Page 50, line 6. Good Granville S——. Lamb's Key gives Granville Sharp. This was the eccentric Granville Sharp, the Quaker abolitionist (1735-1813).
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Page 51. A QUAKER'S MEETING.
London Magazine, April, 1821.
Lamb's connection with Quakers was somewhat intimate throughout his life. In early days he was friendly with the Birmingham Lloyds—Charles, Robert and Priscilla, of the younger generation, and their father, Charles Lloyd, the banker and translator of Horace and Homer (see Charles Lamb and the Lloyds, 1898); and later with Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet of Woodbridge. Also he had loved from afar Hester Savory, the subject of his poem "Hester" (see Vol. IV.). A passage from a letter written in February, 1797, to Coleridge, bears upon this essay:—"Tell Lloyd I have had thoughts of turning Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just beginning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good language, William Penn's 'No Cross, No Crown,' I like it immensely. Unluckily I went to one of his meetings, tell him, in St. John Street [Clerkenwell] yesterday, and saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who believed himself under the influence of some 'inevitable presence.' This cured me of Quakerism; I love it in the books of Penn and Woolman, but I detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit…."
Both Forster and Hood tell us that Lamb in outward appearance resembled a Quaker.
Page 52, line 13. The uncommunicating muteness of fishes. Lamb had in mind this thought on the silence of fishes when he was at work on John Woodvil. Simon remarks, in the exquisite passage (Vol. IV.) in reply to the question, "What is it you love?"
The fish in th' other element
That knows no touch of eloquence.
Page 53, second quotation. "How reverend …" An adaptation of
Congreve's description of York Minster in "The Mourning Bride" (Mary
Lamb's "first play"), Act I., Scene 1:—
How reverend is the face of this tall pile …
Looking tranquillity!