The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb. Charles Lamb
a good man, of plain, simple manners, with a heavy large person and a benign countenance. When he was at Otaheite, the natives played him a trick while bathing, and stole his small-clothes; which we used to think a liberty scarcely credible."
Page 172, line 5 from foot. Processions … at Easter. The boys when in London visited the Lord Mayor on Easter Tuesday.
Page 173, line 4. St. Matthew's day. September 21. Speech Day is now at the end of the Summer Term.
Page 173, line 8. Barnes … Markland … Camden. Joshua Barnes (1654–1712), Greek scholar and antiquary; Jeremiah Markland (1693–1776), Greek scholar; and William Camden (1551–1623), the antiquary—all Christ's Hospital boys.
Page 173, line 18. The carol. I cannot give the words of this particular carol. Mr. E. H. Pearce, the latest historian of Christ's Hospital, tells me that it was probably not a school carol peculiar to Christ's Hospital, like the Easter anthems (which were composed annually), but an ordinary Christmas hymn. "An old Crug," i.e., Old Christ's Hospitaller, wrote to Notes and Queries, December 22, 1855, asking if any reader could supply the missing stanzas of a Christmas carol which the Blue Coat boys used to sing fifty years before. This was one stanza (from memory):—
The wise men of the Eastern globe did spy
A blazing star in the bright glittering sky;
And well they knew it fully did portend,
Christ came to the earth for some great end.
Page 174. Table-Talk in "The Examiner."
In 1813 Leigh Hunt added to his paper, The Examiner, a more or less regular collection of notes under the heading "Table-Talk." At first they were unsigned, but on May 30 he announced that each contributor would in future have his own mark. From unmistakable evidence—for example, the similarity between the "Playhouse Memoranda" on page 184, and the Elia essay "My First Play"—we may confidently consider Lamb to be the author of all those pieces signed, like that, ‡, seven of which are here included. The first contribution thus signed was the note on "Reynolds and Leonardo da Vinci," on page 174, usually printed in editions of Lamb's works as "The Reynolds Gallery."
Lamb had other signatures in The Examiner. The Dramatic Criticisms and Reviews of Books, pages 217 to 234, were signed with four stars; the notice of "Don Giovanni in London" (see page 215) was signed †, and "Valentine's Day" (in Elia) was signed * * *.
Page 174. I.—Reynolds and Leonardo da Vinci.
The Examiner, June 6, 1813.
Lamb had very little admiration for Sir Joshua Reynolds. See also his remarks in the essay on "Hogarth," page 88 for example.
Page 174, line 1 of essay. The Reynolds' Gallery. The exhibition of 142 of Sir Joshua Reynolds' works, held in 1813 at the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, afterwards the British Institution. The Marlborough Club now stands on its site. Reynolds had died in 1792.
Page 174, line 9 of essay. Mrs. Anne Clark. The notorious Mary Anne Clarke (1776–1852), the mistress of Frederick, Duke of York. After keeping London society in a state of ferment for some years, by reason of her disclosures and claims, she was, in 1813, condemned to nine months' imprisonment for libel. Lamb has a very humorous passage about this lady in a letter to Manning on March 28, 1809. Reynolds, it need hardly be said, did not paint her, since, when he died, she was but sixteen and a nobody.—Kitty Fisher was Catherine Maria Fisher, who died in 1767, and was painted by Sir Joshua several times. A very notorious person in her early days; afterwards she married an M.P.
Page 174, line 7 from foot. Mrs. Long. Mrs. Long was Amelia Long, wife of Charles Long, afterwards first Baron Farnborough.—Reynolds painted a number of Infant Jupiters and Bacchuses. His "Infant Samuel" is well known. Few pictures of that time have been more often reproduced.
Page 176. II.—[The New Acting.]
The Examiner, July 18, 1813.
This note adds still another to Lamb's many remarks on the stage, and stands as a kind of trial sketch for the papers on "The Old Actors," which Lamb contributed to the London Magazine nine years later. "The New Acting" is also noteworthy in containing Lamb's earliest praises of Miss Kelly, the favourite actress of his later years, of whom he always wrote so finely.
Page 176, line 4 of essay. Parsons and Dodd. William Parsons (1736–1795), the comedian. Foresight in Congreve's "Love for Love" was one of his best parts. James William Dodd (1740?-1796), famous for his Aguecheek, in "Twelfth Night," which Lamb extols in "The Old Actors."
Page 176, line 10 of essay. Bannister and Dowton. Two actors of a later generation. John Bannister (1760–1836), whom Lamb admired as Walter in Morton's "Children in the Wood," left the stage in 1815; William Dowton (1764–1851), famous as Falstaff, left the stage in 1836.
Page 176, line 6 from foot. Russell's Jerry Sneak. Samuel Thomas Russell (1769?-1845), celebrated for his Jerry Sneak in Foote's "Mayor of Garratt." Russell left the stage in 1842.
Page 177, line 8. Liston's Lord Grizzle. John Liston (1776?-1846), the comedian, whose bogus biography by Lamb will be found at page 292 of this volume. Lord Grizzle is a character in Fielding's "Tom Thumb."
Page 177, line 12. Nicolaus Klimius. Baron Holberg's Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum was translated into English under the title A Journey to the World Underground, 1742. It describes the surprising subterranean adventures of a Norwegian divinity student.
Page 177, line 19. Mrs. Mattocks, Miss Pope and Mrs. Jordan. Isabella Mattocks (1746–1826), comedienne, took leave of the stage in 1808; Jane Pope (1742–1818), famous as Audrey in "As You Like It," retired in the same year; and Dorothea Jordan (1762–1816), the greatest comedienne of her time, left the London stage in 1814.
Page 177, line 24. Mrs. Abingdon … Mrs. Cibber, etc. Frances Abington (1737–1815) left the stage in 1799. Mrs. Susannah Maria Cibber (1714–1766) and Anne (or Nance) Oldfield (1683–1730) were, of course, before Lamb's time.
Page 177, line 25. Whole artillery of charms. Lamb is here recalling Colley Cibber's account of Mrs. Bountiful's Melantha in Marriage a la Mode in his Apology.
Page 177, line 34. Miss Kelly. Lamb's friend, Frances Maria Kelly (1790–1882), of whom he wrote so much (see