London Magazine, February, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
The marriages of Unitarian and other Dissenters had to be solemnised in English established churches until the end of 1836. Lord Hardwicke's Act of 1753, in force, with certain modifications, at the time of Lamb's essay, provided that all marriages not performed in church, with due publication of banns and licence duly granted, were null and void. It was customary, after the ceremony in an established church, to lodge a protest against the terms of the service. Hence Lamb's scathing strictures. Lamb was himself nominally a Unitarian, as were many of his friends. In 1796, as he told Coleridge, he adored Priestley almost to the point of sin. But in later life Lamb dropped away from all sects, although he says, in a late letter, that he is as old a "one-goddite" as George Dyer himself. Hood, who knew Lamb well, and wrote of him as lovingly as any one, remarked in his "Literary Reminiscences" in Hood's Own, probably with truth:—
As regards his Unitarianism, it strikes me as more probable that he was what the unco' guid people call "Nothing at all," which means that he was every thing but a Bigot. As he was in spirit an Old Author, so was he in faith an Ancient Christian, too ancient to belong to any of the modern sub-hubbub divisions of—Ists,—Arians, and—Inians.
And it is told of Lamb that he once complained that the Unitarians had robbed him of two-thirds of his God.
I do not identify M——, the friend to whom this letter was written.
[Page 314.] Autobiography of Mr. Munden.
London Magazine, February, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This skit followed "The Biography of Mr. Liston" (page 292) which was printed in the preceding month's issue. Leigh Hunt, referring in his own Autobiography to this exercise of invention, says: "Munden he [Lamb] made born at 'Stoke Pogis;' the very sound of which was like the actor speaking and digging his words."
To come to fact, Joseph Shepherd Munden (b. 1758) was the son of a poulterer in Leather Lane, Holborn, where he was born. At the age of twelve he was errand boy to an apothecary and afterwards was apprenticed to a law stationer. More than once—incited by admiration of Garrick—he ran away to join strolling companies, and at last he took to the stage altogether. Of his powers as an actor Lamb's other descriptions of him (see [page 397] of this volume and the famous Elia essay) say enough. Munden's last appearance was on May 31, 1824. He died in 1832. His son was Thomas Shepherd Munden, who died, aged fifty, in 1850. He wrote his father's life.