CONVERSATIONS AS GOOD AS REAL (1)
These two papers, now republished for the first time, were omitted for some reason by Hazlitt when he brought out Mr. Northcote’s Conversations. See vol. VI. note to p. 420. T. is Hazlitt, J., Northcote. This first Conversation would have followed after Conversation the Twentieth. See for Hogarth, vol. VIII. (English Comic Writers) 133 et seq., and Lamb’s essay ‘On the Genius and Character of Hogarth’ (Works, ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 70).
PAGE [364]. That old Mother W. It is not clear to what figure Northcote refers. The procuress in The Harlot’s Progress (Plate I.) was the notorious Mother Needham who died in 1731. Fielding has tried, etc. Tom Jones, Book IV. chap. ii. That remark of his. Cf. ante, p. 268, and vol. VIII. p. 442. ‘With her pie-dish,’ etc. Hazlitt’s phrase. See vol. VIII. p. 137. [367]. The ‘Possessed Boy.’ A fresco in the chapel of San Nilo, Grotta Ferrata. The drawing from this fresco was presumably by John Bryant Lane (1788–1868), who spent ten years in Rome (1817–1827). The late Edinburgh murders. See ante, p. 353 and note. The group at Ambrose’s. See Wilson’s Noctes Ambrosianæ. [368]. One of his tales. Crabbe’s tale ‘The Confidant,’ upon which Lamb founded The Wife’s Trial; or, the Intruding Widow, published in Blackwood, 1828. Tam O’Shanter. Statues of Tam O’Shanter and Souter Johnny, by Thoms, were exhibited in London in 1829. Ducrow. Andrew Ducrow (1793–1842), the equestrian performer.