Lamb's memory served him badly in the essay. So far as I can discover, his connection with the Morning Post, instead of ending when Stuart sold the paper, can hardly be said to have existed until after that event. The paper changed hands in September, 1803 (two years after the failure of The Albion), and Lamb's hand almost immediately begins to be apparent. He had, we know, made earlier efforts to get a footing there, but had been only moderately successful. The first specimens prepared for Stuart, in 1800, were not accepted. In the late summer of 1801 he was writing for the Morning Chronicle—a few comic letters, as I imagine—under James Perry; but that lasted only a short time. At the end of 1801 Lamb tried the Post again. In January and February, 1802, Stuart printed some epigrams by him on public characters, two criticisms of G.F. Cooke, in Richard III. and Lear, and the essay "The Londoner" (see Vol. I.). Probably there were also some paragraphs. In a letter to Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says that he is leaving the Post, partly on account of his difficulty in writing dramatic criticisms on the same night as the performance.
We know nothing of Lamb's journalistic adventures between February, 1802, and October, 1803, when the fashion of pink stockings came in, and when he was certainly back on the Post (Stuart having sold it to establish The Courier), and had become more of a journalist than he had ever been. I quote a number of the paragraphs which I take to be his on this rich topic; but the specimen given in the essay is not discoverable:—
"Oct. 8.—The fugitive and mercurial matter, of which a Lady's blush is made, after coursing from its natural position, the cheek, to the tip of the elbow, and thence diverging for a time to the knee, has finally settled in the legs, where, in the form of a pair of red hose, it combines with the posture and situation of the times, to put on a most warlike and martial appearance."
"Nov. 2.—Bartram, who, as a traveller, was possessed of a very lively fancy, describes vast plains in the interior of America, where his horse's fetlocks for miles were dyed a perfect blood colour, in the juice of the wild strawberries. A less ardent fancy than BARTRAM'S may apply this beautiful phenomenon of summer, to solve the present strawberry appearance of the female leg this autumn in England."
"Nov. 3.—The roseate tint, so agreeably diffused through the silk stockings of our females, induces the belief that the dye is cast for their lovers."
"Nov. 8.—A popular superstition in the North of Germany is said to be the true original of the well-known sign of Mother REDCAP. Who knows but that late posterity, when, what is regarded by us now as fashion, shall have long been classed among the superstitious observances of an age gone by, may dignify their signs with the antiquated personification of a Mother RED LEGS?"
"Nov. 9.—Curiosity is on tip-toe for the arrival of ELPHY BEY'S fair Circassian Ladies. The attraction of their naturally-placed, fine, proverbial bloom, is only wanting to reduce the wandering colour in the 'elbows' and 'ancles' of our belles, back to its native metropolis and palace, the 'cheek.'"
"Nov. 22.—Pink stockings beneath dark pelices are emblems of Sincerity and Discretion; signifying a warm heart beneath a cool exterior."
"Nov. 29.—The decline of red stockings is as fatal to the wits, as the going out of a fashion to an overstocked jeweller: some of these gentry have literally for some months past fed on roses."
"Dec. 21.—The fashion of red stockings, so much cried down, dispraised, and followed, is on the eve of departing, to be consigned to the family tomb of 'all the fashions,' where sleep in peace the ruffs and hoops, and fardingales of past centuries; and