The unnamed works referred to are The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 1724, by John Anstis (not Anstey), Garter King-at-Arms, and Elias Ashmole's Institutions, Laws and Ceremonies of the Order of the Garter, 1672. In the passage quoted from William Hay's Deformity, an Essay, 1754, the author is speaking of his experiences when in a mob.
[Page 342.] Reminiscences of Juke Judkins, Esq.
New Monthly Magazine, June, 1826. Signed "Elia." Not reprinted by Lamb.
Lamb seems to have intended to write a story of some length, for the promise "To be continued" was appended to the first instalment. But he did not return to it.
[Page 349.] Contributions To Hone's "Every-Day Book" and "Table Book."
I have arranged together all Lamb's prose contributions (except "A Death-Bed" and the Garrick Extracts) to William Hone's volumes—the Every-Day Book, both series, and the Table Book—in order to give them unity. It seemed better to do this than to interrupt the series for the sake of a chronological order which at this period of Lamb's life (1825-1827) was of very little importance. Three not absolutely certain pieces will be found in the Appendix.
William Hone (1780-1842) was a man of independent mind and chequered career. He started life in an attorney's office, but in 1800 exchanged the law for book-and-print selling, and began to exercise his thoughts upon public questions, always siding with the unpopular minority. He examined into what he considered public scandals with curiosity and persistence, undiscouraged by such private calamities as bankruptcy, and in many ways showed himself an "Enemy of the People." Some squibs against the Government, in the form of parodies of the Litany, the Church Catechism and the Athanasian Creed, led to a famous trial on December 17-19, 1817, in which, after a prolonged sitting—Hone's speech in his own defence lasting seven hours—he was acquitted, in spite of the adverse summing up of Lord Ellenborough. The verdict is said to have hastened Ellenborough's death. A public subscription for Hone realised upwards of £3,000, and he thereupon entered upon a more materially successful period of his career. He became more of a publisher and author, and less of a firebrand. He issued a number of cheap but worthy books, and in 1823 his own first important work, Ancient Mysteries.
Hone's title to fame, however, rests upon his discovery of George Cruikshank's genius and his Every-Day Book (Vol. I. running through 1825 and published in 1826; Vol. II. running through 1826 and published in 1827), his Table Talk, 1827, and his Year Book, 1831. These are admirable collections of old English lore, legends and curiosities, brought together by a kind-hearted, simple-minded man, to whom thousands of readers and hundreds of makers of books are indebted.