[Page 82,] line 1. Old-fashioned house in ——shire. Lamb refers again to Blakesware, in Hertfordshire. In a letter to Southey, Oct. 31, 1799, Lamb mentions the Blakesware Hogarths. This would suggest that Hogarth was the first artist that he knew, so many of his recollections dating from the old Hertfordshire days.
[Page 84,] line 1. Kent, or Caius. See "Table Talk," [pages 401-2] of the present volume, for an amplification of this passage many years later. Lamb's version of "Lear" in Tales from Shakespear, 1807, has similar praise of Kent.
[Page 84,] last line. Ferdinand Count Fathom. See Chapter XXVII. of Smollett's Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, 1754:—
When he beheld the white cliffs of Albion, his heart throbbed with all the joy of a beloved son, who, after a tedious and fatiguing voyage, reviews the chimnies of his father's house: he surveyed the neighbouring coast of England with fond and longing eyes, like another Moses reconnoitring the land of Canaan from the top of mount Pisgah; and to such a degree of impatience was he inflamed by the sight, that instead of proceeding to Calais, he resolved to take his passage directly from Boulogne, even if he should hire a vessel for the purpose.
[Page 88.] Footnote. Somewhere in his [Reynolds'] lectures. The passage is in the fourteenth of the Discourses on Painting—on Gainsborough:—
After this admirable artist [Hogarth] had spent the greater part of his life in an active, busy, and, we may add, successful attention to the ridicule of life; after he had invented a new species of dramatic painting, in which probably he will never be equalled, and had stored his mind with infinite materials to explain and illustrate the domestic and familiar scenes of common life, which were generally, and ought to have been always, the subject of his pencil; he very imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempted the great historical style, for which his previous habits had by no means prepared him: he was indeed so entirely unacquainted with the principles of this style, that he was not even aware that any artificial preparation was at all necessary. It is to be regretted, that any part of the life of such a genius should be fruitlessly employed. Let his failure teach us not to indulge ourselves in the vain imagination, that by a momentary resolution we can give either dexterity to the hand, or a new habit to the mind.
[Page 95,] line 10. Children's books. The Reflector version added, "or the tale of Carlo the Dog."
[Page 97,] line 8 from foot. With Dr. Swift. The page opposite the title of the Tale of a Tub contains a (fictitious) list of "Treatises writ by the same author." The fifth of these is "A Panegyric upon the World." It is probable that Lamb had this in mind.
[Page 101.] On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres.