Lamb's criticism of Scotchmen did not pass without comment. The pleasantest remark made upon it was that of Christopher North (John Wilson) some dozen years later (after he had met Lamb), in a Blackwood paper entitled "Twaddle on Tweedside" (May, 1833), wherein he wrote:—
Charles Lamb ought really not to abuse Scotland in the pleasant way he so often does in the sylvan shades of Enfield; for Scotland loves Charles Lamb; but he is wayward and wilful in his wisdom, and conceits that many a Cockney is a better man even than Christopher North. But what will not Christopher forgive to Genius and Goodness? Even Lamb bleating libels on his native land. Nay, he learns lessons of humanity, even from the mild malice of Elia, and breathes a blessing on him and his household in their Bower of Rest.
Coleridge was much pleased by this little reference to his friend. He described it as "very sweet indeed" (see his Table Talk, May 14, 1833).
Page 70, line 14 from foot. Hugh of Lincoln. Hugh was a small
Lincoln boy who, tradition states, was tortured to death by the Jews.
His dead body being touched by a blind woman, she received sight.
Many years earlier Lamb had spoken of the Jew in English society with equal frankness (see his note to the "Jew of Malta" in the Dramatic Specimens).
Page 71, line 18. B——. John Braham, née Abraham (1774?-1856), the great tenor. Writing to Manning in 1808, Lamb says:—"Do you like Braham's singing? The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like as the boys followed Tom the Piper. He cures me of melancholy as David cured Saul…. I was insensible to music till he gave me a new sense…. Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mrs. Siddons's or Mr. Kemble's acting! and when it is not impassioned it is as good as hearing a person of fine sense talking. The brave little Jew!"
Two years later Lamb tells Manning of Braham's absence from London, adding: "He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could not tell which preponderated." In this essay Lamb refers to Braham's singing in Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt." Concerning Braham's abandonment of the Jewish faith see Lamb's sarcastic essay "The Religion of Actors," Vol. I., page 338.
Page 73, line 17 from foot. I was travelling. Lamb did not really take part in this story. It was told him by Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840), the surgeon, as he confessed to his Quaker friend, Bernard Barton (March 11, 1823), who seemed to miss its point. Lamb described Carlisle as "the best story-teller I ever heard."
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Page 74. WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS.