Page 208. THE CONVALESCENT.
London Magazine, July, 1825.
We learn from the Letters that Lamb had a severe nervous breakdown in the early summer of 1825 after liberation from the India House. Indeed, his health was never sound for long together after he became a free man.
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Page 212. SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS.
New Monthly Magazine, May, 1826, where it appeared as one of the Popular Fallacies under the title, "That great Wit is allied to Madness;" beginning: "So far from this being true, the greatest wits will ever be found to be the sanest writers…" and so forth. Compare the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," Vol. I. Lamb's thesis is borrowed from Dryden's couplet (in Absalom and Achitophel, Part I., lines 163, 164):—
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Page 213, line 14. Kent … Flavius. Lamb was always greatly
impressed by the character of Kent (see his essay on "Hogarth," Vol.
I.; his "Table Talk," Vol. I.; and his versions, in the Tales from
Shakespear, of "King Lear" and "Timon," Vol. III.).
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Page 215. CAPTAIN JACKSON.