That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.
[Page 402,] second and third quotations. "The Nut-Brown Maid." This poem is given in the Percy Reliques. The oldest form of it is in Arnolde's Chronicle, 1502. Lamb quotes from the penultimate stanza. Matthew Prior (1664-1721), who wrote a version under the title "Henry and Emma," was a favourite with Lamb. In Miss Isola's Extract Book he copied Prior's "Female Phaeton." In this connection a passage from the obituary notice of Lamb, written by Barren Field in the Annual Biography and Obituary, 1836, has peculiar interest. The doctrine referred to is "suppression in writing":—
We remember, at the very last supper we ate with him (Mr. Serjeant Talfourd will recollect it too), he quoted a passage from Prior's "Henry and Emma," in illustration of this doctrine and discipline; and yet he said he loved Prior as much as any man, but that his "Henry and Emma" was a vapid paraphrase of the old poem of "The Nutbrowne Mayde." For example, at the dénouement of the ballad, Prior made Henry rant out to his devoted Emma:—
"In me behold the potent Edgar's heir,
Illustrious earl; him terrible in war
Let Loire confess, for she has felt his sword,
And trembling fled before the British Lord,"
and so on for a dozen couplets, heroic, as they are called. And then Mr. Lamb made us mark the modest simplicity with which the noble youth disclosed himself to his mistress in the old poem:—
"Now understand,
To Westmoreland,
Which is my heritage,
(in a parenthesis, as it were,)
I will you bring;
And with a ring,
By way of marriage,
I will you take
And lady make
As shortly as I can:
Thus have ye won
An earle's son
And not a banish'd man."
[Page 403,] line 14 from foot. M—— sent to his friend L——. M—— probably stands for Basil Montagu, Lamb's friend, and the editor of the volume in which "Confessions of a Drunkard" appeared. L—— was probably Lamb himself.
[Page 403,] line 11 from foot. Penotier. The friend disguised under this name has not been identified. Nor has Parson W—— or F—— in a later paragraph. Mr. B. B. MacGeorge tells me that he has a copy of John Woodvil inscribed in Lamb's hand to the Rev. J. Walton (or Watson).
[Page 404,] line 19. 39th of Exodus. Lamb meant 39th of Genesis—the story of Joseph.
[Page 405,] line 12. C——. See Allsop's Letters and Conversations of S. T. Coleridge, 1836, Vol. I., page 206, or where Allsop quotes Lamb as saying, "I made that joke first (the Scotch corner in hell, fire without brimstone), though Coleridge somewhat licked it into shape."