[3] See infra, chapter XI, [pp. 307]ff.
[4] I had a letter from Mr. Dobell early in the war, telling me that business was very bad in his line, and that he had taken to writing bad war-poems, which, he said, was a harmless pastime for a man too old to fight. I am not sure that the writing of bad poetry is a harmless pastime, and I was just about to write and tell him so, when I read in the Athenæum that he had passed away quite suddenly.
[5] The facsimile is from the original manuscript by Charles Lamb. First published in 1799 in what is usually referred to as Cottle’s “Annual Anthology.” The poem is generally attributed to Southey, but it sounds like Lamb, who liked tobacco, whereas Southey did not. The MS., in ten stanzas, is undoubtedly in Lamb’s handwriting.
[6] See Professor Trent’s remarks on this “point,” in chapter III, [p. 100].
[7] The facsimile on [page 105] is from the original manuscript of John Keats’s “To some Ladies,” published in Keats’s first volume (1817). The ladies were the sisters of George Felton Mathew, to whom Keats also addressed a poem. It will be observed that in the second verse he used the word “gushes” at the end of the third as well as the first line. This error does not occur in the printed text. On the other hand the MS. shows a correction which has never been made in the printed text, where the word “rove” is corrected to “muse.” There is an interesting communication in the Athenæum, April 16, 1904, by H. Buxton Forman, anent this holograph.
[8] In Walter Hill’s recent catalogue a copy is priced at $350.
[9] See infra, [page 319].
[10] I received a note some time ago from Christopher Morley, saying, “Let us hereafter and forever drink tea together on this date in celebration of this meeting.”
[11] The original of the portrait opposite was owned by Boswell, who used the engraving as the frontispiece of his “Life of Johnson.” Now in the Johnson collection of Robert B. Adam, Esq., of Buffalo. There is a proof plate with an inscription in Boswell’s hand: “This is the first impression of the Plate after Mr. Heath the engraver thought it was finished. He went with me to Sir Joshua Reynolds who suggested that the countenance was too young and not thoughtful enough. Mr. Heath thereupon altered it so much to its advantage that Sir Joshua was quite satisfied and Heath then saw such a difference that he said he would not for a hundred pounds have had it remain as it was.”
[12] This was written in April, 1915. Sir Hedworth Meux is not now in active service.