Page 58, line 23. The North Pole Expedition. This would probably be Sir John Franklin's expedition which set out in 1819 and ended in disaster, the subject of Franklin's book, Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1819, 20, 21, 22 (1823). Sir John Ross made an expedition in 1818, and Sir William Edward Parry in 1819, and again in 1821-1823 with Lyon. The panorama was possibly at Burford's Panorama in the Strand, afterwards moved to Leicester Square.
Page 60, line 17. Tractate on Education. Milton's Tractate on Education, addressed to his friend, Samuel Hartlib, was published in 1644. The quotation above is from that work. This paragraph of Lamb's essay was afterwards humorously expanded in his "Letter to an Old Gentleman whose Education has been Neglected" (see Vol. I.).
Page 60, last line. Mr. Bartley's Orrery. George Bartley (1782?-1858), the comedian, lectured on astronomy and poetry at the Lyceum during Lent at this time. An orrery is a working model of the solar system. The Panopticon was, I assume, a forerunner of the famous Panopticon in Leicester Square.
Page 61, line 8. "Plaything for an hour." A quotation, from Charles and Mary Lamb's Poetry for Children—"Parental Recollections":—
A child's a plaything for an hour.
Page 63, end of essay. "Can I reproach her for it." After these words, in the London Magazine, came:—
"These kind of complaints are not often drawn from me. I am aware that I am a fortunate, I mean a prosperous man. My feelings prevent me from transcribing any further."
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Page 63. VALENTINE'S DAY.
This essay first appeared in The Examiner, February 14 and 15, 1819, and again in The Indicator, February 14, 1821. Signed ***