Chapter VI

., there is also an account of the accident to Dyer--Procter (Barry Cornwall) having chanced to visit the Lambs just after the event. For an account of George Dyer see notes to the essay on "Oxford in the Vacation". In 1823 he was sixty-eight; later he became quite blind.

We have another glimpse of G.D. on that fatal day, in the reminiscences of Mr. Ogilvie, an India House clerk with Lamb, as communicated to the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell (see _Scribner's Magazine_, March, 1876):--

At the time George Dyer was fished out of New River in front of Lamb's house at Islington, after he was resuscitated, Mary brought him a suit of Charles's clothes to put on while his own were drying. Inasmuch as he was a giant of a man, and Lamb undersized; inasmuch, moreover, as Lamb's wardrobe afforded only knee breeches for the nether limbs (Dyer's were colossal), the spectacle he presented when the clothes were on--or as much on as they could be--was vastly ludicrous.

Allsop, in a letter to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, remarked, of Dyer's immersion, that Lamb had said to him: "If he had been drowned it would have made me famous. Think of having a Crowner's quest, and all the questions and dark suspicions of murder. People would haunt the spot and say, 'Here died the poet of Grongar Hill.'" The poet of "Grongar Hill" was, of course, John Dyer--another of Lamb's instances of the ambiguities arising from proper names.

Page 238, line 19. _The rescue_. At these words, in the _London Magazine_, Lamb put this footnote:--

"The topography of my cottage, and its relation to the river, will explain this; as I have been at some cost to have the whole engraved (in time, I hope, for our next number), as well for the satisfaction of the reader, as to commemorate so signal a deliverance."

The cottage at Colebrooke Row, it should be said, stands to this day (1911); but the New River has been covered in. There is, however, no difficulty in reproducing the situation. One descends from the front door by a curved flight of steps, a little path from which, parallel with the New River, takes one out into Colebrooke Row (or rather Duncan Terrace, as this part of the Row is now called). Under the front door-steps is another door from which Dyer may possibly have emerged; if so it would be the simplest thing for him to walk straight ahead, and find himself in the river.

Page 240, line 22. _That Abyssinian traveller_. James Bruce (1730-1794), the explorer of the sources of the Nile, was famous many years before his _Travels_ appeared, in 1790, the year after which Lamb left school. The New River, made in 1609-1613, has its source in the Chadwell and Amwell springs. It was peculiarly Lamb's river: Amwell is close to Blakesware and Widford; Lamb explored it as a boy; at Islington he lived opposite it, and rescued George Dyer from its depths; and he retained its company both at Enfield and Edmonton.

In the essay on "Newspapers" is a passage very similar to this.

Page 240, line 32. _Eternal novity_. Writing to Hood in 1824 Lamb speaks of the New River as "rather elderly by this time." Dyer, it should be remembered, was of Emmanuel College, and the historian of Cambridge University.

Page 241, last paragraph. George Dyer contributed "all that was original" to Valpy's edition of the classics--141 volumes. He also wrote the _History of The University and Colleges of Cambridge, including notices relating to the Founders and Eminent Men_. Among the eminent men of Cambridge are Jeremiah Markland (1693-1776), of Christ's Hospital and St. Peter's, the classical commentator; and Thomas Gray, the poet, the sweet lyrist of Peterhouse, who died in 1771, when Dyer was sixteen. Tyrwhitt would probably be Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730-1786), of Queen's College, Oxford, the editor of Chaucer; but Robert Tyrwhitt (1735-1817), his brother, the Unitarian, might be expected to take interest in Dyer also, for G.D. was, in Lamb's phrase, a "One-Goddite" too. The mild Askew was Anthony Askew (1722-1772), doctor and classical scholar, who, being physician to Christ's Hospital when Dyer was there, lent the boy books, and was very kind to him.

* * * * *

Page 242. SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY.

_London Magazine_, September, 1823, where it was entitled "Nugæ Criticæ. By the Author of Elia. No. 1. Defence of the Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney." Signed "L." The second and last of the "Nugæ Criticæ" series was the note on "The Tempest" (see Vol. I.).

It may be interesting here to relate that Henry Francis Gary, the translator of Dante, and Lamb's friend, had, says his son in his memoir, lent Lamb Edward Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum_, which was returned after Lamb's death by Edward Moxon, with the leaf folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sidney. Mr. Gary thereupon wrote his "Lines to the memory of Charles Lamb," which begin:--

So should it be, my gentle friend; Thy leaf last closed at Sidney's end. Thou, too, like Sidney, wouldst have given The water, thirsting and near heaven.

Lamb has some interesting references to Sidney in the note to Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy" in the _Dramatic Specimens_.

Page 243, line 5. _Tibullus, or the ... Author of the Schoolmistress_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb wrote "Catullus." Tibullus was one of the tenderest of Latin poets. William Shenstone (1714-1763) wrote "The Schoolmistress," a favourite poem with Lamb. The "prettiest of poems" he called it in a letter to John Clare.

Page 243, line 9. _Ad Leonoram_. The following translation of Milton's sonnet was made by Leigh Hunt:--

TO LEONORA SINGING AT ROME

To every one (so have ye faith) is given A winged guardian from the ranks of heaven. A greater, Leonora, visits thee: Thy voice proclaims the present deity. Either the present deity we hear, Or he of the third heaven hath left his sphere, And through the bosom's pure and warbling wells, Breathes tenderly his smoothed oracles; Breathes tenderly, and so with easy rounds Teaches our mortal hearts to bear immortal sounds. If God is all, and in all nature dwells, In thee alone he speaks, mute ruler in all else.

The Latin in Masson's edition of Milton differs here and there from Lamb's version.

Page 243. _Sonnet I_. Lamb cites the sonnets from _Astrophel and Stella_, in his own order. That which he calls I. is XXXI.; II., XXXIX.; III., XXIII.; IV., XXVII.; V., XLI.; VI., LIII.; VII., LXIV.; VIII., LXXIII.; IX., LXXIV.; X., LXXV.; XI., CIII.; XII., LXXXIV. I have left the sonnets as Lamb copied them, but there are certain differences noted in my large edition.

Page 247, middle. _Which I have ... heard objected_. A criticism of Hazlitt's, in his sixth lecture on Elizabethan literature, delivered in 1820 at the Surrey Institution, is here criticised. Hazlitt's remarks on Sidney were uniformly slighting. "His sonnets inlaid in the Arcadia are jejune, far-fetch'd and frigid.... [The _Arcadia_] is to me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of intellectual power upon record.... [Sidney is] a complete intellectual coxcomb, or nearly so;" and so forth. The lectures were published in 1821. Elsewhere, however, Hazlitt found in Sidney much to praise.

Page 248, line 3. _Thin diet of dainty words_. To this sentence, in the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the following footnote:--

"A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of matter and circumstance, is I think one reason of the coldness with which the public has received the poetry of a nobleman now living; which, upon the score of exquisite diction alone, is entitled to something better than neglect. I will venture to copy one of his Sonnets in this place, which for quiet sweetness, and unaffected morality, has scarcely its parallel in our language.

"TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN IN THE WINTER

"_By Lord Thurlow_

"O melancholy Bird, a winter's day, Thou standest by the margin of the pool, And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school To Patience, which all evil can allay. God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey; And given thyself a lesson to the Fool Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair, Though these be good, true wisdom to impart. He who has not enough, for these, to spare Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart, And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair: Nature is always wise in every part."

This sonnet, by Edward Hovell-Thurlow, second Baron Thurlow (1781-1829), an intense devotee of Sir Philip Sidney's muse, was a special favourite with Lamb. He copied it into his Commonplace Book, and De Quincey has described, in his "London Reminiscences," how Lamb used to read it aloud.

Page 248, line 27. _Epitaph made on him_. After these words, in the _London Magazine_, came "by Lord Brooke." Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, wrote Sidney's _Life_, published in 1652. After Sidney's death appeared many elegies upon him, eight of which were printed at the end of Spenser's _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_, in 1595. That which Lamb quotes is by Matthew Roydon, Stanzas 15 to 18 and 26 and 27. The poem beginning "Silence augmenteth grief" is attributed to Brooke, chiefly on Lamb's authority, in Ward's _English Poets_. This is one stanza:--

He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined, Declaring in his thoughts, his life and that he writ, Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit.

Sidney was only thirty-two at his death.

* * * * *

Page 249. NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

_Englishman's Magazine_, October, 1831, being the second paper under the heading "Peter's Net," of which "Recollections of a Late Royal Academician" was the first (see note, Vol. I.).

The title ran thus:--

PETER'S NET

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIA"

_No. II.--On the Total Defect of the faculty of Imagination observable in the works of modern British Artists._

For explanation of this title see note to the essay that follows. When reprinting the essay in the _Last Essays of Elia_, 1833, Lamb altered the title to the one it now bears: the period referred to thus seeming to be about 1798, but really 1801-1803.

Page 249, first line of essay. _Dan Stuart_. See below.

Page 249, line 2 of essay. _The Exhibition at Somerset House._ Between the years 1780 and 1838 the Royal Academy held its exhibitions at Somerset House. It then moved, first to Trafalgar Square, in a portion of the National Gallery, and then to Burlington House, its present quarters, in 1869. The _Morning Post_ office is still almost opposite Somerset House, at the corner of Wellington Street.

Page 250, line 5. _A word or two of D.S._ Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), one of the Perthshire Stuarts, whose father was out in the '45, and his grandfather in the '15, began, with his brother, to print the _Morning Post_ in 1788. In 1795 they bought it for £600, Daniel assumed the editorship, and in two years' time the circulation had risen from 350 to 1,000. Mackintosh (afterwards Sir James), Stuart's brother-in-law, was on the staff; and in 1797 Coleridge began to contribute. Coleridge's "Devil's Walk" was the most popular thing printed in Stuart's time; his political articles also helped enormously to give the paper prestige. Stuart sold the _Morning Post_ in 1803 for £25,000, and then turned his attention to the development of _The Courier_, an evening paper, in which he also had occasional assistance from Coleridge and more regular help from Mackintosh.

Lamb's memory served him badly in the essay. So far as I can discover, his connection with the _Morning Post_, instead of ending when Stuart sold the paper, can hardly be said to have existed until after that event. The paper changed hands in September, 1803 (two years after the failure of The _Albion_), and Lamb's hand almost immediately begins to be apparent. He had, we know, made earlier efforts to get a footing there, but had been only moderately successful. The first specimens prepared for Stuart, in 1800, were not accepted. In the late summer of 1801 he was writing for the _Morning Chronicle_--a few comic letters, as I imagine--under James Perry; but that lasted only a short time. At the end of 1801 Lamb tried the _Post_ again. In January and February, 1802, Stuart printed some epigrams by him on public characters, two criticisms of G.F. Cooke, in Richard III. and Lear, and the essay "The Londoner" (see Vol. I.). Probably there were also some paragraphs. In a letter to Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says that he is leaving the _Post_, partly on account of his difficulty in writing dramatic criticisms on the same night as the performance.

We know nothing of Lamb's journalistic adventures between February, 1802, and October, 1803, when the fashion of pink stockings came in, and when he was certainly back on the _Post_ (Stuart having sold it to establish _The Courier_), and had become more of a journalist than he had ever been. I quote a number of the paragraphs which I take to be his on this rich topic; but the specimen given in the essay is not discoverable:--

"_Oct_. 8.--The fugitive and mercurial matter, of which a _Lady's blush_ is made, after coursing from its natural position, the _cheek_, to the _tip_ of the _elbow_, and thence diverging for a time to the _knee_, has finally settled in the _legs_, where, in the form of a pair of _red hose_, it combines with the posture and situation of _the times_, to put on a most _warlike_ and _martial appearance_."

"_Nov_. 2.--Bartram, who, as a _traveller_, was possessed of a very _lively fancy_, describes vast plains in the interior of America, where his _horse's fetlocks_ for miles were dyed a perfect _blood colour_, in the juice of the _wild strawberries_. A less ardent fancy than BARTRAM'S may apply this beautiful phenomenon of summer, to solve the present _strawberry appearance_ of the _female leg_ this autumn in England."

"_Nov_. 3.--The _roseate tint_, so agreeably diffused through the silk stockings of our females, induces the belief that the _dye is cast_ for their lovers."

"_Nov_. 8.--A popular superstition in the North of Germany is said to be the true original of the well-known sign of Mother REDCAP. Who knows but that _late posterity_, when, what is regarded by us now as _fashion_, shall have long been classed among the superstitious observances of an age gone by, may dignify their signs with the antiquated personification of a Mother RED LEGS?"

"_Nov_. 9.--Curiosity is on tip-toe for the arrival of ELPHY BEY'S fair _Circassian_ Ladies. The attraction of their _naturally-placed, fine, proverbial bloom_, is only wanting to reduce the wandering colour in the 'elbows' and 'ancles' of our _belles_, back to its native _metropolis_ and _palace_, the 'cheek.'"

"_Nov_. 22.--_Pink stockings_ beneath _dark pelices_ are emblems of _Sincerity_ and _Discretion_; signifying a _warm heart_ beneath a _cool exterior_."

"_Nov_. 29.--The decline of red stockings is as fatal to the wits, as the going out of a fashion to an overstocked jeweller: some of these gentry have literally for some months past _fed_ on _roses_."

"_Dec_. 21.--The fashion of red stockings, so much cried down, dispraised, and followed, is on the eve of departing, to be consigned to the family tomb of 'all the fashions,' where sleep in peace the _ruffs_ and _hoops_, and _fardingales_ of past centuries; and

"All its beauty, all its pomp, decays Like _Courts removing_, or like _ending plays_."

On February 7, 1804, was printed Lamb's "Epitaph on a young Lady who Lived Neglected and Died Obscure" (see Vol. IV.), and now and then we find a paragraph likely to be his; but, as we know from a letter from Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart, he had left the _Post_ in the early spring, 1804. I think this was the end of his journalism, until he began to write a little for _The Examiner_ in 1812.

In 1838 Stuart was drawn into a correspondence with Henry Coleridge in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (May, June, July and August) concerning some statements about Coleridge's connection with the _Morning Post_ and _The Courier_ which were made in Gillman's _Life_, Stuart, in the course of straightening out his relations with Coleridge, referred thus to Lamb:--

But as for good Charles Lamb, I never could make anything out of his writings. Coleridge often and repeatedly pressed me to settle him on a salary, and often and repeatedly did I try; but it would not do. Of politics he knew nothing; they were out of his line of reading and thought; and his drollery was vapid, when given in short paragraphs fit for a newspaper; yet he has produced some agreeable books, possessing a tone of humour and kind feeling, in a quaint style, which it is amusing to read, and cheering to remember.

For further remarks concerning Lamb's journalism see below when we come to _The Albion_ and his connection with it.

Page 250, line 6. _Perry, of the Morning Chronicle._ James Perry (1756-1821) the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_--the leading Whig paper, for many years--from about 1789. Perry was a noted talker and the friend of many brilliant men, among them Porson. Southey's letters inform us that Lamb was contributing to the _Chronicle_ in the summer of 1801, and I fancy I see his hand now and then; but his identifiable contributions to the paper came much later than the period under notice. Coleridge contributed to it a series of sonnets to eminent persons in 1794, in one of which, addressed to Mrs. Siddons, he collaborated with Lamb (see Vol. IV.).

Page 250, line 14. _The Abyssinian Pilgrim_. For notes to this passage about the New River see the essay "Amicus Redivivus."

Page 250, foot. _In those days ..._ This paragraph began, in the _Englishman's Magazine_, with the following sentence:--

"We ourself--PETER--in whose inevitable NET already Managers and R.A.s lie caught and floundering--and more peradventure shall flounder--were, in the humble times to which we have been recurring, small Fishermen indeed, essaying upon minnows; angling for quirks, not _men_."

The phrase "Managers and R.A.s" refers to the papers on Elliston and George Dawe which had preceded this essay, although the Elliston essay had not been ranged under the heading "Peter's Net." The George Dawe paper is in Vol. I. of this edition.

Page 252, line 25. _Basilian water-sponges._ The Basilian order of monks were pledged to austerity; but probably Lamb intended merely a joke upon his friend Basil Montagu's teetotalism (see note in Vol. I. to "Confessions of a Drunkard," a paper quoted in Montagu's _Some Enquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors_). In John Forster's copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_, in the South Kensington Museum, a legacy from Elia, there is written "Basil Montagu!" against this passage. Moreover the context runs, "we were right toping Capulets"--as opposed to the (Basil) Montagus.

Page 253, line 23. _Bob Allen._ See the essay on "Christ's Hospital" and note.

Page 253, line 24. _The "Oracle."_ This daily paper was started in the 1780's by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, as a rival to _The World_ (see below).

Page 253, line 31. _Mr. Deputy Humphreys._ I am disappointed to have been able to find nothing more about this Common Council butt.

Page 254, lines 11 and 12. _The "True Briton_," _the "Star_," _the "Traveller_." _The True Briton_, a government organ in the 1790's, which afterwards assimilated Cobbett's Porcupine. _The Star_ was founded by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, in 1788. It was the first London evening paper to appear regularly. _The Traveller_, founded about 1803, still flourishes under the better-known title of _The Globe_.

Page 254, lines 24-26. _Este ... Topham ... Boaden_. Edward Topham (1751-1820), author of the _Life of John Elwes_, the miser, founded _The World_, a daily paper, in 1787. Parson Este, the Rev. Charles Este, was one of his helpers. James Boaden (1762-1839), dramatist, biographer and journalist, and editor of _The Oracle_ for some years, wrote the _Life of Mrs. Siddons_, 1827.

Page 254, foot. _The Albion_. Lamb's memory of his connection with _The Albion_ was at fault. His statement is that he joined it on the sale of the _Morning Post_ by Stuart, which occurred in 1803; but as a matter of fact his association with it was in 1801. This we know from his letters to Manning in August of that year, quoting the epigram on Mackintosh (see below) and announcing the paper's death. Mackintosh, says Lamb, was on the eve of departing to India to reap the fruits of his apostasy--referring to his acceptance of the post of Recordership of Bombay offered to him by Addington. But this was a slip of memory. Mackintosh's name had been mentioned in connection with at least two posts before this--a judgeship in Trinidad and the office of Advocate-General in Bengal, and Lamb's epigram may have had reference to one or the other. In the absence of a file of _The Albion_, which I have been unable to find, it is impossible to give exact dates or to reproduce any of Lamb's other contributions.

Page 255, line 6. _John Fenwick_. See the essay "The Two Races of Men," and note. Writing to Manning on September 24, 1802, Lamb describes Fenwick as a ruined man hiding from his creditors. In January, 1806, he tells Stoddart that Fenwick is "coming to town on Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison." And we meet him again as late as 1817, in a letter to Barron Field, on August 31, where his editorship of The Statesman is mentioned. In Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart there are indications that Mrs. Fenwick and family were mindful of the Lambs' charitable impulses.

After "Fenwick," in the _Englishman's Magazine_, Lamb wrote: "Of him, under favour of the public, something may be told hereafter." It is sad that the sudden discontinuance of the magazine with this number for ever deprived us of further news of this man.

Page 255, line 11. _Lovell_. Daniel Lovell, subsequently owner and editor of _The Statesman_, which was founded by John Hunt, Leigh Hunt's brother, in 1806. He had a stormy career, much chequered by imprisonment and other punishment for freedom of speech. He died in 1818.

Page 255, line 20. _Daily demands of the Stamp Office._ The newspaper stamp in those days was threepence-halfpenny, raised in 1815 to fourpence. In 1836 it was reduced to a penny, and in 1855 abolished.

Page 255, line 28. _Accounted very good men now._ A hit, I imagine,

## particularly at Southey (see note to "The Tombs in the Abbey"). Also

at Wordsworth and Mackintosh himself.

Page 256, line 3. _Sir J----s M----h_. Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), the philosopher, whose apostasy consisted in his public recantation of the opinions in favour of the French Revolution expressed in his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, published in 1791. In 1803 he accepted the offer of the Recordership of Bombay. Lamb's epigram, which, as has been stated above, cannot have had reference to this

## particular appointment, runs thus in the version quoted in the letter

to Manning of August, 1801:--

Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black, In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack: When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf, He went away, and wisely hang'd himself: This thou may'st do at last; yet much I doubt, If thou hash any bowels to gush out.

Page 256, line 6. _Lord ... Stanhope_. This was Charles, third earl (1753-1816), whose sympathies were with the French Revolution. His motion in the House of Lords against interfering with France's internal affairs was supported by himself alone, which led to a medal being struck in his honour with the motto, "The Minority of One, 1795;" and he was thenceforward named "Minority," or "Citizen," Stanhope. George Dyer, who had acted as tutor to his children, was one of Stanhope's residuary legatees.

Page 256, line 10. _It was about this time ..._ With this sentence Lamb brought back his essay to its original title, and paved the way for the second part--now printed under that heading.

At the end of this paper, in the _Englishman's Magazine_, were the words, "To be continued." For the further history of the essay see the notes that follow.

* * * * *

Page 256. BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART.

_Athenæum_, January 12, 19, 26, and February 2, 1833, where it was thus entitled: "On the Total Defects of the Quality of Imagination, observable in the Works of Modern British Artists." By the Author of the Essays signed "Elia."

The following editorial note was prefixed to the first instalment:--"This Series of Papers was intended for a new periodical, which has been suddenly discontinued. The distinguished writer having kindly offered them to the ATHENÆUM, we think it advisable to perfect the Series by this reprint; and, from the limited sale of the work in which it originally appeared, it is not likely to have been read by one in a thousand of our subscribers."

The explanation of this passage has been made simple by the researches of the late Mr. Dykes Campbell. Lamb intended the essay originally for the _Englishman's Magazine_, November number, to follow the excursus on newspapers. But that magazine came to an end with the October number. In the letter from Lamb to Moxon dated October 24, 1831, Lamb says, referring to Moxon's announcement that the periodical would cease:--"Will it please, or plague, you, to say that when your Parcel came I damned it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending you to morrow, the last day you gave me."

That was the present essay. Subsequently--at the end of 1832--Moxon started a weekly paper entitled _The Reflector_, edited by John Forster, in which the printing of Lamb's essay was begun. It lasted only a short time, and on its cessation Lamb sent the ill-fated manuscript to _The Athenæum_, where it at last saw publication completed. Of _The Reflector_ all trace seems to have vanished, and with it possibly other writings of Lamb's.

In _The Athenæum_ of December 22, 1832, the current _Reflector_ (No. 2) is advertised as containing "An Essay on Painters and Painting by Elia."

Page 256, line 1 of essay. _Hogarth_. Compare Lamb's criticism of Hogarth, Vol. I.

Page 256, foot. _Titian's "Ariadne."_ This picture is now No. 35 in the National Gallery. Writing to Wordsworth in May, 1833, it is amusing to note, Lamb says: "Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition it served me as illustrative." The legend of Ariadne tells that after being abandoned by Theseus, whom she loved with intense passion, she was wooed by Bacchus.

Page 258, line 2. _Somerset House._ See note above to the essay on "Newspapers."

Page 258, line 14. _Neoteric ... Mr. ----_. Probably J.M.W. Turner and his "Garden of the Hesperides," now in the National Gallery. It is true it was painted in 1806, but Lamb does not describe it as a picture of the year and Turner was certainly the most notable neoteric, or innovator, of that time.

Page 259, line 1. _Of a modern artist._ In _The Athenæum_ this had been printed "of M----," meaning John Martin (1789-1854). His "Belshazzar's Feast," which Lamb analyses below, was painted in 1821, and made him famous. It was awarded a £200 premium, and was copied on glass and exhibited with great success as an illuminated transparency in the Strand. Lord Lytton said of Martin that "he was more original, more self-dependent, than Raphael or Michael Angelo." Lamb had previously expressed his opinion of Martin, in a letter to Bernard Barton, dated June 11, 1827, in a passage which contains the germ of this essay:--"Martin's Belshazzar (the picture) I have seen. Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, the squalling, contorted little antics that are playing at being frightened, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a mask, are detestable. Then the _letters_ are nothing more than a transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up on a sudden at a Christmas Gambol, to scare the ladies. The _type_ is as plain as Baskervil--they should have been dim, full of mystery, letters to the mind rather than the eye."

Page 259, line 13. _The late King_. George IV., who built, when Prince of Wales, the Brighton Pavilion. As I cannot find this incident in any memoirs of the Regency, I assume Lamb to have invented it, after his wont, when in need of a good parallel. "Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name" stands of course for Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Page 259, line 33. _The ingenious Mr. Farley_. Charles Farley (1771-1859), who controlled the pantomimes at Covent Garden from 1806 to 1834, and invented a number of mechanical devices for them. He also acted, and had been the instructor of the great Grimaldi. Lamb alludes to him in the essay on "The Acting of Munden."

Page 262, line 10. "_Sun, stand thou still ..._" See Joshua x. 12. Martin's picture of "Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still" was painted in 1816. Writing to Barton, in the letter quoted from above, Lamb says: "Just such a confus'd piece is his Joshua, fritter'd into 1000 fragments, little armies here, little armies there--you should see only the _Sun_ and _Joshua_ ... for Joshua, I was ten minutes finding him out."

Page 262, line 29. _The great picture at Angerstein's_. This picture is "The Resurrection of Lazarus," by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, with the assistance, it is conjectured, of Michael Angelo. The picture is now No. 1 in the National Gallery, the nucleus of which collection was once the property of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823). Angerstein's art treasures were to be seen until his death in his house in Pall Mall, where the Reform Club now stands.

Page 263, line 35. _The Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend_. See the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847 ed., Vol. II., pp. 126-127.

Page 265, line 5. "_Truly, fairest Lady ..._" The passage quoted by Lamb is from Skeltoa's translation of _Don Quixote_, Part II.,