The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
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Chapter 113 : Page 98, line 21. _Lovel_. See below.Page 98, line 9 from foot. _Miss Blandy_. Mary Bl
Page 98, line 21. _Lovel_. See below.
Page 98, line 9 from foot. _Miss Blandy_. Mary Blandy was the daughter of Francis Blandy, a lawyer at Henley-on-Thames. The statement that she was to inherit 10,000 induced an officer in the marines, named Cranstoun, a son of Lord Cranstoun, to woo her, although he already had a wife living. Her father proving hostile, Cranstoun supplied her with a.r.s.enic to bring about his removal. Mr. Blandy died on August 14, 1751. Mary Blandy was arrested, and hanged on April 6 in the next year, after a trial which caused immense excitement. The defence was that Miss Blandy was ignorant of the nature of the powder, and thought it a means of persuading her father to her point of view. In this belief the father, who knew he was being tampered with, also shared.
Cranstoun avoided the law, but died in the same year. Lamb had made use of Salt's _faux pas_, many years earlier, in "Mr. H." (see Vol.
IV.).
Page 99, line 13. _His eye lacked l.u.s.tre_. At these words, in the _London Magazine_, came this pa.s.sage:--
"Lady Mary Wortley Montague was an exception to her s.e.x: she says, in one of her letters, 'I wonder what the women see in S. I do not think him by any means handsome. To me he appears an extraordinary dull fellow, and to want common sense. Yet the fools are all sighing for him.'"
I have not found the pa.s.sage.
Page 99, line 14. _Susan P----_. This is Susannah Peirson, sister of the Peter Peirson to whom we shall come directly. Samuel Salt left her a choice of books in his library, together with a money legacy and a silver inkstand, hoping that reading and reflection would make her life "more comfortable." B----d Row would be Bedford Row.
Page 99, line 12 from foot, _F., the counsel_. I cannot be sure who this was. The Law Directory of that day does not help.
Page 99, foot. _Elwes_. John Elwes, the miser (1714-1789), whose _Life_ was published in 1790 after running through _The World_--the work of Topham, that paper's editor, who is mentioned in Lamb's essay on "Newspapers."
Page 100, line 15. _Lovel_. Lovel was the name by which Lamb refers to his father, John Lamb. We know nothing of him in his prime beyond what is told in this essay, but after the great tragedy, there are in the _Letters_ glimpses of him as a broken, querulous old man. He died in 1799. Of John Lamb's early days all our information is contained in this essay, in his own _Poetical Pieces_, where he describes his life as a footman, and in the essay on "Poor Relations," where his boyish memories of Lincoln are mentioned. Of his verses it was perhaps too much (though prettily filial) to say they were "next to Swift and Prior;" but they have much good humour and spirit. John Lamb's poems were printed in a thin quarto under the t.i.tle _Poetical Pieces on Several Occasions_. The dedication was to "The Forty-Nine Members of the Friendly Society for the Benefit of their Widows, of whom I have the honour of making the Number Fifty," and in the dedicatory epistle it is stated that the Society was in some degree the cause of Number Fifty's commencing author, on account of its approving and printing certain lines which were spoken by him at an annual meeting it the Devil Tavern. The first two poetical pieces are apologues on marriage and the happiness that it should bring, the characters being drawn from bird life. Then follow verses written for the meetings of the Society, and miscellaneous compositions. Of these the description of a lady's footman's daily life, from within, has a good deal of sprightliness, and displays quite a little mastery of the mock-heroic couplet. The last poem is a long rhymed version of the story of Joseph. With this exception, for which Lamb's character-sketch does not quite prepare us, it is very natural to think of the author as Lovel. One of the pieces, a familiar letter to a doctor, begins thus:--
My good friend, For favours to my son and wife, I shall love you whilst I've life, Your clysters, potions, help'd to save, Our infant lambkin from the grave.
The infant lambkin was probably John Lamb, but of course it might have been Charles. The expression, however, proves that punning ran in the family. Lamb's library contained his father's copy of _Hudibras_.
Lamb's phrase, descriptive of his father's decline, is taken with a variation from his own poems--from the "Lines written on the Day of my Aunt's Funeral" (_Blank Verse_, 1798):--
One parent yet is left,--a wretched thing, A sad survivor of his buried wife A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, A semblance most forlorn of what he was-- A merry cheerful man.
Page 100, line 17. "_Flapper_." This is probably an allusion to the flappers in _Gulliver's Travels_--the servants who, in Laputa, carried bladders with which every now and then they flapped the mouths and ears of their employers, to recall them to themselves and disperse their meditations.
Page 100, line 9 from foot. _Better was not concerned_. At these words, in the _London Magazine_, came:--
"He pleaded the cause of a delinquent in the treasury of the Temple so effectually with S. the then treasurer--that the man was allowed to keep his place. L. had the offer to succeed him. It had been a lucrative promotion. But L. chose to forego the advantage, because the man had a wife and family."
Page 101, line 10. _Bayes_. Mr. Bayes is the author and stage manager in Buckingham's "Rehearsal." This phrase is not in the play and must have been John Lamb's own, in reference to Garrick.
Page 101, line 23. _Peter Pierson_. Peter Peirson (as his name was rightly spelled) was the son of Peter Peirson of the parish of St.
Andrew's, Holborn, who lived probably in Bedford Row. He became a Bencher in 1800, died in 1808, and is buried in the Temple Church.
When Charles Lamb entered the East India House in April, 1792, Peter Peirson and his brother, John Lamb, were his sureties.
Page 101, line 11 from foot. _Our great philanthropist_. Probably John Howard, whom, as we have seen in the essay on "Christ's Hospital,"
Lamb did not love. He was of singular sallowness.
Page 101, line 9 from foot. _Daines Barrington_. Daines Barrington (1727-1800), the correspondent of Gilbert White, many of whose letters in _The Natural History of Selborne_ are addressed to him. Indeed it was Barrington who inspired that work:--a circ.u.mstance which must atone for his exterminatory raid on the Temple sparrows. His Chambers were at 5 King's Bench Walk. Barrington became a Bencher in 1777 and died in 1800. He is buried in the Temple Church. His Episcopal brother was Shute Barrington (1734-1826), Bishop successively of Llandaff, Salisbury and Durham.
Page 102, line 1. _Old Barton_. Thomas Barton, who became a Bencher in 1775 and died in 1791. His chambers were in King's Bench Walk. He is buried in the vault of the Temple Church.
Page 102, line 6. _Read_. John Reade, who became a Bencher in 1792 and died in 1804. His rooms were in Mitre Court Buildings.
Page 102, line 6. _Twopenny_. Richard, Twopenny was not a Bencher, but merely a resident in the Temple. He was strikingly thin. Twopenny was stockbroker to the Bank of England, and died in 1809.
Page 102, line 8. _Wharry_. John Wharry, who became a Bencher in 1801, died in 1812, and was buried in the Temple Church.
Page 102, line 22. _Jackson_. This was Richard Jackson, some time M.P.
for New Romney, to whom Johnson, Boswell tells us, refused the epithet "Omniscient" as blasphemous, changing it to "all knowing." He was made a Bencher in 1770 and died in 1787.
Page 102, foot. _Mingay_. James Mingay, who was made a Bencher in 1785, died in 1812. He was M.P. for Thetford and senior King's Counsel. He was also Recorder of Aldborough, Crabbe's town. He lived at 4 King's Bench Walk.
Page 103, line 1. _Baron Maseres_. This was Francis Maseres (1731-1824), mathematician, reformer and Cursiter Baron of the Exchequer. He lived at 5 King's Bench Walk, and at Reigate, and wore a three-cornered hat and ruffles to the end. In April, 1801, Lamb wrote to Manning:--"I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. The very ant.i.thesis of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring the Baron and me together."
Baron Maseres, who was made a Bencher in 1774, died in 1824.
Page 104, line 13. _Hookers and Seldens_. Richard Hooker (1554?-1600), the "judicious," was Master of the Temple. John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist, who lived in Paper Buildings and practised law in the Temple, was buried in the Temple Church with much pomp.
Page 104. GRACE BEFORE MEAT.
_London Magazine_, November, 1821.
This was the essay, Lamb suggested, which Southey may have had in mind when in an article in the _Quarterly Review_ he condemned _Elia_ as wanting "a sounder religious feeling." In his "Letter to Southey"
(Vol. I.), which contained Lamb's protest against Southey's strictures, he wrote:--"I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost.--Perhaps the Paper on 'Saying Graces' was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty--good in place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded--from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it."
Page 108, line 12 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge; but Lamb may really have said it.
Page 108, foot. _The author of the Rambler_. Veal pie with prunes in it was perhaps Dr. Johnson's favourite dish.
Page 109, line 10. _Dagon_. The fish G.o.d wors.h.i.+pped by the Philistines. See Judges xvi. 23 and I Samuel v. for the full significance of Lamb's reference.
Page 110, line 16. _C.V.L._ Charles Valentine le Grice. Later in life, in 1798, Le Grice himself became a clergyman.
Page 110, line 19. _Our old form at school_. The Christ's Hospital graces in Lamb's day were worded thus:--
GRACE BEFORE MEAT
Give us thankful hearts, O Lord G.o.d, for the Table which thou hast spread for us. Bless thy good Creatures to our use, and us to thy service, for Jesus Christ his sake. _Amen_.
GRACE AFTER MEAT
Blessed Lord, we yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving for our Founders and Benefactors, by whose Charitable Benevolence thou hast refreshed our Bodies at this time. So season and refresh our Souls with thy Heavenly Spirit, that we may live to thy Honour and Glory. Protect thy Church, the King, and all the Royal Family. And preserve us in peace and truth through Christ our Saviour. _Amen_.
Page 110. MY FIRST PLAY.
_London Magazine_, December, 1821.
Lamb had already sketched out this essay in the "Table Talk" in Leigh Hunt's _Examiner_, December 9, 1813, under the t.i.tle "Playhouse Memoranda" (see Vol. I.). Leigh Hunt reprinted it in _The Indicator_, December 13, 1820.
