Charles Lamb - The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

"To comfort, &c."

[64]"Bishop Ridley, in a Sermon preached before King Edward the Sixth."

Concerning this original opening a few words are necessary. Lamb had found the impetus to write his article in the public charges of favouritism and the undue distribution of influence, that were made by Robert Waithman (1764–1833), the reformer, against the governors of Christ's Hospital, in an open letter to those gentlemen in 1808. The newspapers naturally had much to say on the question, which was for some time a prominent one. The Examiner , for example, edited by Leigh Hunt—himself an old Christ's Hospitaller—spoke thus strongly (December 25, 1808): "That hundreds of unfortunate objects have applied in vain for admission is sufficiently notorious; and that many persons with abundant means of educating and providing for their children and relatives have obtained their admission into the School is also equally well known." The son of the Vicar of Edmonton, Mr. Dawson Warren, and a boy named Carysfoot Proby, whose father had two livings as well as his own and his wife's fortune, were the chief scapegoats.

Coleridge also wrote an article on the subject, which appeared in The Courier —a vigorous denial of Waithman's contention that the Hospital was intended for the poorest children, and the expression of a wish that the governors would permit no influence to change its aforetime policy. At the same time Coleridge expressed disapproval of the admission of boys whose fathers were in easy circumstances.

The Gentleman's Magazine version of Lamb's essay had one other difference from that of 1818. The second paragraph of the essay as it now stands did not then end at the words "would do well to go a little out of their way to see" ( page 163). At the word "see" was a colon, and then came this passage:—

"let those judge, I say, who have compared this scene with the abject countenances, the squalid mirth, the broken-down spirit, and crouching, or else fierce and brutal deportment to strangers, of the very different sets of little beings who range round the precincts of common orphan schools and places of charity."

Lamb's essay was also printed in a quaint little book entitled A Brief History of Christ's Hospital from its Foundation by King Edward the Sixth to the Present Time , by J. I. W[ilson], published in 1820. It is there credited to Mr. Charles Lambe. In 1835, it was reissued as a pamphlet by some of Lamb's schoolfellows and friends "in testimony of their respect for the author, and of their regard for the Institution."

Christ's Hospital was founded in 1552 by Edward VI. in response to a sermon on charity by Ridley; his charge to Ridley being:—

To take out of the streets all the fatherless children and other poor men's children that were not able to keep them, and to bring them to the late dissolved house of the Greyfriars, which they devised to be a Hospital for them, where they should have meat, drink, and clothes, lodging and learning, and officers to attend upon them.

Later, this intention was somewhat modified, with the purpose of benefiting rather the reduced or embarrassed parents than the very poor.

The London history of the school is now ended. The boys have gone to Sussex, where, near Horsham, the new buildings have been erected, and the old Newgate Street structure has been demolished to make room for offices, warehouses, and an extension of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

John Lamb's appeal for his son Charles to be received into Christ's Hospital is dated March 30, 1781, and it states that the petitioner has "a Wife and three Children, and he finds it difficult to maintain and educate his Family without some Assistance." One of the children, John Lamb jr., then aged nearly eighteen, should, however, have been practically self-supporting. The presentation was made by Timothy Yeats, a friend of Samuel Salt, who himself signed the necessary bond for £100 and made himself responsible for the boy's discharge. Lamb was admitted July 17, 1782, and clothed October 9, 1782; he remained until November 23, 1789.

The notes that follow apply solely to the few points in the text that call for remark. More exhaustive comments on Lamb and Christ's Hospital will be found in the notes to the Elia essay on the same subject.

Page 163,line 23. The old Grey Friars. This monastery had been suppressed by Henry VIII. It was reinhabited by the Christ's Hospital boys; but was in great part destroyed in the Fire of London, the cloisters alone remaining. The other old part of Christ's Hospital, as this generation knows it, dates from after the Fire.

Page 165,line 9 from foot. Philip Quarll's Island . One of the imitations of Robinson Crusoe . The full title ran: The Hermit: or the unparalleled sufferings and surprising adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an Englishman, who was lately discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a Bristol Merchant, upon an uninhabited island in the South Seas; where he has lived above Fifty Years, without any human assistance, still continues to reside, and will not come away, 1727. Lamb refers again to these excursions in his Elia essay on "Newspapers."

Page 168,line 8 from foot. The Rev. James Boyer. Lamb writes more fully of his old schoolmaster in the Elia essay. Boyer was elected 1776, and retired in 1799, when the governors presented him with a staff. He died in 1814.

Page 170,line 4 from foot. Grecians. Lamb writes more fully of the Grecians in his Elia essay. He was himself never more than Deputy-Grecian.

Page 171,line 4 from foot. William Wales. William Wales was appointed 1776, and died 1798. The King's Boys are now called "Mathemats," i.e., Members of the Royal Mathematical Foundation for Sea Service. Leigh Hunt says of William Wales in his Autobiography : "He was 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."