Page 131, line 14. The Blind Beggar. The reference is to the ballad of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The version in the Percy Reliques relates the adventures of Henry, Earl of Leicester, the son of Simon de Montfort, who was blinded at the battle of Evesham and left for dead, and thereafter begged his way with his pretty Bessee. In the London Magazine Lamb had written "Earl of Flanders," which he altered to "Earl of Cornwall" in Elia. The ballad says Earl of Leicester.
Page 131, line 28. Dear Margaret Newcastle. One of Lamb's recurring themes of praise (see "The Two Races of Men," "Mackery End in Hertfordshire," and "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading"). "Romancical," according to the New English Dictionary, is Lamb's own word. This is the only reference given for it.
Page 133, line 7. Spital sermons. On Monday of Easter week it was the custom for the Christ's Hospital boys to walk in procession to the Royal Exchange, and on Tuesday to the Mansion House; on each occasion returning with the Lord Mayor to hear a special sermon—a spital sermon, as it was called—and an anthem. The sermon is now preached only on Easter Tuesday.
Page 133, line 24. Overseers of St. L——. Lamb's Key states that both the overseers and the mild rector were inventions. In the London Magazine the rector's parish is "P——."
Page 133, line 27. Vincent Bourne. See Lamb's essay on Vincent
Bourne, Vol. I. This poem was translated by Lamb himself, and was
first published in The Indicator for May 3, 1820. See Vol. IV. for
Lamb's other translations from Bourne.
Page 135, line 2. A well-known figure. This beggar I take to be Samuel Horsey. He is stated to have been known as the King of the Beggars, and a very prominent figure in London. His mutilation is ascribed to the falling of a piece of timber in Bow Lane, Cheapside, some nineteen years before; but it may have been, as Lamb says, in the Gordon Riots of 1780.
There is the figure of Horsey on his little carriage, with several other of the more notable beggars of the day plying their calling, in an etching of old houses at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, made by J.T. Smith in 1789 for his Ancient Topography of London, 1815. I give it in my large edition.
Page 137, end of essay. Feigned or not. In the London Magazine the essay did not end here. It continued thus:—
"'Pray God your honour relieve me,' said a poor beadswoman to my friend L—— one day; 'I have seen better days.' 'So have I, my good woman,' retorted he, looking up at the welkin which was just then threatening a storm—and the jest (he will have it) was as good to the beggar as a tester.
"It was at all events kinder than consigning her to the stocks, or
the parish beadle—