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

Page 358,foot. Jem Boyer. See the Elia essay on "Christ's Hospital" in Vol. II. (page 22), and notes to same. " As in præsenti perfectum format in avi "—"as in the present tense makes avi in the perfect"—was the first of the mnemonic rules for the formation of verbs in the old Latin primer (see the old Eton Latin Grammar ). Lamb himself makes the pun in a letter to Mrs. Shelley in 1827.

Page 359.V.—In Re Squirrels.

Hone's Every-Day Book , Vol. I., October 18, 1825. Signed "C. L." Not reprinted by Lamb.

On October 7 Hone had reprinted a letter on squirrels from the Gentleman's Magazine . Lamb's postscript to that letter, as this little communication may be called, was thus introduced:—

" Be it remembered , that C. L. comes here and represents his relations, that is to say, on behalf of the recollections, being the next of kin, of him, the said C. L., and of sundry persons who are 'aye treading' in the manner of squirrels aforesaid; and thus he saith:—"

Page 359,line 12. Mr. Urban's correspondent. Mr. Urban—Sylvanus Urban—the dynastic name of the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine . "I know not," says the correspondent, "whether any naturalist has observed that their [squirrels'] teeth are of a deep orange colour."

Page 359,line 22. The author of the "Task" somewhere …

The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play,

He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,

Ascends the neighb'ring beech; there whisks his brush,

And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,

With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,

And anger insignificantly fierce.

Cowper, The Task , Book VI., "The Winter's Walk at Noon," lines 315–320.

Page 359,foot. As for their "six quavers," etc. The writer in the Gentleman's Magazine describes his squirrels as dancing in their cages to exact time.

Page 359,foot. Along with the "melodious," etc. Referring to the preceding essay, "The Ass."

Page 360.VI.—An Appearance of the Season.

Every-Day Book , Vol. II., January 28, 1826. /a>Not reprinted by Lamb.

We know this to be Lamb's because the original copy was preserved at Rowfant, together with that of many other of Lamb's contributions to Hone's books.

The article in the London Magazine for December, 1822, to which Lamb refers, is entitled "A Few Words about Christmas." It is one of the best of the imitations of Lamb, of which there are many in that periodical, and was possibly from Hood's pen. A full description of Hood's "Progress of Cant" follows Lamb's little paper in the Every-Day Book , probably written by Hone. See page 431.

The motto under the Beadle's picture is from "Lear," Act IV., Scene 6, line 162.

Page 360,line 6 of essay. Within the bills. Within the bills of mortality. Geographically speaking, the phrase "within the bills" was the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth century counterpart of our phrase "within the radius." But the associations of the two terms are very different. The bills were the Bills of Mortality, or lists of deaths (also births) drawn up by the Parish Clerks of London and published by them on Thursdays. Devised as a means of publishing the increase or decrease of the ever-recurrent Plague, the bills were begun in 1592, were resumed during a visitation in 1603, and from that year, except for some interruption at the time of the Great Fire, they appeared week by week, until the middle of the nineteenth century.

Page 361.VII.—The Months.

Hone's Every-Day Book , Vol. II., April 16, 1826. Signed "C. L." Not reprinted by Lamb. I have collated the extracts with Lamb's edition of The Queene-like Closet .

Hone's prefixed note runs: "C. L., whose papers under these initials on 'Captain Starkey,' 'The Ass, No. 2,' and 'Squirrels,' besides other communications, are in the first volume, drops the following pleasant article 'in an hour of need.'"

Mrs. Hannah Woolley, afterwards Mrs. Challinor, was born about 1623. The first edition of The Queene-like Closet was 1672; she wrote also, or is supposed to have written, The Ladies' Directory, or Choice Experiments of Preserving and Candying , 1661; The Cook's Guide , 1664; The Ladies' Delight , 1672; The Gentlewoman's Companion , 1675.

Page 365,line 3. I remember Bacon … This possibly is the passage referred to:—

Neither let us be thought to sacrifice to our mother the earth, though we advise, that in digging or ploughing the earth for health, a quantity of claret wine be poured thereon ( History of Life and Death , Operation 5, No. 33).

Page 365,last line of essay. Surely Swift must have seen … Swift's Directions to Servants was published in 1745, after the author's death.

Page 366.VIII.—Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan.

Hone's Every-Day Book , Vol. II., June 22, 1826. Signed "C. L." Not reprinted by Lamb.

The following account of the Garrat election was given in Sir Richard Phillips' A Morning's Walk from London to Kew , 1817, quoted by Hone:—

Southward of Wandsworth, a road extends nearly two miles to the village of Lower Tooting, and nearly midway are a few houses, or hamlet, by the side of a small common, called Garrat , from which the road itself is called Garrat Lane . Various encroachments on this common led to an association of the neighbours about three-score years since, when they chose a president, or mayor , to protect their rights; and the time of their first election being the period of a new parliament, it was agreed that the mayor should be re-chosen after every general election. Some facetious members of the club gave, in a few years, local notoriety to this election; and, when party spirit ran high in the days of Wilkes and Liberty , it was easy to create an appetite for a burlesque election among the lower orders of the Metropolis. The publicans at Wandsworth, Tooting, Battersea, Clapham, and Vauxhall, made a purse to give it character; and Mr. Foote rendered its interest universal, by calling one of his inimitable farces "The Mayor of Garrat."

In 1826, the year of Hone's literary outburst on the subject, which should be referred to by any one curious in the matter, an attempt was made to revive the Garrat humours; but it was too late for success; the joke was dead.

Dunstan was a stunted, quick-witted and quick-tongued dealer in old wigs—a well-known street and tavern figure in his day. He contested Garrat in 1781 against "Sir" John Harper ("who made an oath against work in his youth and was never known to break it"). Sir John then won. Dunstan's speech is quoted in full by Hone from an old broadside. "Gentlemen," he said, "as I am not an orator or personable man, be assured I am an honest member." When Harper died in 1785 Sir Jeffery was returned, as many as 50,000 people attending the election. Dunstan used to recite his speeches in public-houses, where collections were made for him; but this means of livelihood was impaired by the loss of his teeth, which he sold one night for ten shillings and a sufficiency of liquor to some merry London Hospital students. He died in 1797 when Lamb was twenty-two.

Page 366,line 5 of essay. About 1790 or 1791. Lamb was at the South-Sea House.

Page 367,line 27. Dr. Last. In Samuel Foote's play, "The Devil on Two Sticks," 1778.

Page 367,foot. My Lord Foppington. Lord Foppington in "The Relapse," by Congreve. Foppington remarks: "To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own." Lamb uses the same speech for the motto of his "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading."