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

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 pages 217to 223 of the present volume, and "Barbara S——" in Elia essays. See also note to "Miss Kelly at Bath," page 486).

Page 177,at foot. The Glovers … Johnstons … St. Legers . Mrs. Julia Glover (1779–1850), the original Alhadra in Coleridge's "Remorse" in 1813. Mrs. Johnstone, a well-known Elvira in "Pizarro." She made her London début in 1797. Mrs. Saint Ledger ( née Williams) made her London début in 1799, and began well, but declined into pantomime.

Page 178,line 1. Miss Candour . Probably a misprint for Mrs. Candour in "The School for Scandal," a part created by Miss Pope.

Page 178.III.—[Books with One Idea in Them.]

The Examiner , July 18, 1813. Reprinted by Leigh Hunt in The Indicator , December 13, 1820, under the title of Table Talk, together with the notes on "Gray's Bard " and "Playhouse Memoranda," on pages 181 and 184of the present volume. Leigh Hunt thus introduced these reprints:—

It has been a great relief to us during our illness (from which, we trust, we are now recovering) to find that the re-publication of some former pieces from other periodical works has not been disapproved. Being still compelled to make up our numbers in this way, we have the pleasure of supplying the greater part of the present one with some Table-Talk, with which a friend entertained us on a similar occasion a few years ago in The Examiner . To the reader who happens not to be acquainted with them they will be acceptable for very obvious reasons: those who remember them, will be glad to read them again; and as for ourselves, besides the other reasons for being gratified, we feel particular satisfaction in recalling to the author's memory as well as our own, some genuine morsels of writing which he appears to have forgotten.

Page 178,line 11., Patrick's "Pilgrim." The Parable of the Pilgrim , 1664, by Simon Patrick, Bishop of Ely (1626–1707), which bears a curious accidental likeness to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress . Writing to Wordsworth, in 1815, Lamb says: "Did you ever read Charron on Wisdom or Patrick's Pilgrim ? If neither, you have two great pleasures to come." The particular passage quoted from Patrick is in one of Lamb's Commonplace Books.

Page 178,line 22. Single-Speech Hamiltons . William Gerard Hamilton (1729–1796). He entered Parliament in 1754, and made his famous maiden speech in 1755. It was not, however, by any means his only speech, although his nickname still prevails.

Page 178,line 24. Killigrew's play . "The Parson's Wedding," a comedy, by Thomas Killigrew (1612–1683). Lamb included this speech of the Fine Lady under the heading Facetiæ in his extracts from the Garrick plays in Hone's Table Book , 1827.

Page 178,line 32. Charron on "Wisdom ." Two translations of the Sieur de Charron, De la Sagesse , might have been read by Lamb: Dean Stanhope's (1697) and Samson Lennard's (1612). Probably it was Lennard's, since the passage may be found on page 129 of his 1670 edition, a quarto, and page 145 in the 1640 edition, whereas in Stanhope it is page 371. Lennard's translation runs thus (Book I., Chap. 39):—

The action of planting and making man is shameful, and all the parts thereof; the congredients, the preparations, the instruments, and whatsoever serves thereunto is called and accounted shameful; and there is nothing more unclean, in the whole Nature of man. The action of destroying and killing him [is] honorable, and that which serves thereunto glorious: we guild it, we enrich it, we adorn ourselves with it, we carry it by our sides, in our hands, upon our shoulders. We disdain to go to the birth of man; every man runs to see him die, whether it be in his bed, or in some public place, or in the field. When we go about to make a man, we hide ourselves, we put out the candle, we do it by stealth. It is a glory and pomp to unmake a man, to kill himself; we light the candles to see him die, we execute him at high noon, we sound a trumpet, we enter the combat, and we slaughter him when the sun is at highest. There is but one way to beget, to make a man, a thousand and a thousand means, inventions, arts to destroy him. There is no reward, honour or recompense assigned to those that know how to encrease, to preserve human nature; all honour, greatness, riches, dignities, empires, triumphs, trophies are appointed for those that know how to afflict, trouble, destroy it.