible of that good fortune, that,

believe me, this is the first notice I ever had of it."

I have no sympathy with that feeling, which is now-a-days so much in

fashion, for picking out snug spots to be buried in. What is the meaning

of such fancies? No man thinks or says, that it will be agreeable to his

dead body to be resolved into dust under a willow, or with flowers above

it. No--it is, that while alive he has pleasure in such anticipations

for his coxcomical clay. I do not understand it--there is no _quid pro

quo_ in the business to my apprehension. It will not do to reason upon

of course; but I can't feel about it. I am to blame, I dare say--but I

can only laugh at such under-ground whims. "A good place" in the

church-yard!--the boxes!--a front row! but why? No, I cannot understand

it: I cannot feel _particular_ on such a subject: any part for me, as a

plain man says of a partridge.

* * * * *

WILKS

It is very pleasing to discover redeeming points in characters that have

been held up to our detestation. The merest trifles are enough, if they

taste but of common humanity. I have never thought very ill of Wilks

since I discovered that he was exceedingly fond of South-Down mutton.

But better than this: "My cherries," he says, "are the prey of the

blackbirds--and they are most welcome." This is a little trait of

character, which, in my mind, covers a multitude of sins.

* * * * *

MILTON

Milton takes his rank in English literature, according to the station

which has been determined on by the critics. But he is not read like

Lord Byron, or Mr. Thomas Moore. He is not _popular_; nor perhaps will

he ever be. He is known as the Author of "Paradise Lost;" but his

"Paradise Regained," "severe and beautiful," is little known. Who knows

his Arcades? or Samson Agonistes? or half his minor poems? We are

persuaded that, however they may be spoken of with respect, few persons

take the trouble to read them. Even Comus, the child of his youth, his

"florid son, young" Comus--is not well known; and for the little renown

he may possess, he is indebted to the stage. The following lines

(_excepting only the first four_) are not printed in the common editions

of Milton; nor are they generally known to belong to that divine

"Masque;" yet they are in the poet's highest style. We are happy to

bring them before such of our readers as are not possessed of Mr. Todd's

expensive edition of Milton.

_The Spirit Enters._

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes

Of bright aërial spirits live insphered

In regions mild of calm and serene air,

_Amidst th' Hesperian gardens, on whose banks_

_Bedew'd with nectar and celestial songs,_

_Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth,

And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree_

_The scaly harness'd dragon ever keeps_

_His unenchanted eye: around the verge_

_And sacred limits of this blissful isle,_

_The jealous ocean, that old river, winds_

_His far-extended arms, till with steep fall_

_Half his waste flood the wild Atlantic fills,_

_And half the slow unfathom'd Stygian pool._

_But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder_

_With distant worlds, and strange removed climes._

_Yet thence I come, and oft from thence behold, &c._

Our readers will forgive us for having modernized the spelling. It is

the only liberty that we have taken with our great author's magnificent

passage.

* * * * *

A CHECK TO HUMAN PRIDE

It is rather an unpleasant fact, that the ugliest and awkwardest of

brute animals have the greatest resemblance to man: the monkey and the

bear. The monkey is ugly too, (so we think,) because he is like man--as

the bear is awkward, because the cumbrous action of its huge paws seems

to be a preposterous imitation of the motions of the human hands. Men

and apes are the only animals that have hairs on the under eye-lid. Let

kings know this.

COMIC TALES, ETC.,

BY C. DIBDIN THE YOUNGER

(1825)

In this age of hyper-poetic plights, and talent in a frenzy aping

genius, it is consolatory to see a little volume of verse in the good

old sober manner of Queen Ann's days, when verse walked high, rather

than flew, and sought its nutriment upon this diurnal sphere, not rapt

above the moon. To a lover of Chess, who at the same time can relish the

Rape of the Lock, the poem which forms the distinguishing feature of

this volume cannot fail to impart pleasure. It is a mock heroic of

course, descriptive of the Game; and the Homeric parodies are adroit and

numerous. The names of the mortal combatants, Blanc, Blanche,

Croesieroi, Reinelawne, Sir Garderoi, Sir Gardereene, etc. on one side,

with Niger, Nigra, Mitrex, Mitre regina, Sir Rexensor, Sir Reginalde,

etc. on the other, are happily conceived, and the strife thickens to the

conclusion. The Gods and Goddesses are the Games of Chance, or Mixed

Chance, Faro, Whist, Loo, etc. in all their attributes, with old Hazard

for their Jupiter, a fine gruff, grumbling Dice-compeller, whose

dice-box is to him what the awful Homeric chain was to his Prototype.

The soft blandishments of _Joan_, the gentle _Pope_--

Intriguing Hebe to the God of Game--

wrings from his austere Deity his slow permission for the interference

of the Olympeans in the fight below, and accordingly they range on

either side, as in the Iliad; and by their infusion of passions,

coprices, impulses, peculiar to the nature of their own warfare,

confound and embroil the pure contest of skill through five Cantos very

entertainingly. We confess we are more at home in Hoyle than in

Phillidor; but by the help of the notes, we played the game through

ourselves very tolerably. We subjoin an exquisite simile, with which the

third Canto commences--a description of the Morning, redolent of Swift

and Gay:--

Now Morning, yawning, rais'd her from her bed,

Slipp'd on her wrapper blue and 'kerchief red,

And took from Night the key of Sleep's abode--

For Night within that mansion had bestow'd

The Hours of Day; now, turn and turn about,

Morn takes the key, and lets the Day Hours out;

Laughing they issue from the ebon gate,

And Night walks in. As when, in drowsy state,

Some _watchman_, wed to _one who chars all day_,

Takes to his lodgings door his creeping way;

His Rib, arising, lets him in to sleep,

While she emerges to scrub, dust, and sweep.

DOG DAYS

"Now Sirius rages"

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

(1825)

Sir,--I am one of those unfortunate creatures, who, at this season of

the year, are exposed to the effects of an illiberal prejudice. Warrants

are issued out in form, and whole scores of us are taken up and executed

annually, under an obsolete statute, on what is called suspicion of

lunacy. It is very hard that a sober sensible dog, cannot go quietly

through a village about his business, without having his motions

watched, or some impertinent fellow observing that there is an "odd look

about his eyes." My pulse, for instance, at this present writing, is as

temperate as yours, Mr. Editor, and my head as little rambling, but I

hardly dare to show my face out of doors for fear of these scrutinizers.

If I look up in a stranger's face, he thinks I am going to bite him. If

I go with my eyes fixed upon the ground, they say I have got the mopes,

which is but a short stage from the disorder. If I wag my tail, I am too

lively; if I do not wag it, I am sulky--either of which appearances

passes alike for a prognostic. If I pass a dirty puddle without

drinking, sentence is infallibly pronounced upon me. I am perfectly

swilled with the quantity of ditch-water I am forced to swallow in a

day, to clear me from imputations--a worse cruelty than the water ordeal

of your old Saxon ancestors. If I snap at a bone, I am furious; if I

refuse it, I have got the sullens, and that is a bad symptom. I dare not

bark outright, for fear of being adjudged to rave. It was but yesterday,

that I indulged in a little innocent _yelp_ only, on occasion of a

cart-wheel going over my leg, and the populace was up in arms, as if I

had betrayed some marks of flightiness in my conversation.

Really our case is one which calls for the interference of the

chancellor. He should see, as in cases of other lunatics, that

commissions are only issued out against proper objects; and not [let] a

whole race be proscribed, because some dreaming Chaldean, two thousand

years ago, fancied a canine resemblance in some star or other, that was

supposed to predominate over addle brains, with as little justice as

Mercury was held to be influential over rogues and swindlers; no

compliment I am sure to either star or planet. Pray attend to my

complaint, Mr. Editor, and speak a good word for us this hot weather.

Your faithful, though sad dog,

POMPEY.

THE PROGRESS OF CANT

(A REVIEW OF HOOD'S ETCHING)

(1826)

A wicked wag has produced a caricature under this title, in which he

marshalleth all the projected improvements of the age, and maketh them

take their fantastic progress before the eyes of the scorner. It is a

spirited etching, almost as abundant in meaning as in figures, and hath

a reprobate eye to a corner--an Hogarthian vivification of post and

placard. Priests, anti-priests, architects, politicians, reformers,

flaming loyalty-men, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, all

go on "progressing," as the Americans say. Life goes on, at any rate;

and there is so much merriment on all sides, that for our parts,

inclined to improvements as we are, we should be willing enough to join

in the laugh throughout, if the world were as merry as the artist. The

houses are as much to the purpose as the pedestrians. There is the

office of the Peruvian Mining Company, in dismal, dilapidated condition;

a barber's shop, with "Nobody to be shaved during divine service," the

_h_ worn out; two boarding-schools for young ladies and gentlemen, very

neighbourly; and the public-house, called the Angel and Punch-Bowl, by

T. Moore. Among the crowd is a jolly, but vehement, reverend person

holding a flag, inscribed, "The Church in Anger," the _D_ for danger

being hidden by another flag, inscribed, "Converted Jews." Then there is

the Caledonian Chap (_el_ being obstructed in the same way), who holds a

pennon, crying out, "No Theatre!" Purity of Election, with a bludgeon,

very drunk; and, above all, a petty fellow called the Great Unknown,

with his hat over his eyes, and a constable's staff peeping out of his

pocket. Some of the faces and figures are very clever, particularly the

Barber; the Saving-banks man; the Jew Boy picking the pocket; the

Charity Boy and the Beadle. The Beadle is rich from head to foot.

Nathless, we like not to see Mrs. Fry so roasted: we are at a loss to

know why the Blacks deserve to be made Black Devils; and are not aware

that the proposal of an University in London has occasioned, or is

likely to occasion, any sort of cant. However, there is no harm done

where a cause can afford a joke; and where it cannot, the more it is

joked at, the better.

MR. EPHRAIM WAGSTAFF, HIS WIFE, AND PIPE

About the middle of Shoemaker-row, near to Broadway, Blackfriars, there

resided for many years a substantial hardware-man, named Ephraim

Wagstaff. He was short in stature, tolerably well favoured in

countenance, and singularly neat and clean in his attire. Everybody in

the neighbourhood looked upon him as a "warm" old man; and when he died,

the property he left behind him did not bely the preconceived opinion.

It was all personal, amounted to about nineteen thousand pounds; and, as

he was childless, it went to distant relations, with the exception of a

few hundred pounds bequeathed to public charities.

The family of Ephraim Wagstaff, both on the male and female sides, was

respectable, though not opulent. His maternal grandfather, he used to

say, formed part of the executive government in the reign of George I.,

whom he served as petty constable in one of the manufacturing districts

during a long period. The love of office seems not to have been

hereditary in the family; or perhaps the opportunities of gratifying it

did not continue; for, with that single exception, none of his ancestors

could boast of official honours. The origin of the name is doubtful. On

a first view, it seems evidently the conjunction of two names brought

together by marriage or fortune. In the "Tatler" we read about the

_staff_ in a variety of combinations, under one of which the popular

author of that work chose to designate himself, and thereby conferred

immortality on the name of Bickerstaff. Our friend Ephraim was no great

wit, but he loved a joke, particularly if he made it himself; and he

used to say, whenever he heard any one endeavouring to account for his

name, that he believed it originated in the marriage of a Miss Staff to

some Wag who lived near her; and who, willing to show his gallantry, and

at the same time his knowledge of French customs, adopted the fashion of

that sprightly people, by adding her family name to his own. The

conjecture is at least probable, and so we must leave it.

At the age of fifty-two it pleased heaven to deprive Mr. Wagstaff of his

beloved spouse Barbara. The bereavement formed an era in his history.

Mrs. Wagstaff was an active, strong woman, about ten years older than

himself, and one sure to be missed in any circle wherein she had once

moved. She was indeed no cipher. Her person was tall and bony, her face,

in hue, something between brown and red, had the appearance of having

been scorched. Altogether her qualities were truly commanding. She loved

her own way exceedingly; was continually on the alert to have it; and,

in truth, generally succeeded. Yet such was her love of justice, that

she has been heard to aver repeatedly, that she never (she spoke the

word _never_ emphatically) opposed her husband, but when he was

decidedly in the wrong. Of these occasions, it must also be mentioned,

she generously took upon herself the trouble and responsibility of being

the sole judge. There was one point, however, on which it would seem

that Mr. Wagstaff had contrived to please himself exclusively; although,

how he had managed to resist so effectually the remonstrances and

opposition which, from the structure of his wife's mind he must

necessarily have been doomed to encounter, must ever remain a secret.

The fact was this: Ephraim had a peculiarly strong attachment to a pipe;

his affection for his amiable partner scarcely exceeding that which he

entertained for that lively emblem of so many sage contrivances and

florid speeches, ending like it--in smoke. In the times of his former

wives (for twice before had he been yoked in matrimony) he had indulged

himself with it unmolested. Not so with Mrs. Wagstaff the third. Pipes

and smoking she held in unmitigated abhorrence: but having, by whatever

means, been obliged to submit to their introduction, she wisely avoided

all direct attempts to abate what she called among her friends "the

nuisance;" and, like a skilful general, who has failed of securing

victory, she had recourse to such stratagems as might render it as

little productive as possible to the enemy. Ephraim, aware how matters

stood, neglected no precaution to guard against his wife's

manœuvres--meeting, of course, with various success. Many a time did her

ingenuity contrive an accident, by which his pipe and peace of mind were

at once demolished; and, although there never could be any difficulty in

replacing the former by simply sending out for that purpose, yet he has

confessed, that when he contemplated the possibility of offering too

strong an excitement to the shrill tones of his beloved's voice, (the

only pipe she willingly tolerated,) he waved that proceeding, and

submitted to the sacrifice as much the lesser evil. At length Mrs.

Wagstaff was taken ill, an inflammation on her lungs was found to be her

malady, and that crisis appeared to be fast approaching, when

The doctor leaves the house with sorrow,

Despairing of his fee to-morrow.

The foreboding soon proved correct; and, every thing considered, perhaps

it ought not to excite much surprise, that when Ephraim heard from the

physician that there was little or no chance of her recovery, he

betrayed no symptoms of excessive emotion, but mumbling something

unintelligibly, in which the doctor thought he caught the sound of the

words "Christian duty of resignation," he quietly filled an additional

pipe that evening. The next day Mrs. Wagstaff expired, and in due time

her interment took place in the churchyard of St. Ann, Blackfriars,

every thing connected therewith being conducted with the decorum

becoming so melancholy an event, and which might be expected from a man

of Mr. Wagstaff's gravity and experience. The funeral was a walking one

from the near vicinity to the ground; and but for an untimely slanting

shower of rain, no particular inconvenience would have been felt by

those who were assembled on that occasion; that casualty, however,

caused them to be thoroughly drenched; and, in reference to their

appearance, it was feelingly observed by some of the by-standers, that

they had seldom seen so many tears on the faces of mourners.--

_To be continued_--(perhaps).

NEMO.

REVIEW OF MOXON'S SONNETS

[SONNETS. BY EDWARD MOXON. (Printed for private circulation only.)]

(1833)

A copy of this unassuming work has fallen in our way. We are critics on

_publications_ only. It is like criticising a domestic conversation, or

a friendly letter, to notice a little book, professedly not meant for

the public eye. But we are pleased, and pleasure will speak out when

discretion whispers it to be still. The author has professional reasons

to be private. With them we have nothing to do, but to say, that if

unabating industry, integrity above his avocation, unparalleled success

for the short time he has entered upon it, are any auguries of success,

this notice of ours will not hinder his calling. We have no parallel for

this mixed character--qualities united seemingly at farthest

variance--except in fine old Humphrey Mosely, the _stationer_ (so were

booksellers termed in the good old times), who, for love only, not for

lucre, ushered into the world the first poems of Waller, the Juvenilia

of Milton, besides a lesser galaxy of the poets of his day, with

_Prefaces_, of his own honest composing, worthy of the strains they

preluded to. Turn, reader, to his introduction to the Minor Poems of

Milton, and say, if that soul, which inspirits it, worked for gain. H.

M. (bibliomanists will gladlier recognise him by his initials) was, in

his day, what we hope E. M. will prove in his, the fosterer of poetry,

not merely the sordid trader in it. We must steal a sonnet or two from

this sealed book, to justify our expectations. The first shall be 'To

the Nightingale:' the originality of the concluding thought, and general

sweetness of the versification, make us, reluctantly almost, give it the

preference.

Lone midnight-soothing melancholy bird,

That send'st such music to my sleepless soul,

Chaining her faculties in fast controul,

Few listen to thy song; yet I have heard,

When Man and Nature slept, nor aspen stirr'd,

Thy mournful voice, sweet vigil of the sleeping--

And liken'd thee to some angelic mind,

That sits and mourns for erring mortals weeping.

The genius, not of groves, but of mankind,

Watch at this solemn hour o'er millions keeping.

In Eden's bowers, as mighty poets tell,

Did'st thou repeat, as now, that wailing call--

Those sorrowing notes might seem, sad Philomel,

Prophetic to have mourn'd of _man_ the _fall_.

One more, and we have done. We mistake, if a Petrarch-like delicacy is

not to be found in the following:--

Methought my Love was dead. O, 'twas a night

Of dreary weeping, and of bitter woe!

Methought I saw her lovely spirit go

With lingering looks into yon star so bright,

Which then assumed such a beauteous light,

That all the fires in heaven compared with this

Were scarce perceptible to my weak sight.

There seem'd henceforth the haven of my bliss;

To that I turn'd with fervency of soul,

And pray'd that morn might never break again,

But o'er me that pure planet still remain.

Alas! o'er it my vows had no controul.

The lone star set: I woke full glad, I deem,

To find my sorrow but a lover's dream!

NOTES

The prose of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, was dedicated to Martin Burney in the

following sonnet:--

TO MARTIN CHARLES BURNEY, ESQ.

Forgive me, BURNEY, if to thee these late

And hasty products of a critic pen,

Thyself no common judge of books and men,

In feeling of thy worth I dedicate.

My _verse_ was offered to an older friend;

The humbler _prose_ has fallen to thy share:

Nor could I miss the occasion to declare,

What spoken in thy presence must offend--

That, set aside some few caprices wild,

Those humorous clouds that flit o'er brightest days,

In all my threadings of this worldly maze,

(And I have watched thee almost from a child),

Free from self-seeking, envy, low design,

I have not found a whiter soul than thine.

Martin Burney was the son of Rear-Admiral Burney, who had sailed with

Cook, and was the nephew of Madame D'Arblay. He was a barrister and very

nearly Lamb's contemporary. Both Charles Lamb and his sister had for him

a deep affection, although they made fun of his oddities, many of which

are recorded in the correspondence. Burney lived to attend, and weep

distressingly at, Mary Lamb's funeral in 1847.

Lamb seems to have meditated a collected edition of his works as early

as 1816, for we find him telling Wordsworth (Sept. 23, 1816), that he

had offered the book to Murray through Barron Field, but that Gifford

had opposed the project successfully.

Page 1. ROSAMUND GRAY.

First printed, 1798. Reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

_Rosamund Gray_ was published in 1798 by Lee & Hurst under the title _A

Tale of Rosamund Gray and old Blind Margaret_, by Charles Lamb. It then

had this dedication:--

THIS TALE

IS

INSCRIBED IN FRIENDSHIP

TO

MARMADUKE THOMPSON,

OF

PEMBROKE HALL,

CAMBRIDGE.

Thompson was at Christ's Hospital with Lamb. In the essay on that school

in _Elia_, written in 1820, he is called "mildest of Missionaries" and

the writer's good friend still, but there is no evidence that the

intimacy was actively continued after the early days.

At the time that _Rosamund Gray_ was written Lamb was twenty-two to

twenty-three. It was his first prose of which we know anything.

Lamb reprinted the story without the dedication, under the title

_Rosamund Gray, a Tale_, in his _Works_, 1818, the text of which is

followed here. The differences of punctuation are numerous, but the text

is mainly the same. In Chapter VI. (page 14, line 9) the phrase "take a

cup of tea with her," ran, twenty years earlier, "drink a dish"; page

14, line 8 from foot, after "beauties of the season" old Margaret

originally said, "I can still remember them with pleasure, and rejoice

that younger eyes than mine can see and enjoy them. I shall be," etc.;

and at the end of the same chapter (page 16), in the 1798 edition, came

the quaintly particular passage which I have thrown into italics:--

"Besides, it was Margaret's bed-time, for she kept very good

hours--indeed, in the distribution of her meals, and sundry other

particulars, she resembled the livers in the antique world, more than

might well beseem a creature of this--_none but Rosamund could get her

mess of broth ready, or put her night caps on--(she wore seven, the

undermost was of flannel)--_

"_'You know, love, I can do nothing to help myself--here I must stay till

you return.'_

"So the new friends parted for that night--Elinor having made Margaret

promise to give Rosamund leave to come and see her the next day."

Shelley's praise of _Rosamund Gray_ has often been quoted: writing to

Leigh Hunt, in 1819, he said, "What a lovely thing is _Rosamund Gray_!

How much knowledge of the sweetest and deepest parts of our nature is in

it!" Lamb mentions _Julia de Roubigné_ in the text, and there is little

doubt that he was influenced by Mackenzie's story. The epistolary form

into which _Rosamund Gray_ lapses is maintained throughout in _Julia de

Roubigné_ (1777), and there is a similar intensity of emotion and

suggestion of fatality in both correspondences. There is, however, in

_Julia de Roubigné_ nothing of the sweet simplicity and limpid clarity

of Lamb's earlier chapters; which may be described as his (perhaps

unconscious) contribution to the revolt against convention that

Coleridge and Wordsworth were leading in the same year in the _Lyrical

Ballads_.

How far Lamb was recording fact in this story we do not know; but the

letters seem to reflect his own frame of mind at that time--following

upon his mother's death and his abandonment of his daydreams with the

fair-haired maid of his sonnets. In this case we have the unusual

spectacle of a masculine writer conveying his feelings through a

feminine medium. But on pages 17-18 Lamb seems to be writing both as

himself and his sister. Compare the passage at the foot of page 17 with

Lamb's letter to Coleridge of October 17, 1796, where he quotes his

sister as saying, "The spirit of my mother seems to descend and smile

upon me," and the last paragraph on page 17 is paraphrased in Lamb's

lines (composed at the same time that he was working on _Rosamund Gray_)

"Written soon after the Preceding Poem," October, 1797. Again, the

second paragraph on page 21 must exactly represent Lamb's hopes and

wishes in connection with his sister at that date.

Rosamund Gray and her grandmother (if they had any real existence) are

said to have lived in one of the group of cottages called Blenheims,

between Blakesware and Ware, in the days when Lamb visited his

grandmother at Blakesware house. These cottages were pulled down in

1895. But then Lamb's Anna--of the love sonnets--is also said to have

lived at Blenheims; and they cannot possibly be identical. Old Margaret

and Mrs. Field, Lamb's grandmother, may have had some traits in common,

and the description of Blakesware, where Mrs. Field was housekeeper, is

recognisable; but these researches cannot be pursued to any real

purpose. According to a letter to Southey in October, 1798, "nothing but

the first words" of the ballad--

An old woman clothed in gray,

Whose daughter was charming and young,

And she was deluded away

By Roger's false flattering tongue--

put Lamb "upon scribbling ... _Rosamund_." This is quite conceivably the

case. Whether we are to suppose that Lamb took not only the motive of

his story, but also the word Gray, from this stanza, cannot be said; but

it is generally thought that he found the name Rosamund Gray in a song

thus entitled in his friend Charles Lloyd's _Poems on Various

Occasions_, 1795. There is a suggestion that Lloyd may have had

particular interest in the book in the circumstance that copies exist

bearing the imprint of Pearson, a bookseller at Birmingham, where Lloyd

lived. The Birmingham edition indeed is considered to be the first.

Writing to Southey in May, 1799, Lamb says that _Rosamund_ sells well in

London.

Old Thomas Billet (page 28) was not the true name of the Widford

innkeeper. It was Clemitson (see the poem "Going or Gone"). Lamb again

used the name Billet, for his father's old Lincoln friend, in "Poor

Relations." Nor was Ben Moxam the name of the Blakesware gardener, but

Ben Carter. The Wilderness was actually the name given to the wood at

the back of Blakesware house.

On the passage concerning the epitaphs, on pages 29-30, Talfourd wrote:

"The reflections he [Lamb] makes on the eulogistic character of all the

inscriptions are drawn from his own childhood; for when a very little

boy, walking with his sister in a churchyard, he suddenly asked her,

'Mary, where do the naughty people lie?'"

Southey has a poem, "The Ruined Cottage," among his _English Eclogues_,

which is practically a poetical paraphase of _Rosamund Gray_. I do not

know whether Southey's version was taken from an independent source or

whether it was a compliment to Lamb. Lamb's tale had, however, come

first.

Finally, it may be remarked that in Barry Cornwall's _Poems_, Galignani,

1829, is a poem entitled "Rosamund Gray," which from the evidence of its

few opening lines was to have been a blank verse adaptation of Lamb's

theme.

* * * * *

Page 35. CURIOUS FRAGMENTS.

_John Woodvil_, 1802, and _Works_, 1818.

Lamb engaged upon these experiments in the manner of Burton, always a

favourite author with him, at the suggestion of Coleridge. We find him

writing to Manning (March 17, 1800): "He [Coleridge] has lugged me to

the brink of engaging to a newspaper, and has suggested to me, for a

first plan, the forgery of a supposed manuscript of Burton, the

anatomist of melancholy." Writing again to Manning a little later,

probably in April, 1800, Lamb mentions having submitted two imitations

of Burton to Stuart, the editor of the _Morning Post_, and states also

that he has written the lines entitled "Conceipt of Diabolic

Possession"--originally, in the _John Woodvil_ volume, a part of these

"Fragments," but afterwards, in the _Works_, separated from them. In

August, 1800, Lamb tells Coleridge he has written the ballad in the

manner of the "Old and Young Courtier," also originally part of these

"Fragments," and mentions further that Stuart had rejected the proposed

contribution.

Of Lamb's imitations the first two are most akin to the original in

spirit, but the whole performance is curiously happy and a perfect

illustration of his fellowship with the Elizabethans. Our language

probably contains no more successful impersonation of any author: for

the time being Lamb's mind approximated to that of Burton, while

reserving enough individuality to make a new thing as well as a very

subtle and exact echo. The Burton extracts and the _Letters of Sir John

Falstaff_, written four or five years earlier (in which Lamb certainly

had a hand: see pp. 225 and 491), represent in prose the same devotion

to the Elizabethans that _John Woodvil_ represents in verse. With 1800,

when Lamb was twenty-five, this immediately derivative impulse ceased;

but it is certain that without such interesting exercises in the manner

of his favourite period his ripest work would have been far less rich.

The differences in text between the 1802 and 1818 editions are very

slight. They are merely changes of punctuation and spelling--some

twenty-four in all--with the exception that on page 39, line 18 "common

sort" was originally "mobbe." Concerning this change Mr. Thomas

Hutchinson, in _The Athenæum_, December 28, 1901, has an interesting

note. Lamb, he says, made it "for the best of good reasons, because in

the meantime he had recollected that to attribute the word _mob_ to the

pen of Robert Burton was to commit a linguistic anachronism. The

earliest known examples of _mob_ occur in Shadwell (1688) and Dryden

(1690), whereas Burton died in January, 1640." I might add that "jokers"

was another anachronism; since, according to the _New English

Dictionary_, its first use is in the works of T. Cooke, 1729.

"Inerudite" and "incomposite" seem to have been Lamb's coinage, but they

are very Burtonian. The _New English Dictionary_ gives Lamb's reference

alone to the word "hebetant," meaning making dull.

Lamb's affection for Burton was profound. His own copy was a quarto of

1621, which is now, I believe, in America. The following passage from

John Payne Collier's _An Old Man's Diary_ (for 1832) is interesting in

this connection:--

This led him [Lamb] to ask me, whether I remembered two or three

passages in his book of books, Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_,

illustrating Shakespeare's notions regarding Witches and Fairies. I

replied that if I had seen them, I did not then recollect them. I

took down the book, the contents of which he knew so well that he

opened upon the place almost immediately: the first passage was

this, respecting Macbeth and Banquo and their meeting with the

three Witches: "And Hector Boethius [relates] of Macbeth and Banco,

two Scottish Lords, that, as they were wandering in woods, had

their fortunes told them by three strange women." I said that I

remembered to have seen that passage quoted, or referred to by more

than one editor of Shakespeare. "Have you seen this quoted," he

inquired, "which relates to fairies? 'Some put our fairies into

this rank, which have been in former times adored with much

superstition, with sweeping their houses and setting of a pail of

clean water, good victuals and the like; and then they should not

be pinched, but find money in their shoes and be fortunate in their

enterprises ... and, Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle

which we commonly find in plain fields.' Farther on Burton gives

them the very name assigned to one of them by Shakespeare, for he

adds, 'These have several names in several places: we commonly call

them _Pucks_' (part i., sect. 2), which Ben Jonson degrades to

_Pug_."

* * * * *

Page 41. EARLY JOURNALISM. I.--G. F. COOKE'S "RICHARD THE THIRD."

_Morning Post_, January 4, 1802. Not reprinted by Lamb.

This paper was printed by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell in _The Athenæum_,

August 4, 1888, and was identified by him by means of a then unpublished

letter of Lamb to John Rickman, January 9, 1802. Early in January, 1802,

says Mr. Campbell, "Lamb ceased to contribute dramatic criticism to the

_Morning Post_; the editor wanted the paragraphs to be written on the

night of the performance for next day's paper; and this Lamb could not

manage. He had tried it on one occasion [see below], but found he could

not 'write against time.'"

Writing to Robert Lloyd at about the same time as this criticism, Lamb

took up the subject again:--

"Cooke in 'Richard the Third' is a perfect caricature. He gives you

the _monster_ Richard, but not the _man_ Richard. Shakespear's

bloody character impresses you with awe and deep admiration of his

witty parts, his consummate hypocrisy, and indefatigable

prosecution of purpose. You despise, detest, and loathe the

cunning, vulgar, low and fierce Richard, which Cooke substitutes in

his place. He gives you no other idea than of a vulgar villain,

rejoycing in his being able to over reach, and not possessing that

joy in _silent_ consciousness, but betraying it, like a _poor_

villain, in sneers and distortions of the face, like a droll at a

country fair: not to add that cunning so self-betraying and manner

so vulgar could never have deceived the politic Buckingham nor the

soft Lady Anne: _both_ bred in courts, would have turned with

disgust from such a fellow. Not but Cooke has _powers_; but not of

discrimination. His manner is strong, coarse, and vigorous, and

well adapted to some characters. But the lofty imagery and high

sentiments and high passions of _Poetry_ come black and

prose-smoked from his prose Lips.... I am possessed with an

admiration of the genuine Richard, his genius, and his mounting

spirit, which no consideration of his cruelties can depress.

Shakespear has not made Richard so black a Monster as is supposed.

Where-ever he is monstrous, it was to conform to vulgar opinion.

But he is generally a Man. Read his most exquisite address to the

Widowed Queen to court her daughter for him--the topics of maternal

feeling, of a deep knowledge of the heart, are such as no monster

could have supplied [see Act IV., Scene 4]. Richard must have

_felt_ before he could feign so well; tho' ambition choked the good

seed. I think it the most finished piece of Eloquence in the

world; of _persuasive_ oratory far above Demosthenes, Burke, or any

man, far exceeding the courtship of Lady Anne."

George Frederick Cooke who produced "Richard III." at Covent Garden on

October 31, 1801, with great success, lived from 1756-1811.

I imagine that the following article on another performance of Cooke's,

printed in the _Morning Post_ for January 9, 1802, is also Lamb's,

probably written on the "one occasion" referred to above and the last

that he wrote. No other bears so many signs of his authorship:--

"THEATRE

"COVENT GARDEN

"Mr. Cooke performed _Lear_ in the celebrated Tragedy of that name

at this Theatre last night. It is a character little suited to his

talents. In the expression of strong and turbulent passions, he

will always find his forte; but he wants gentleness and softness

for melting and melancholy scenes. Whatever, therefore, may be his

excellence in the ambitious and heroic _Richard_, those who have

duly weighed his peculiar powers could not expect much from his

representation of the broken-hearted _Lear_. No principle can be

more clear, than that cruelty and ingratitude are black in

proportion to the weakness and helplessness of the object on which

they are exercised. The great master of the human heart accordingly

makes this good old King represent himself as a man standing upon

the last verge of life--a man 'eighty years old and upwards.' It is

from turning such a man as this out of doors, and by his ungrateful

children, too, to 'bide the pelting of the pityless storm,' that

the interest principally arises. In this line, so clearly marked by

the poet, Mr. Cooke showed a total want of discrimination. His step

was almost uniformly firm, and his whole deportment too vigorous

for his years. The heart, therefore, could not feel that pity which

the sight of a deserving object, physically unable to contend with

unmerited hardships, never fails to produce. His enunciation also,

which was clear and strong, had none of the tremulousness of feeble

old age, and his voice seldom succeeded in the modulation of tones

sufficiently plaintive and delicate to express the agonies of a

broken heart. The scene where he imprecates a curse upon the

undutiful _Goneril_ was given with energy, but without that anguish

which must wring a parent's bosom in such a situation. The mad

scene with _Edgar_ was also a very imperfect piece of acting, and

few of the beautiful passages with which the piece abounds,

received that excellent colouring and embellishment with which Mr.

Kemble in the same character calls down such plaudits in the other

House. Mr. Cooke having so evidently placed himself in the way of

comparison, this allusion cannot be deemed invidious.--This new

essay should, however, make him slow to venture beyond his depth,

and justifies our apprehension that he does not possess an

elasticity of mind, a pliancy of powers, to enable him to pursue

his rival through all the variety of his characters with the same

success that he encounters him on Bosworth field.

"Mr. H. Siddons was an excellent _Edgar_; his mad scenes displayed

much chaste and natural acting, and several passages were marked

with beauties peculiarly his own. His representation of the

character would be still more interesting, were he to infuse into

his manner more fondness for his mistress, _Cordelia_, and his

unfortunate father, the _Earl of Gloucester_. Miss Murray, whose

excellence in characters of simple pathos is so well known, was a

most interesting portrait of _Cordelia_. She played the part with

great delicacy and feeling, sweetness and simplicity.

"Mr. Hull, in _Glo'ster_, was natural and impressive; and Mr.

Waddy, though a little coarse as _Earl of Kent_, was a good picture

of blunt honesty in his humble disguise as _Caius_. The other

characters did not possess much merit, or deserve much notice."

Page 44. II.--GRAND STATE BED.

Writing to Rickman about his _Morning Post_ work, in January, 1802, Lamb

says that in addition to certain other things it was he who made the

Lord Mayor's bed. The reference is undoubtedly to this little article on

January 4, 1802.

Page 44. III.--FABLE FOR TWELFTH DAY.

On January 6 (Twelfth Night), 1802, this fable was printed in the

_Morning Post_. That Lamb was the author no one need have any doubt

after reading the _Elia_ essay, "Rejoicings on the New Year's Coming of

Age."

Page 46. IV.--THE LONDONER.

_Morning Post_. February 1, 1802. _Works_, 1818.

This paper, although it is included in the _Works_ among "Letters under

assumed signatures, published in _The Reflector_," and although it is

nominally addressed to the editor of that paper, did not, however,

appear in it. It was first printed in the _Morning Post_ for February 1,

1802, during Lamb's brief connection with that paper, the story of which

is told in the note to the essay on "Newspapers" in _Elia_.

"The Londoner" in the _Morning Post_ differed from the version

subsequently reprinted. See notes to vol. I. of my large edition.

John Forster, in his memoir of Lamb in the _New Monthly Magazine_ in

1835, has the following passage, which, applying to Lamb's later life

(Forster was only twenty-two when Lamb died), rounds off, with certain

ecstatic passages in the letters, the present London eulogium. The lines

quoted by Forster are from "The Old Familiar Faces":--

"We recollect being once sent by her [Mary Lamb] to seek 'Charles,'

who had rambled away from her. We found him in the Temple, looking

up, near Crown-office-row, at the house where he was born. Such was

his ever-touching habit of seeking alliance with the scenes of old

times. They were the dearer to him that distance had withdrawn

them. He wished to pass his life among things gone by yet not

forgotten; we shall never forget the affectionate 'Yes, boy,' with

which he returned our repeating his own striking lines:--

"'Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,

Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse.'"

Page 46, line 11. _Great annual feast_. In stating that he was born on

Lord Mayor's Day, Lamb stretched a point. His birthday was February 10.

* * * * *

Page 48. CHARACTERS OF DRAMATIC WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKSPEARE.

_Specimens_, 1808, and _Works_, 1818.

These notes are abridgments of the notes to Lamb's _Specimens of English

Dramatic Poets_, 1808. The whole work is reproduced in my large edition,

where such annotation as seems desirable may be found. The abridgment is

printed here in order that the text of Lamb's own edition of his

_Works_, 1818, may be preserved.

* * * * *

Page 65. ON THE INCONVENIENCES RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED.

To the circumstance that Leigh Hunt edited _The Reflector_, which was

founded by his brother in 1810 as a literary and political quarterly,

may be attributed in a large measure the beginning of Lamb's career as

an essayist. Leigh Hunt, himself a Christ's Hospitaller, sought his

contributors among old scholars of that school; from whom, as he

remarked in the little note prefixed to the two-volume edition of the

periodical, came "the largest and most entertaining part." Among these

contributors were Lamb, George Dyer, Thomas Barnes, afterwards editor of

_The Times_, Thomes Mitchell, classical scholar, James Scholefield,

afterwards Greek Professor at Cambridge, Hunt himself, and Barron Field,

who, though not actually a Christ's Hospitaller, was through his father,

Henry Field, apothecary to the school, connected with it.

Until Lamb received Hunt's invitation to let his fancy play to what

extent he would in _The Reflector's_ pages, he had received little or no

encouragement as a writer; and he was naturally so diffident that

without some external impulse he rarely brought himself to do his own

work at all. Between _John Woodvil_ (1802) and the first _Reflector_

papers (1810) he had written "Mr. H.," performed his share in the

children's books, and compiled the _Dramatic Specimens_: a tale of work

which, considering that it was also a social period, and a busy period

at the India House, is not trifling. But between the last _Reflector_

paper (1811 or 1812) and the first _Elia_ essay (1820) Lamb seems to

have written nothing save the essays on Christ's Hospital, the

"Confessions of a Drunkard," a few brief notes, reviews and dramatic

criticisms, mainly at the instigation of Leigh Hunt, and some scraps of

verse chiefly for _The Champion_. The world owes a great debt to Leigh

Hunt for discerning Lamb's gifts and allowing him free rein. The comic

letters to _The Reflector_ may not be Lamb at his best, though they are

excellent stepping-stones to that state; but upon the essays on

Shakespeare's tragedies and Hogarth's genius it is doubtful if Lamb

could have improved at any period.

The _Reflector_ ran only to four numbers, which were very irregularly

issued, and it then ceased. It ran nominally from October 1810 to

December 1811. Crabb Robinson mentions reading No. I. on May 15, 1811.

Lamb, it may be remarked here, was destined to contribute to yet another

_Reflector_. In 1832 Moxon started a weekly paper of that name in which

part of Lamb's _Elia_ essay on the "Defect of Imagination in Modern

Paintings" was printed. The venture, however, quickly failed, and all

trace of it seems to have vanished.

Lamb's first _Reflector_ paper was entitled "ON THE INCONVENIENCES

RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED."

It appeared in No. II., 1811, and was reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

He made yet another use of the central idea of this essay. The farce,

"The Pawnbroker's Daughter," written in 1825, turns upon the

resuscitation of a hanged man, Jack Pendulous.

Page 68, line 6. _Smoke his cravat_. To smoke was old slang for to see,

to notice. East-enders to-day would say "Pipe his necktie!"

Page 72, line 1. _The solution ... in "Hamlet."_

_First Clown._ What is he that builds stronger than either the

mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

_Second Clown._ The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a

thousand tenants.

Act V., Scene I, lines 46-50.

Page 72. _Footnote. "The Spanish Tragedy."_ A play by Thomas Kyd

(1557?-1595?), from which Lamb quoted largely in his _Specimens_, 1808.

This line is in Act III., in Hieronimo's instructions to the painter:

"And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging, and tott'ring,

and tott'ring, as you know the wind will wave a man...."

Page 72, line 3. _That scene in "Measure for Measure."_

_Pompey._ Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged, Master

Barnardine!

_Abhorson._ What, ho, Barnardine!

_Bar._ [_Within._] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise

there? What are you?

_Pom._ Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to

rise and be put to death.

_Bar._ [_Within._] Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy.

_Abhor._ Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.

_Pom._ Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and

sleep afterwards.

_Abhor._ Go in to him, and fetch him out.

_Pom._ He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

_Abhor._ Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?

_Pom._ Very ready, sir.

Act IV., Scene 3, lines 23-40.

Page 73, line 3. _The Angel in Milton._

Made so adorn for they delight the more,

So awful, that with honour thou may'st love

Thy mate, who sees when thou art seen least wise.

_Paradise Lost_, VIII., 576-578.

Page 73, line 10. _An ancestor_. This punctilious hero may have been an

ancestor of the Plumers, of Blakesware. See the _Elia_ essay on

"Blakesmoor, in H----shire."

Page 73, line 7 from foot. _A waistcoat that had been mine_. The clothes

of his clients became the hangman's perquisites. In Lamb's letter to

Bernard Barton concerning Thurtell (January 9, 1824) this subject is

again played with.

The present essay led to some amusing speculation in the next number of

_The Reflector_, signed M., as to the origin of Jack Ketch. Some of the

questions propounded to Pensilis are almost in Lamb's own manner:--

Supposing the race of Ketches to be extinct, what _cross_ does

Pensilis think necessary to re-produce the breed? I have a very

pretty knack myself at guessing what mixtures of different bloods

will generate the ordinary professions of life; as a judge, an

alderman, a bishop, &c., &c. but shall be happy to defer to his

superior knowledge in this particular experiment of the art. Your

correspondent, no doubt, is aware, how many generations it will

frequently take a family, who value themselves upon their exterior,

to wear out any little deformity; as, for instance, a snub nose, or

a long chin. I could mention one noble family, whom it has cost a

dozen intermarriages with the yeomanry, to introduce a stouter pair

of legs among them; and another, which has been obliged to go

through a course of milk-maids, to throw a little colour into their

cheeks. Has your correspondent ever considered in what term of

years a spirit of Ketchicism may be introduced into a family; and

conversely, in how many generations the milk of human kindness may

be instilled into, what Burke would call, a pure, unsophisticated

dephlegmated, defecated _Ketch_?

Page 74. ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY.

_The Reflector_, No. II. Reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

Page 79, line 16. _The tales of our nursery_. In his _Elia_ essay "Dream

Children" Lamb recalls his grandmother's narration of the old story of

the "Children in the Wood."

Page 79, lines 20-21. _Mrs. Radcliffe ... Mr. Monk Lewis._ The

popularity of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), whose _Mysteries of

Udolpho_ appeared in 1794, and of Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818),

whose rival exercise in grisly romance, _The Monk_, was published in

1795, was then (1811) still considerable, although on the wane.

* * * * *

Page 80. ON THE AMBIGUITIES ARISING FROM PROPER NAMES.

_The Reflector_, No. II., 1811. Not reprinted by Lamb.

This paper is known to be Lamb's because he tells the story, in much the

same words, in a letter to Wordsworth dated February 1, 1806. The young

man who made the mistake of confusing Spencer and Spenser was a brother

of Coleridge's Mary Evans. The Hon. William Robert Spencer (1769-1834),

the second son of the third Duke of Marlborough, was a Society poet well

enough known in his day--the first decade of the last century. His only

poem that has survived is "Beth Gelert," a ballad often included in

children's poetry books.

In Lamb's _Letters_ the poet Spenser is usually spelt Spencer.

* * * * *

Page 81. ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF HOGARTH.

_The Reflector_, No. III., 1811. The title there ran: "On the Genius and

Character of Hogarth; with some Remarks on a Passage in the Writings of

the late Mr. Barry." The article was signed L. It was reprinted in the

_Works_, 1818.

Many of Hogarth's pictures, framed in black, hung round Lamb's

sitting-room in his various homes. In 1817 Mary Lamb, writing to Dorothy

Wordsworth, says that the Hogarths have been taken down from the walls

and pasted into a book, but there is proof that some at any rate were

framed both at Islington and Enfield.

Hazlitt in his _Sketches of the Principal Picture-galleries in England_,

1824, wrote, "Of the pictures in the _Rake's Progress_ we shall not here

say anything ... because they have already been criticised by a writer,

to whom we could add nothing, in a paper which ought to be read by every

lover of Hogarth and of English genius." The reference was to Lamb's

essay.

Page 82, line 1. _Old-fashioned house in ----shire_. Lamb refers again

to Blakesware, in Hertfordshire. In a letter to Southey, Oct. 31, 1799,

Lamb mentions the Blakesware Hogarths. This would suggest that Hogarth

was the first artist that he knew, so many of his recollections dating

from the old Hertfordshire days.

Page 84, line 1. _Kent, or Caius_. See "Table Talk," pages 401-2 of the

present volume, for an amplification of this passage many years later.

Lamb's version of "Lear" in _Tales from Shakespear_, 1807, has similar

praise of Kent.

Page 84, last line. _Ferdinand Count Fathom_. See Chapter XXVII. of

Smollett's _Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom_, 1754:--

When he beheld the white cliffs of Albion, his heart throbbed with

all the joy of a beloved son, who, after a tedious and fatiguing

voyage, reviews the chimnies of his father's house: he surveyed the

neighbouring coast of England with fond and longing eyes, like

another Moses reconnoitring the land of Canaan from the top of

mount Pisgah; and to such a degree of impatience was he inflamed by

the sight, that instead of proceeding to Calais, he resolved to

take his passage directly from Boulogne, even if he should hire a

vessel for the purpose.

Page 88. _Footnote_. _Somewhere in his [Reynolds'] lectures_. The

passage is in the fourteenth of the _Discourses on Painting_--on

Gainsborough:--

After this admirable artist [Hogarth] had spent the greater part of

his life in an active, busy, and, we may add, successful attention

to the ridicule of life; after he had invented a new species of

dramatic painting, in which probably he will never be equalled, and

had stored his mind with infinite materials to explain and

illustrate the domestic and familiar scenes of common life, which

were generally, and ought to have been always, the subject of his

pencil; he very imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempted

the great historical style, for which his previous habits had by no

means prepared him: he was indeed so entirely unacquainted with the

principles of this style, that he was not even aware that any

artificial preparation was at all necessary. It is to be regretted,

that any part of the life of such a genius should be fruitlessly

employed. Let his failure teach us not to indulge ourselves in the

vain imagination, that by a momentary resolution we can give either

dexterity to the hand, or a new habit to the mind.

Page 95, line 10. _Children's books_. _The Reflector_ version added, "or

the tale of Carlo the Dog."

Page 97, line 8 from foot. _With Dr. Swift_. The page opposite the title

of the _Tale of a Tub_ contains a (fictitious) list of "Treatises writ

by the same author." The fifth of these is "A Panegyric upon the World."

It is probable that Lamb had this in mind.

* * * * *

Page 101. ON THE CUSTOM OF HISSING AT THE THEATRES.

_The Reflector_, No. III., 1811. Not reprinted by Lamb.

Lamb omits to say that he joined in the hissing of his farce, "Mr. H.,"

on the unhappy night of December 10, 1806. In its ill fortune he seems

always to have taken a kind of humorous sympathetic pride. When he

printed the play at the end of his _Works_, 1818, he prefixed a

quotation from Hazlitt's essay on "Great and Little Things," of which

this is a portion:--

Mr. H.---- thou wert DAMNED. Bright shone the morning on the

play-bills that announced thy appearance, and the streets were

filled with the buzz of persons asking one another if they would go

to see Mr. H.----, and answering that they would certainly; but

before night the gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends, and

the town, was eclipsed, for thou wert DAMNED!

Writing to Manning concerning the play's failure, Lamb said:--"Damn 'em,

how they hissed! It was not a hiss neither, but a sort of a frantic

yell, like a congregation of mad geese, with roaring sometimes, like

bears, mows and mops like apes, sometimes snakes, that hiss'd me into

madness. 'Twas like St. Anthony's temptations. Mercy on us, that God

should give his favourite children, men, mouths to speak with, to

discourse rationally, to promise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to

encourage warmly, to counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, and to

kiss with, and that they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears,

wolves, hyenas, and whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them

like distillations of aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent

labours of their fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them!"

Page 101, line 3 of essay. _That memorable season_, 1806-1807. Lamb here

exaggerates. It is true that ten new pieces were tried at Drury Lane in

the season mentioned; but five were successful, and Monk Lewis's

"Adelgitha," the only tragedy, could hardly be called a failure. Of the

remaining four plays which failed, Holcroft's "Vindictive Man" was the

most notable.

Page 101, line 9 of essay. _The Clerk of Chatham_.

_Cade._ Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to

thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?

_Clerk of Chatham._ Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought

up that I can write my name.

_All._ He hath confessed: away with him! he's a villain and a

traitor.

_Cade._ Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and ink-horn

about his neck.

"II. Henry VI.," Act IV., Scene 2, lines 109-117.

Page 101, line 7 from foot. "_The Vindictive Man_." This was the comedy

by Thomas Holcroft, Lamb's friend, the failure of which occurred a few

nights before that of "Mr. H." Lamb describes the luckless performance

in a letter to Manning dated December 5, 1806.

Page 102, line 5. "_Our nonsense did not ... suit their nonsense_." From

Burnet's _History of His Own Times_, Vol. II.: "He [Charles II.] told me

he had a chaplain that was a very honest man, but a very great

blockhead, to whom he had given a living in Suffolk, that was full of

that sort of people: he had gone about among them from house to house,

though he could not imagine what he could say to them, for, he said, he

was a very silly fellow, but that he believed his nonsense suited their

nonsense; yet he had brought them all to church: and, in reward of his

diligence, he had given him a bishopric in Ireland." (A note by Swift

states the cleric to be Bishop Woolly of Clonfert.)

Page 102, line 25. _A Syren Catalani._ Angelica Catalani (1779-1849),

one of the most beautiful of all singers.

Page 104, line 19. _The O.P. differences._ The O.P.--Old Prices--Riots

raged in 1809. On September 18 of that year the new Covent Garden

Theatre was opened under the management of John Philip Kemble and

Charles Kemble, with a revised price list. The opposition to this

revision was so determined that "Macbeth," with John Philip Kemble as

Macbeth, and Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, was played practically in

dumb show, and in the end the theatre was closed again for a while. The

battle was waged not only by fists but by pamphlets. After two months'

fighting a compromise was effected.

Page 105, line 17. _Obstinate, in John Bunyan._ At the beginning of the

_Pilgrim's Progress_. It was not Obstinate, however, but Christian who

put his fingers in his ears. Obstinate pursued and caught him. Lamb made

the same mistake again in some verses to Bernard Barton.

A club of hissed authors existed in Paris in the 1870's. Flaubert,

Daudet and Zola were members.

* * * * *

Page 107. ON BURIAL SOCIETIES; AND THE CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER.

_Reflector_, No. III., 1811. The letter there begins "Sir." Printed

again in part, in _The Yellow Dwarf_, January 17, 1818. Reprinted in the

_Works_, 1818.

Page 110. _The following short Essay._ "The Character of an Undertaker"

is, of course, Lamb's own. Sable is the undertaker in Sir Richard

Steele's "Funeral; or, Grief à la Mode," 1702. Two of his remarks run

thus: "There is often nothing more ... deeply Joyful than a Young Widow

in her Weeds and Black Train," and "The poor Dead are deliver'd to my

Custody ... not to do them Honour, but to satisfy the Vanity or Interest

of their Survivors."

* * * * *

Page 112. ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE.

Printed in _The Reflector_, No. IV. (1811), under the title "Theatralia,

No. I. On Garrick, and Acting; and the Plays of Shakespeare, considered

with reference to their fitness for Stage-Representation." Reprinted in

the _Works_, 1818.

At the close of the _Reflector_ article Lamb wrote: "I have hitherto

confined my observation to the Tragic parts of Shakespeare; in some

future Number I propose to extend this inquiry to the Comedies." _The

Reflector_ ending with the fourth number, the project was not carried

out. From time to time, however, throughout his life, Lamb returned

incidentally to Shakespearian criticism, as in several essays in the

present volume, and the _Elia_ essay "The Old Actors," with its masterly

analysis of the character of Malvolio. David Garrick died in 1779, just

before Lamb's fourth birthday. Lamb's father often talked of him.

Page 113, line 6. _"To paint fair Nature," etc._ These lines on

Garrick's monument, which have been corrected from the stone, were by

Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749-1814), the same author whose _Gleanings_ Lamb

described in a letter to Southey in 1798 as "a contemptible book, a

wretched assortment of vapid feelings." Pratt's lines on Garrick were

chosen in place of a prose epitaph written by Edmund Burke.

Page 114, line 23. _Mr. K._ John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), who first

appeared as Hamlet in London at Drury Lane, September 30, 1783.

Page 114, line 24. _Mrs. S._ Mrs. Siddons, John Philip Kemble's sister

(1755-1831). Her regular stage career ended on June 29, 1812, when she

played Lady Macbeth. Her first part in London was Portia on December 29,

1775. Lamb admired her greatly. As early as 1794 he wrote, with

Coleridge's collaboration, a sonnet on the impression which Mrs. Siddons

made upon him.

Page 118, line 4. _Banks and Lillo._ John Banks, a very inferior

Restoration melodramatist. George Lillo (1693-1739), the author among

other plays of "George Barnwell--The London Merchant; or The History of

George Barnwell," 1731 (mentioned a little later), which held the stage

for a century. The story, the original of which is to be found in the

_Percy Reliques_, tells how George, an apprentice, robs his master and

kills his uncle at the instigation of Millwood, an adventuress. Lamb's

footnote (page 118) refers to the custom, which was of long endurance,

of playing "George Barnwell" in the Christmas and Easter holidays as an

object-lesson to apprentices.

Page 121, line 25. _The Hills and the Murphys and the Browns._ Dr. John

Hill (1716?-1775), the herbalist, controversialist, and miscellaneous

writer, who quarrelled with Garrick. In _The Reflector_ Lamb had written

the Hooles. It was changed to Hills afterwards. Hoole would be John

Hoole (1727-1803), translator of Tasso and the author of some turgid

tragedies, who had been in his time an India House clerk. Arthur Murphy

(1727-1805), actor and author, who wrote, in addition to many plays and

books, a _Life of Garrick_ (1801). The Rev. John Brown (1715-1766), the

author of "Barbarossa" and "Athelstane," in both of which Garrick acted.

Page 122, line 8 from foot. _Mr. C._ G. F. Cooke. See above.

Page 123, line 25. _Glenalvon._ In Home's "Douglas." Lamb wrote an early

poem on this tragedy, which seems to have so dominated his youthful

imagination that when in 1795-1796 he was for a while in confinement he

believed himself at times to be young Norval.

Page 127, line 12. _A ghost by chandelier light_ ... It should perhaps

be borne in mind that in 1811, and for many years after, the stage was

still lighted by candles, so that the regulation of light, which can be

effected with such nicety on the modern stage, was then impossible. This

is especially to be remembered with regard to such details as the

presentation of the Witches in "Macbeth." It would be simple enough,

with our electric switchboard, to frighten a nervous child in that scene

to-day.

Page 129, line 3. _Webb._ Webb was a theatrical robemaker at 98 Chancery

Lane.

* * * * *

Page 130. SPECIMENS FROM THE WRITINGS OF FULLER.

_The Reflector_, No. IV., 1812. _Works_, 1818. In _The Reflector_ the

signature Y was appended to the introductory paragraphs.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), the divine and historian. The passages

selected by Lamb are identified in the notes to my large edition, the

references being to _The Holy State_, 1642; _The History of the Worthies

of England_, 1662; _A Pisgah-sight of Palestine and the Confines

thereof, with the Histories of the Old and New Testaments acted

thereon_, 1650; and _The Church History of Britain from the Birth of

Jesus Christ until the year MDCXLVIII._, 1655. Lamb's transcriptions

are, of course, not exact.

Page 135. _Footnote. Fuller's bird._ Lamb's friend Procter (Barry

Cornwall) was also greatly impressed by this legend. His _English

Songs_, 1832, contains a poem on the subject.

Page 137. _Footnote. Wickliffe's ashes._ Landor has a passage on this

subject in his poem "On Swift joining Avon near Rugby." Wordsworth's

fine sonnet, in the _Ecclesiastical Sketches_, Part II., may have been

suggested by this very quotation in Lamb's essay:--

WICLIFFE

Once more the Church is seized with sudden fear,

And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed;

Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed,

And flung into the brook that travels near;

Forthwith that ancient Voice which streams can hear,

Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,

Though seldom heard by busy human kind)--

"As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear

Into the Avon, Avon to the tide

Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,

Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst

An emblem yields to friends and enemies

How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified

By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed."

When printed in _The Reflector_, in 1812, Lamb's footnote continued

thus:--

"We are too apt to indemnify ourselves for some characteristic

excellence we are kind enough to concede to a great author, by

denying him every thing else. Thus Donne and Cowley, by happening

to possess more wit and faculty of illustration than other men, are

supposed to have been incapable of nature or feeling; they are

usually opposed to such writers as Shenstone and Parnel; whereas in

the very thickest of their conceits,--in the bewildering maze of

their tropes and figures, a warmth of soul and generous feeling

shines through, the 'sum' of which 'forty thousand' of those

natural poets, as they are called, 'with all their quantity, could

not make up.'--Without any intention of setting Fuller on a level

with Donne or Cowley, I think the injustice which has been done him

in the denial that he possesses any other qualities than those of a

quaint and conceited writer, is of the same kind as that with which

those two great Poets have been treated."

* * * * *

Page 138. EDAX ON APPETITE.

_The Reflector_, No. IV., 1811. _Works_, 1818.

Page 138, line 14 from foot. _The best of parents_. Lamb, of course, is

not here autobiographical. His father was no clergyman.

Page 139, line 21. _Ventri natus_, _etc_. These nicknames may be roughly

translated: _Ventri natus_, glutton-born; _ventri deditus_,

gluttony-dedicated; _vesana gula_, greedy gullet; _escarum gurges_, sink

of eatables; _dapibus indulgens_, feast-lover; _non dans fræna gulæ_,

not curbing the gullet; _sectans lautæ fercula mensæ_, dainty-hunting.

Page 141, line 15. _Mandeville_. Bernard Mandeville (1670?-1733), whose

_Fable of the Bees_, 1714, was one of Lamb's favourite books.

* * * * *

Page 145. _Hospita on the Immoderate Indulgence of the Palate_.

_The Reflector_, No. IV., 1811. _Works_, 1818. In _The Reflector_ this

letter followed immediately upon that of Edax (see page 138). In his

_Works_ Lamb reversed this order. In _The Reflector_ the following

footnote was appended, signed _Ref._:--

To all appearance, the obnoxious visitor of HOSPITA can be no other

than my inordinate friend EDAX, whose misfortunes are detailed, ore

rotundo, in the preceding article. He will of course see the

complaint that is made against him; but it can hardly be any

benefit either to himself or his entertainers. The man's appetite

is not a bad habit but a disease; and if he had not thought proper

to relate his own story, I do not know whether it would have been

altogether justifiable to be so amusing upon such a subject.

Page 147, second paragraph. _Mr. Malthus_. Thomas Robert Malthus

(1766-1834), author of the _Essay on Population_, 1798. He wrote _On the

High Price of Provisions_ in 1800.

* * * * *

Page 148. THE GOOD CLERK, A CHARACTER.

_The Reflector_, No. IV., 1811. Signed L. B., possibly as the first and

last letters of Lamb. Not reprinted by Lamb.

Page 153, line 12. _As Solomon says_. Defoe seems to be remembering

Proverbs XXII. 7, and possibly Isaiah XXIV. 2.

Sixteen years later, in 1827, William Hone reprinted "The Good Clerk" in

his _Table Book_, I., columns 562-567. The first half was given under

its own title; the second half under this title, "Defoeana, No. I., The

Tradesman;" followed by a kindred passage from _The Fable of the Bees_,

to which the following note was appended, signed L.:--

"We have copied the above from Mandeville's _Fable of the Bees_,

Edition 1725. How far, and in what way, the practice between the

same parties differs at this day, we respectfully leave to our fair

shopping friends, of this present year 1827, to determine."

* * * * *

Page 153. MEMOIR OF ROBERT LLOYD.

_Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1811. Not reprinted by Lamb.

Robert Lloyd (1778-1811) was a younger brother of Charles Lloyd, for a

while Coleridge's pupil and Lamb's friend of the later nineties, with

whom he collaborated in _Blank Verse,_ 1798. They were sons of Charles

Lloyd, of Birmingham (1748-1828), the Quaker banker, philanthropist,

and, in a quiet private way, a writer of verse (see _Charles Lamb and

the Lloyds_).

Robert Lloyd first met Lamb in 1797; he was then nineteen years old, an

apprentice at Saffron Walden. He was inclined to morbidness, though not

to the same extent as his brother Charles, and Lamb did what he could to

get more health and contentment into him. In 1799 Robert Lloyd seems to

have left his father's roof in a state of revolt, and to have settled

with Lamb for a while. He returned home, however, and met Manning (who

was then teaching Charles Lloyd mathematics at Cambridge), and, after

drawing from Lamb several fine letters--notably upon Jeremy Taylor, and

that upon Cooke from which I have quoted in the notes above--he passed

out of his life until 1809, when, paying a short visit to London, he saw

the Lambs again several times.

The autumn of 1811 was a sad one for the Lloyd family. Thomas Lloyd died

on September 12, Caroline on October 15, and Robert on October 26. The

_Gentleman's Magazine_ obituary just mentions Thomas and Caroline, and

passes on to Robert. We know the article to be Lamb's from a letter from

Charles Lloyd to Robert's widow, enclosing the memoir (which Lamb had

sent to him), and adding, "If I loved him for nothing else, I should now

love [Charles Lamb] for the affecting interest that he has taken in the

memory of my dearest Brother and Friend."

* * * * *

Page 154. CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD.

_The Philanthropist_, No. IX., 1813. _Some Enquiries into the Effects of

Fermented Liquors_, 1814; second edition, 1818. _London Magazine_,

August, 1822. _Last Essays of Elia_, second edition, 1835.

The first appearance of this paper was in a quarterly magazine entitled

_The Philanthropist_; or, _Repository for Hints and Suggestions

calculated to promote the Comfort and Happiness of Man_. Vol. III., No.

IX., 1813. It was there unsigned and addressed "To the Editor of _The

Philanthropist_." The editor of this magazine was William Allen

(1770-1843), the Quaker, and his chief associate was James Mill, the

Father of John Stuart Mill. Lamb's friend, Basil Montagu (1770-1851),

was among the contributors; and another prominent name was that of

Benjamin Meggot Forster (1764-1829), who, like Montagu, opposed capital

punishment, and was zealous in the cause of chimney-sweepers.

In its original _Philanthropist_ form the essay differs from its later

appearances. Concerning the differences I should like to quote from an

interesting article by Mr. Thomas Hutchinson in _The Athenæum_ of August

16, 1902:--

The text of the "Confessions," as it stands in _The

Philanthropist_, bears evident traces of Mill's editorial hand; the

verbal changes smack of those precise and literal modes of thought

and expression which Lamb found so uncongenial in the Scotsman.

"They seemed to have something noble _about_ them," writes Lamb of

the friends of 1801. "But moral qualities are not external to us,

they are resident _in_ us," objects Mill; and so "about" is struck

out and "in" substituted. "Avoid the bottle as you would fly your

greatest destruction," says Lamb. "But," interposes the precisian,

"the idea of _destruction_ does not admit of _more_ or _less_;

besides, 'to fly' is properly a verb intransitive"--and thus the

sentence is rewritten: "... fly _from certain_ destruction." "The

pain of the self-denial is _all one_"--"is _equal_," substitutes

the Scot. "I scarce knew what it was to _ail anything_"--"to have

an ailment," corrects the lover of plain words; and so on. Of the

sixth paragraph of the essay only the opening sentence ("Why should

I hesitate," etc.) is suffered to stand. The rest is

cancelled--doubtless as at variance with Utilitarian views. Again

the close of the fourteenth paragraph ("But he is too hard for us,"

etc., onwards) is struck out--either by Mill, as too broadly

implying the existence of the "muckle deil," or by Allen, as too

flippant an allusion to that fearsome personage. Lastly, the second

paragraph is wanting and the third reduced by half, the conclusion

(from "Trample not," etc., on), in which the miracle of the raising

of Lazarus is referred to, being omitted.

I cannot, however, quite accept Mr. Hutchinson's theory that Lamb wrote

the "Confessions" as a joke at the expense of the seriousness of the

Quaker editor and his Benthamite assistant. Mr. Hutchinson writes: "We

can fancy with what glee the sly humorist, who found the world as it was

so lovable and good to live in, prepared to hoax the fussy John

Amend-All of Plough Court and his fiery lieutenant, James Mill," and he

adds later, "An amusing feature of the 'Confessions' is the

introduction, twice over, of the sacred Benthamite catchword, 'Springs

of Action,' and, once, of its equivalent, the 'Springs of the Will,' a

plausible device to bribe the judgment of the editors." But Lamb's jokes

were always jokes, and it is difficult, sitting down to these

"Confessions" with what anticipation we will of humour or whimsicality,

to rise from them in anything but sadness. They are too real for a

"flam." Of this, however, more below.

The "Confessions" made their second appearance in Basil Montagu's

collection of arguments in favour of teetotalism--_Some Enquiries into

the Effects of Fermented Liquors_. By a Water Drinker. 1814; and second

edition, 1818. This volume was divided into sections, Lamb's

contribution being ranged under the question, "Do Fermented Liquors

Contribute to Moral Excellence?" Montagu's book was reprinted in 1841,

when Lamb's contribution was acknowledged as from the _Essays of Elia_

by Charles Lamb (more properly the _Last Essays_). Lamb's "Confessions"

were also reprinted separately in a series of tracts called "Beacon

Lights," in 1854, as being a true statement of their unhappy author's

case, under the title, "Charles Lamb's Confessions." This

misrepresentation led to some correspondence in the press, and the tract

was withdrawn, a new edition being substituted in 1856 with the

harrowing story of poor Hartley Coleridge in the place of Lamb's essay.

The "Confessions" were reprinted in the _London Magazine_, August, 1822,

under the following circumstances. In the summer of 1822 Lamb and his

sister visited the Kenneys at Versailles--an absence which interrupted

the regular course of the _Elia_ essays. The Editor therefore reprinted

one or two of Lamb's old papers, the first being these "Confessions,"

advising his readers of his action in a note in which Lamb's own hand is

plainly apparent. This is the note:--

"_Reprints of_ ELIA.--Many are the sayings of _Elia_, painful and

frequent his lucubrations, set forth for the most part (such his

modesty!) without a name, scattered about in obscure periodicals

and forgotten miscellanies. From the dust of some of these, it is

our intention, occasionally, to revive a Tract or two, that shall

seem worthy of a better fate; especially, at a time like the

present, when the pen of our industrious Contributor, engaged in a

laborious digest of his recent Continental Tour, may haply want the

leisure to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations. We have

been induced, in the first instance, to re-print a Thing, which he

put forth in a friend's volume some years since, entitled the

Confessions of a Drunkard, seeing that Messieurs the Quarterly

Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last dry pages with

fruitful quotations therefrom; adding, from their peculiar brains,

the gratuitous affirmation, that they have reason to believe that

the describer (in his delineations of a drunkard forsooth!) partly

sate for his own picture. The truth is, that our friend had been

reading among the Essays of a contemporary, who has perversely been

confounded with him, a paper in which _Edax_ (or the _Great Eater_)

humorously complaineth of an inordinate appetite; and it struck

him, that a better paper--of deeper interest, and wider

usefulness--might be made out of the imagined experiences of a

_Great Drinker_. Accordingly he set to work, and with that mock

fervor, and counterfeit earnestness, with which he is too apt to

over-realise his descriptions, has given us--a frightful picture

indeed--but no more resembling the man _Elia_, than the fictitious

_Edax_ may be supposed to identify itself with Mr. L., its author.

It is indeed a compound extracted out of his long observations of

the effects of drinking upon all the world about him; and this

accumulated mass of misery he hath centered (as the custom is with

judicious essayists) in a single figure. We deny not that a portion

of his own experiences may have passed into the picture, (as who,

that is not a washy fellow, but must at some times have felt the

after-operation of a too generous cup?)--but then how heightened!

how exaggerated!--how little within the sense of the Review, where

a part, in their slanderous usage, must be understood to stand for

the whole!--but it is useless to expostulate with this Quarterly

slime, brood of Nilus, watery heads with hearts of jelly, spawned

under the sign of Aquarius, incapable of Bacchus, and therefore

cold, washy, spiteful, bloodless.----Elia shall string them up one

day, and show their colours--or rather how colourless and vapid the

whole fry--when he putteth forth his long promised, but

unaccountably hitherto delayed, Confessions of a Water-drinker."

The remarks in the _Quarterly Review_, to which Lamb very naturally

objected, and which are believed to have been written by Dr. Robert

Gooch (1784-1830), a friend of Southey, had occurred in an article, in

the number for April, 1822, on Reid's _Essays on Hypochondriasis and

other Nervous Affections_. There, in a passage introducing quotations

from Lamb's "Confessions of a Drunkard," the reviewer says:--

In a collection of tracts "On the Effects of Spirituous Liquors,"

by an eminent living barrister, there is a paper entitled the

"Confessions of a Drunkard," which affords a fearful picture of the

consequences of intemperance, and which we have reason to know is a

true tale.

It was, we may suppose, as a kind of challenge to this statement that

Lamb authorised the republication of his "Confessions." It cannot be

denied, however, that the circumstantiality of the story gave a handle

to the _Quarterly's_ theory. For example, twelve years before 1813 (when

the essay was probably first written), Lamb had completed his

twenty-sixth year. He was known to have an impediment in his speech. He

was known also to have been in bondage to tobacco. The two sets of

friends (see pp. 156 and 157) correspond to Fenwick, Fell & Co., and the

Burney whist players.

If a portion of the "Confessions" was true, it was more likely to be

true in 1812-1813 than at any time in Lamb's life. He was then between

thirty-seven and thirty-nine, a critical age. He had apparently

abandoned most of his literary ambition and was beginning the least

productive period of his life; if a man is at all given to seeking

alcoholic stimulant he resorts to it more when his ambition sleeps than

when it is lively. In 1812-1813 Lamb was hard worked at the East India

House; and with the failure of _The Reflector_, to which he was an

important contributor, immediately behind him, the failure of _John

Woodvil_ (in which he had believed) more remotely behind him, his

children's book vein dry, and little but office routine and

disappointment to look forward to, he may conceivably have indulged now

and then, after a festive night with his friends, in some such gloomy

thoughts as are expressed in this essay. Crabb Robinson, indeed, who saw

much of Lamb at this season, records in his unpublished Diary that the

"Confessions" seemed to him sadly true. Robinson, however, was disposed

to be rather a severe judge of any weakness, and we may perhaps discount

such an impression; but the fact remains that among Lamb's friends there

was one who, wishing him all happiness, looked on the "Confessions" in

this way.

Yet whatever proportion of truth may have been in the "Confessions" when

they were written (possibly when Mary Lamb was ill and hope was with

Lamb at its lowest) Lamb soon recovered. We may feel confident of that.

He remained to the end conscious of the stimulating effect of wine and

spirits and too easily influenced by them, as are so many persons of

sensitive habit and quick imagination: that is all. As Talfourd wrote:--

Drinking with him [Lamb], except so far as it cooled a feverish

thirst, was not a sensual but an intellectual pleasure; it lighted

up his fading fancy, enriched his humour, and impelled the

struggling thought or beautiful image into day.

One of the best proofs of the untruth of the "Confessions" is urged by

Charles Robert Leslie, the painter, and it becomes particularly cogent

when we remember the case of Tommy Bye, described by Lamb in two of his

letters, who was reduced to a paltry income at the East India House as a

punishment for insobriety. Leslie wrote in his _Autobiographical

Recollections_, 1860:--

I have noticed that Lamb sometimes did himself injustice by his odd

sayings and actions, and he now and then did the same by his

writings. His "Confessions of a Drunkard" greatly exaggerate any

habits of excess he may ever have indulged. The regularity of his

attendance at the India House, and the liberal manner in which he

was rewarded for that attendance, proved that he never could have

been a drunkard. Well, indeed, would it be for the world if such

extraordinary virtues as he possessed were often found in company

with so very few faults.

In all modern editions of Lamb the "Confessions of a Drunkard" are

included with the _Last Essays of Elia_. But Lamb did not himself

originally place them there. Apparently his intention was not to reprint

them after their appearance in the _London Magazine_ in 1822. When,

however, the _Last Essays of Elia_ was published, in 1833, the paper

called "A Death-Bed" was objected to by Mrs. Randal Norris, as bearing

too publicly upon her poverty. When, therefore, the next edition was

preparing, "A Death-Bed" was taken out, and the "Confessions" put in its

place, but whether Lamb made the substitution, or whether it was decided

upon after his death, I do not know.

Page 160. _Footnote. Poor M----._ Probably George Morland, who died a

drunkard in 1804. In _The Life of George Morland_, by George Dawe

(Lamb's "Royal Academician"), we read: "When he [Morland] arose in the

morning his hand trembled so as to render him incapable of guiding the

pencil, until he had recruited his spirits with his fatal remedy."

* * * * *

Page 162. RECOLLECTIONS OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.

This article was first printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for June,

1813, and in the supplement for that year, under the title "On Christ's

Hospital and the Character of the Christ's Hospital Boys." In that place

it had the following opening, which, having lost its timeliness, was

discarded when in 1818 the essay was printed in the _Works_:--

"A great deal has been said about the Governors of this Hospital

abusing their right of presentation, by presenting the children of

opulent parents to the Institution. This may have been the case in

an instance or two; and what wonder, in an establishment

consisting, in town and country, of upwards of a thousand boys! But

I believe there is no great danger of an abuse of this sort ever

becoming very general. There is an old quality in human nature,

which will perpetually present an adequate preventive to this evil.

While the coarse blue coat and the yellow hose shall continue to be

the costume of the school, (and never may modern refinement

innovate upon the venerable fashion!) the sons of the Aristocracy

of this country, cleric or laic, will not often be obtruded upon

this seminary.

"I own, I wish there was more room for such complaints. I cannot

but think that a sprinkling of the sons of respectable parents

among them has an admirable tendency to liberalize the whole mass;

and that to the great proportion of Clergymen's children in

particular which are to be found among them it is owing, that the

foundation has not long since degenerated into a mere

Charity-school, as it must do, upon the plan so hotly recommended

by some reformists, of recruiting its ranks from the offspring of

none but the very lowest of the people.

"I am not learned enough in the history of the Hospital to say by

what steps it may have departed from the letter of its original

charter; but believing it, as it is at present constituted, to be a

great practical benefit, I am not anxious to revert to first

principles, to overturn a positive good, under pretence of

restoring something which existed in the days of Edward the Sixth,

when the face of every thing around us was as different as can be

from the present. Since that time the opportunities of instruction

to the very lowest classes (of as much instruction as may be

beneficial and not pernicious to them) have multiplied beyond what

the prophetic spirit of the first suggester of this charity[64]

could have predicted, or the wishes of that holy man have even

aspired to. There are parochial schools, and Bell's and

Lancaster's, with their arms open to receive every son of

ignorance, and disperse the last fog of uninstructed darkness which

dwells upon the land. What harm, then, if in the heart of this

noble City there should be left one receptacle, where parents of

rather more liberal views, but whose time-straitened circumstances

do not admit of affording their children that better sort of

education which they themselves, not without cost to their parents,

have received, may without cost send their sons? For such Christ's

Hospital unfolds her bounty.

"To comfort, &c."

[64] "Bishop Ridley, in a Sermon preached before King Edward the

Sixth."

Concerning this original opening a few words are necessary. Lamb had

found the impetus to write his article in the public charges of

favouritism and the undue distribution of influence, that were made by

Robert Waithman (1764-1833), the reformer, against the governors of

Christ's Hospital, in an open letter to those gentlemen in 1808. The

newspapers naturally had much to say on the question, which was for some

time a prominent one. _The Examiner_, for example, edited by Leigh

Hunt--himself an old Christ's Hospitaller--spoke thus strongly (December

25, 1808): "That hundreds of unfortunate objects have applied in vain

for admission is sufficiently notorious; and that many persons with

abundant means of educating and providing for their children and

relatives have obtained their admission into the School is also equally

well known." The son of the Vicar of Edmonton, Mr. Dawson Warren, and a

boy named Carysfoot Proby, whose father had two livings as well as his

own and his wife's fortune, were the chief scapegoats.

Coleridge also wrote an article on the subject, which appeared in _The

Courier_--a vigorous denial of Waithman's contention that the Hospital

was intended for the poorest children, and the expression of a wish that

the governors would permit no influence to change its aforetime policy.

At the same time Coleridge expressed disapproval of the admission of

boys whose fathers were in easy circumstances.

The _Gentleman's Magazine_ version of Lamb's essay had one other

difference from that of 1818. The second paragraph of the essay as it

now stands did not then end at the words "would do well to go a little

out of their way to see" (page 163). At the word "see" was a colon, and

then came this passage:--

"let those judge, I say, who have compared this scene with the

abject countenances, the squalid mirth, the broken-down spirit, and

crouching, or else fierce and brutal deportment to strangers, of

the very different sets of little beings who range round the

precincts of common orphan schools and places of charity."

Lamb's essay was also printed in a quaint little book entitled _A Brief

History of Christ's Hospital from its Foundation by King Edward the

Sixth to the Present Time_, by J. I. W[ilson], published in 1820. It is

there credited to Mr. Charles Lambe. In 1835, it was reissued as a

pamphlet by some of Lamb's schoolfellows and friends "in testimony of

their respect for the author, and of their regard for the Institution."

Christ's Hospital was founded in 1552 by Edward VI. in response to a

sermon on charity by Ridley; his charge to Ridley being:--

To take out of the streets all the fatherless children and other

poor men's children that were not able to keep them, and to bring

them to the late dissolved house of the Greyfriars, which they

devised to be a Hospital for them, where they should have meat,

drink, and clothes, lodging and learning, and officers to attend

upon them.

Later, this intention was somewhat modified, with the purpose of

benefiting rather the reduced or embarrassed parents than the very poor.

The London history of the school is now ended. The boys have gone to

Sussex, where, near Horsham, the new buildings have been erected, and

the old Newgate Street structure has been demolished to make room for

offices, warehouses, and an extension of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

John Lamb's appeal for his son Charles to be received into Christ's

Hospital is dated March 30, 1781, and it states that the petitioner has

"a Wife and three Children, and he finds it difficult to maintain and

educate his Family without some Assistance." One of the children, John

Lamb jr., then aged nearly eighteen, should, however, have been

practically self-supporting. The presentation was made by Timothy Yeats,

a friend of Samuel Salt, who himself signed the necessary bond for £100

and made himself responsible for the boy's discharge. Lamb was admitted

July 17, 1782, and clothed October 9, 1782; he remained until November

23, 1789.

The notes that follow apply solely to the few points in the text that

call for remark. More exhaustive comments on Lamb and Christ's Hospital

will be found in the notes to the _Elia_ essay on the same subject.

Page 163, line 23. _The old Grey Friars._ This monastery had been

suppressed by Henry VIII. It was reinhabited by the Christ's Hospital

boys; but was in great part destroyed in the Fire of London, the

cloisters alone remaining. The other old part of Christ's Hospital, as

this generation knows it, dates from after the Fire.

Page 165, line 9 from foot. _Philip Quarll's Island_. One of the

imitations of _Robinson Crusoe_. The full title ran: _The Hermit: or the

unparalleled sufferings and surprising adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll,

an Englishman, who was lately discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a Bristol

Merchant, upon an uninhabited island in the South Seas; where he has

lived above Fifty Years, without any human assistance, still continues

to reside, and will not come away, 1727._ Lamb refers again to these

excursions in his _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers."

Page 168, line 8 from foot. _The Rev. James Boyer._ Lamb writes more

fully of his old schoolmaster in the _Elia_ essay. Boyer was elected

1776, and retired in 1799, when the governors presented him with a

staff. He died in 1814.

Page 170, line 4 from foot. _Grecians._ Lamb writes more fully of the

Grecians in his _Elia_ essay. He was himself never more than

Deputy-Grecian.