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NOTES.

ELLISTONIANA.

The paragraph beginning "My first introduction," was originally a In place of it was the following passage:

note.

"The anecdotes which I have to tell of him are trivial, save inasmuch as they may elucidate character."

"Art thou sowing thy wild oats," &c. A favourite character of Elliston's was Rover in O'Keefe's comedy "Wild Oats."

"Leamington Spa Library." In the quaint biography of Elliston, by Raymond, which seems inspired by Lamb's two papers, will be found a sketch of the actor thus playing shopman :

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"One morning he descended early into his shop, and looking round with the irresistible humour of Tangent himself, It is my cruel fate,' said he, that my children will be gentlemen.' One of the first customers that came in was a short, dirty-faced drab of a maid-servant, who brought some books to be exchanged; and nearly at the same moment a snivelling charity-boy, with a large patch of diachylon across his nose, placed himself at the counter demanding other articles. 'One at a time,' said Octavian, with petrifying solemnity. Now, madam?' pursued he, turning to the smut. Missis a sent back these here and wants summut 'orrible.' The lady's name?' demanded Elliston. Wivian,' grunted the girl. With a V or a W?' asked Elliston with the same solemnity; but the wench only grinned. When up mounted Sir Edward Mortimer, the ladder placed against his shelves, and withdrawing two wretchedly-torn volumes, clapping them together to liberate the dust, and placing them in the grubby claws of the now half-frightened girl, 'There,' said he, 'a work of surpassing terror; and now, sir,' turning to the boy, 'I will attend to you.'"

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"The anecdotes of E,'" wrote Lamb to Moxon, "are substantially

true." Mr. Raymond also records an incident connected with Lamb's meeting Elliston at Leamington, and an expedition which both took to Warwick Castle in company with Munden.

"Sir A

C- -." Sir Anthony Carlisle. In the first

shape of the essay the name was given in full.

THE OLD MARGATE HOY.

A Brief Week at Margate."

This visit probably took place

during the two or three years that Lamb was "on" the Morning Post.

66 Unseasoned Londoners.. ...as Aldermanbury or Watling Street could have supplied." Originally "unfledged Londoners Thames or Tooley Street," &c.

"Or liker to that Fire-god."

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as

A curious correction was made

here, as Lamb originally wrote " Sea god."

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The Poem of Gebir." "He is always turning to Gebir for things that haunt him in the same way," wrote Mr. Crabb Robinson to Landor. And Mr. Forster states that he was much given "at all odd out-of-the-way times," to repeat to himself the line quoted in the text. Indeed Landor's regard for the brother and sister was of the most affectionate kind, witness the following lines:

TO ELIA. BY WALTER SAVage Landor.
Once, and once only, have I seen thy face
Elia, once only has thy tripping tongue
Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left
Impression in it stronger or more sweet.

Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
What wisdom in thy levity, what truth

In every utterance of that purest soul!

Few are the spirits of the glorified

I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven.

[Lond. Mag., July, 1823].

THE CONVALESCENT.

At this time Lamb suffered from “a nervous attack,” as he styled it

in a letter to Barton.

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Nervous Fever." This would seem to have been the illness that directly occasioned his retirement from the India House.

The last line, in its original shape, ran, "the meagre figure of your insignificant monthly contributor."

[Lond. Mag., July, 1825.]

SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS.

66

Originally one of the Popular Fallacies," with the title "That great wit is allied to madness." The opening sentence ran, "So far from this being true, the greatest wits," &c. For the "ground of the mistake" read originally, "ground of the fallacy."

"Withers." Sic in all the versions. [New Monthly Mag., May, 1826.]

CAPTAIN JACKSON.

It would almost seem that this is a portrait of Lamb's friend Norris, much disguised, after the principle adopted in the paper on "Barbara S." Comparing it with the pathetic description of Norris's end, given in "A Death Bed," we shall find points of resemblance. Both were struggling to keep up a genteel appearance on narrow means. Each had two daughters. Captain Jackson was Lamb's "dear old friend," and Norris was "my friend and my father's friend-all the life I can remember." "We were not without our literary talk either. It did not extend far." But it was "bottomed well," on the tradition of Glover having written his "Leonidas" in the Cottage. So with Norris. 66 Letters he knew nothing of: yet there was a pride of literature about him from being among books" (he was librarian), &c. We had our songs the British Grenadiers,' in which last we were all obliged to bear chorus." So with Norris. One song he had. . . It was an old thing, and spoke of the flat-bottoms of our foes, and the possibility of their coming over in the darkness,

his

66

...

and when he came to the part

"We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat,
In spite of the devil and Brussels Gazette "-

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eyes would sparkle, as with the freshness of an impending event. [Lond. Mag., Nov., 1824.]

THE SUPERANNUATED MAN.

Originally two essays; the second was headed by the quotation from O'Keefe, commencing with the paragraph “a fortnight has passed." Six and thirty years." More exactly, three and thirty, as he entered the India House in 1792.

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A pension for life to the amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary"-£450, subject to a deduction of £9 for his sister, in

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Lamb mentions the names of the directors later; but with the exception of Bosanquet, they are not to be found in the almanacs of the day. It will be seen that though he furnishes the names, as Lacy, &c., in other parts of the Essay he affected mystification, as “L— " &c. A

66

Old Deskfellows." "Ch." "Do-." "Plwriter in an American Magazine lately met one of these fellow clerks, who gave the following sketch of Lamb at his office:

"Jokes and jests, great and small, were his constant pastime, and every one around him came in for a share. "For instance," said Mr. Ogilvie, "when I first entered the India House, and was introduced to him, he seized my hand, and exclaimed with an air, Ah, Lord Oglesby! Welcome, Lord Oglesby! Glad to see you! Proud of the honour !'and he never called me anything else, and that got to be my name among the clerks, and is yet, when I meet any of the few that are left."

"To sport with the names of his fellows, indeed, appeared to have been a characteristic amusement with him. Mr. Ogilvie gave these specimens.

"There was a clerk named Wawd, distinguished for his stupidity, whom he hit off in this couplet :

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What Wawd knows, God knows;

But God knows what Wawd knows!'

Another named Dodwell he celebrated in a charade, of which the first two lines ran thus:

'My first is that which infants call their Maker,

My second is that which best is let alone—'

The rest of it referred to Dodwell's politics, and the point was not intelligible to me :—but that first line,-isn't it unmistakably genuine? "Yet, in spite of his pleasantries of all sorts, his popularity with his

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