London Magazine, November, 1824.
No one has yet been able to identify Captain Jackson. The suggestion has been made that Randal Norris sat for the picture; but the circumstance that Lamb, in the first edition of the Last Essays, included "A Death-Bed," with a differing portrait of Randal Norris therein, is, I think, good evidence against this theory. Perhaps the captain was one of the imaginary characters which Lamb sent out every now and then, as he told Bernard Barton (in the letter of March 20, 1826), "to exercise the ingenuity of his friends;" although his reality seems overpowering.
Apart from his own interest, the captain is noteworthy in constituting, with Ralph Bigod (see page 27), a sketch (possibly unknown to Dickens) for Wilkins Micawber.
Page 217, line 22. Glover … Leonidas. Richard Glover (1712-1785), the poet, author of Leonidas, 1737. I cannot find that he ever lived at Westbourne Green.
Page 218, foot. The old ballad. The old ballad "Waly, Waly." This was among the poems copied by Lamb into Miss Isola's Extract Book.
Page 219, line 8. Tibbs, and Bobadil. Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith's
"Citizen of the World," and Bobadil in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His
Humour."
* * * * *
Page 219. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN.
London Magazine, May, 1825.
Except that Lamb has disguised his real employment, this essay is practically a record of fact. After thirty-three years of service at the East India House he went home "for ever" on Tuesday, March 29, 1825, with a pension of £441, or two-thirds of his regular salary, less a small annual deduction as a provision for his sister. At a Court of Directors held on that day this minute was drawn up: "Resolved that the resignation of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant General's office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years, and is now in receipt of an income of £730 per annum, he be allowed a pension of £450 … to commence from this day." Lamb's letters to Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story. This is how Lamb put it to Barton:—