Chapter XIII: , for the passage in question. Smollett continued the (2)

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

* * * * *

Page 118. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS.

_London Magazine_, March, 1822.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 124. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I read the modicum on "Chimney-Sweepers," which your last paper
contained, with pleasure. It appears to be the production of that
sort of mind which you justly denominate "gifted;" but which is
greatly undervalued by the majority of men, because they have no
sympathies in common with it. Many who might partially appreciate
such a spirit, do nevertheless object to it, from the snap-dragon
nature of its coruscations, which shine themselves, but shew every
thing around them to disadvantage. Your deep philosophers also,
and all the laborious professors of the art of sinking, may
elevate their nasal projections, and demand "cui bono"? For my
part I prefer a little enjoyment to a great deal of philosophy. It
is these gifted minds that enliven our habitations, and contribute
so largely to those _every-day_ delights, which constitute, after
all, the chief part of mortal happiness. Such minds are ever
active--their light, like the vestal lamp, is ever burning--and in
my opinion the man who refines the common intercourse of life, and
wreaths the altars of our household gods with flowers, is more
deserving of respect and gratitude than all the sages who waste
their lives in elaborate speculations, which tend to nothing, and
which _we_ cannot comprehend--nor they neither.

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

* * * * *

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

_London Magazine_, June, 1822.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"ELIA.

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

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

"It stood originally--

"_A livery servant drove me, &c._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 137. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG.

_London Magazine_, September, 1822.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"From low beginnings,
We date our winnings."

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 150. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 168. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA

Page 171. PREFACE.

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

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

"A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA

"BY A FRIEND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"PHIL-ELIA."

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

* * * * *

Page 174. BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE

_London Magazine_, September, 1824.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 178. POOR RELATIONS.

_London Magazine_, May, 1823.

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

Page 188. To THE SHADE OF ELLISTON.

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

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

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