The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
Chapter 119 : Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION._London Magazine_, August, 1825, where it was ent.i.tled &quo

Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION.

_London Magazine_, August, 1825, where it was ent.i.tled "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 ent.i.tled "The Sorrows of ** ***" (an a.s.s), 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 das.h.i.+ng 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 t.i.tle "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 pa.s.sage ran:--

"Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) admire, while with uplifted toe retributive you inflict vengeance incorporeal upon the shadowy rear of obnoxious author, just arrived:--

"'what _seem'd_ his tail The likeness of a kingly kick had on.

"'Yet soon he heals: for spirits, that live throughout Vital in every part, not as frail man In entrails, head, or heart, liver or veins, Can in the liquid texture mortal wound Receive no more, than can the liquid air, All heart they live, all head, all eye.'"

Page 189, line 11 from foot. _a la Foppington_. In Vanbrugh's "Relapse."

In the _Englishman's Magazine_ the article ended, after "Plaudito, et Valeto," with: "Thy friend upon Earth, though thou did'st connive at his d----n."

The article was signed Mr. H., the point being that Elliston had played Mr. H. at Drury Lane in Lamb's unlucky farce of that name in 1806.

Page 190. ELLISTONIANA.

See note at the head of "To the Shade of Elliston," above.

Page 190, line 3 of essay. _My first introduction._ This paragraph was a footnote in the _Englishman's Magazine_. Elliston, according to the _Memoirs_ of him by George Raymond, which have Lamb's phrase, "Joyousest of once embodied spirits," for motto, opened a circulating library at Leamington in the name of his sons William and Henry, and served there himself at times.

Possibly Lamb was visiting Charles Chambers at Leamington when he saw Elliston. That he did see him there we know from Raymond's book, where an amusing occurrence is described, ill.u.s.trating Munden's frugality.

It seems that Lamb, Elliston and Munden drove together to Warwick Castle. On returning Munden stopped the carriage just outside Leamington, on the pretext that he had to make a call on an old friend--a regular device, as Elliston explained, to avoid being present at the inn when the hire of the carriage was paid.

Page 191, line 11. _Wrench_. See notes to "The Old Actors." Wrench succeeded Elliston at Bath, and played in the same parts, and with something of the same manner.

Page 191, line 11 from foot. _Appelles ... G.D._ Apelles, painter to Alexander the Great, was said to let no day pa.s.s without experimenting with his pencil. G.D. was George Dyer, whom we first met in "Oxford in the Vacation."

Page 192, line 6. _Ranger_. In Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," one of Elliston's great parts.

Page 192, line 17 from foot. _Cibber_. Colley Cibber (1671-1757), the actor, who was a very vain man, created the part of Foppington in 1697--his first great success.

Page 192, last line. _St. Dunstan's ... punctual giants._ Old St.

Dunstan Church, in Fleet Street, had huge figures which struck the hours, and which disappeared with the church, pulled down to make room for the present one some time before 1831. They are mentioned in Emily Barton's story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.). Moxon records that Lamb shed tears when the figures were taken away.

Page 193, line 6. _Drury Lane_. Drury Lane opened, under Elliston's management, on October 4, 1819, with "Wild Oats," in which he played Rover. He left the theatre, a bankrupt, in 1826.

Page 193, line 19. _The ... Olympic._ Lamb is wrong in his dates.

Elliston's tenancy of the Olympic preceded his reign at Drury Lane.

It was to the Surrey that he retired after the Drury Lane period, producing there Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan" in 1829.

Page 193, line 12 from foot. _Sir A---- C----_. Sir Anthony Carlisle (see note to "A Quakers' Meeting").

Page 194, line 7. _A Vestris_. Madame Vestris (1797-1856), the great comedienne, who was one of Elliston's stars at Drury Lane.

Page 195, line 6. _Latinity_. Elliston was buried in St. John's Church, Waterloo Road, and a marble slab with a Latin inscription by Nicholas Torre, his son-in-law, is on the wall. Elliston was the nephew of Dr. Elliston, Master of Sidney Suss.e.x College, Cambridge, who sent him to St. Paul's School--not, however, that founded by Colet--but to St. Paul's School, Covent Garden. He was intended for the Church.

Page 195. DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING.

_London Magazine_, July, 1822, where, at the end, were the words, "To be continued;" but Lamb did not return to the topic.

For some curious reason Lamb pa.s.sed over this essay when collecting _Elia_ for the press. It was not republished till 1833, in the _Last Essays_.

Page 195, motto. _The Relapse_. The comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh.

Lamb liked this quotation. He uses it in his letter about William Wordsworth, junior, to Dorothy Wordsworth, November 25, 1819; and again in his "Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan" (see Vol. I.).

Page 195, foot. _I can read any thing which I call a book_. Writing to Wordsworth in August, 1815, Lamb says: "What any man can write, surely I may read."

Page 195, last line. _Pocket Books_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb added in parenthesis "the literary excepted," the reference being to the _Literary Pocket Book_ which Leigh Hunt brought out annually from 1819 to 1822.

Page 196, line 2. _Hume ... Jenyns_. Hume would be David Hume (1711-1776), the philosopher and historian of England; Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), historian of Rome; William Robertson, D.D. (1721-1793), historian of America, Charles V., Scotland and India; James Beattie (1735-1803), author of "The Minstrel" and a number of essays, who had, however, one recommendation to Lamb, of which Lamb may have been unaware--he loved Vincent Bourne's poems and was one of the first to praise them; and Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), author of _The Art of Dancing_, and the _Inquiry into Evil_ which Johnson reviewed so mercilessly. It is stated in Moore's _Diary_, according to Procter, that Lamb "excluded from his library Robertson, Gibbon and Hume, and made instead a collection of the works of the heroes of _The Dunciad_."

Page 196, line 14. _Population Essay_. That was the day of population essays. Malthus's _Essay on Population_, 1798, had led to a number of replies.

Page 196, line 22. _My ragged veterans_. Crabb Robinson recorded in his diary that Lamb had the "finest collection of shabby books" he ever saw; "such a number of first-rate works in very bad condition is, I think, nowhere to be found." Leigh Hunt stated in his essay on "My Books" in _The Literary Examiner_, July 5, 1823, that Lamb's library had

an handsome contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;--now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two s.h.i.+llings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high fantastical" d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the const.i.tutions of her maids.

It is in the same essay that Leigh Hunt mentions that he once saw Lamb kiss an old folio--Chapman's Homer--the work he paraphrased for children under the t.i.tle _The Adventures of Ulysses_.

Page 197, line 15. _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_. Lamb's copy, a folio containing also the "Philosophical Letters," is in America.