[Page 219,] line 2. Our friend C. Coleridge, who was also at Christ's Hospital with Gutch. He says, in Biographia Literaria: "Men of Letters and literary genius are too often what is styled in trivial irony 'fine gentlemen spoilt in the making.' They care not for show and grandeur in what surrounds them, having enough within ... but they are fine gentlemen in all that concerns ease and pleasurable, or at least comfortable, sensation." In one of his lectures on "Poetry, the Drama and Shakespeare" in 1818, Coleridge says: "As it must not, so genius can not, be lawless;" which is the reverse of Lamb's recollection.
[Page 219.] III.—Richard Brome's "Jovial Crew."
Examiner, July 4 and 5, 1819. Signed ****. Richard Brome's "Jovial Crew; or, The Merry Beggars," was first acted in 1641, and continually revived since then, although it is now no longer seen. Indeed our opportunities are few to-day of seeing most of the plays that Lamb praised. The revival criticised by Lamb began at the English Opera House (the Lyceum) on June 29, 1819.
[Page 219,] line 7 from foot. Lovegrove. William Lovegrove (1778-1816), a famous character actor. He ceased to be seen at except rare intervals after 1814.
[Page 219,] line 5 from foot. Dowton. See note to "The New Acting," page 465.
[Page 220,] line 3. Wrench. Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843), a comedian of the school of Elliston.
[Page 220,] line 6. Miss Stevenson. This actress afterwards became Mrs. Wiepperts.
[Page 220,] line 12. She that played Rachel. Miss Kelly. Lamb returned to his praise of this piece and of Miss Kelly in it in a note to the "Garrick Plays," but he there credited her with playing Meriel.
[Page 220,] line 15 from foot. "Pretty Bessy." In the old ballad "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green," Bessie was the daughter of Henry, son of Simon de Montfort.
[Page 220,] line 6 from foot. Society for the Suppression of Mendicity. Lamb returned to the attack upon this body in his Elia essay "On the Decay of Beggars," in 1822.