[Page 428.] Wilks. London Magazine, January, 1823. Not signed.
John Wilkes (1727-1797) of The North Briton. Barry Cornwall writes in his Memoir of Lamb: "I remember that, at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replying, when the blackbirds were reported to have stolen all his cherries, 'Poor birds, they are welcome.' He said that those impulsive words showed the inner nature of the man more truly that all his political speeches."
[Page 428.] Milton. London Magazine, February, 1823. Not signed.
[Page 428,] foot. Mr. Todd. Henry John Todd (1763-1845), whose edition of Milton in six volumes, for long the standard, was first published in 1801. The lines in question are crossed out in the original manuscript of Comus, now preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge, and are not printed in ordinary editions of Milton. Todd was the first to print them, in his edition of Comus, 1798.
[Page 429.] A Check to Human Pride. London Magazine, February, 1823. Not signed.
[Page 429.] Review of Dibdin's "Comic Tales."
The New Times, January 27, 1825.
I have no doubt that Lamb wrote this review, both from internal evidence and from what we know, through the medium of his Letters, of his feelings towards the book and its author; and it has been retained in the appendix instead of taking its place in the text proper through an oversight. In a letter to John Bates Dibdin, the author's son, dated January 11, 1825, Lamb writes:
"Pray return my best thanks to your father for his little volume. It is like all of his I have seen, spirited, good humoured, and redolent of the wit and humour of a century ago. He should have lived with Gay and his set. The Chessiad is so clever that I relish'd it in spite of my total ignorance of the game. I have it not before me, but I remember a capital simile of the Charwoman letting in her Watchman husband, which is better than Butler's Lobster turned to Red. Hazard is a grand Character Jove in his Chair."