Stanza 4. Good Master Clapton. There are several Claptons in Widford churchyard. Thirty years from 1827, the date of the poem, takes us to 1797: the Clapton whose death occurred nearest that time is John Game Clapton, May 5, 1802.
Stanza 5. Tom Dockwra. I cannot find definite information either concerning this Dockwra or the William Dockwray, of Ware, of whom Lamb wrote in his "Table Talk" in The Athenaeum, 1834 (see Vol. I.). There was, however, a Joseph Docwray, of Ware, a Quaker maltster; and the late Mrs. Coe, née Hunt, the daughter of the tenant of the water-mill at Widford in Lamb's day, where Lamb often spent a night, told me that a poor family named Docwray lived in the neighbourhood.
Stanza 6. Worral … Dorrell. I find neither Worral nor Dorrell in the Widford archives, but Morrils and Morrells in plenty, and one Horrel. Lamb alludes to old Dorrell again in the Elia essay "New Year's Eve," where he is accused of swindling the family out of money. Particulars of his fraud have perished with him, but I have no doubt it is the same William Dorrell who witnessed John Lamb's will in 1761. In the Table Book this stanza ended thus:—
With cuckoldy Worral,
And wicked old Dorrel,
'Gainst whom I've a quarrel—
His end might affright us.
Stanzas 8 and 9. Fanny Hutton … Betsy Chambers … Miss Wither …
Miss Waller. Fanny Hutton, Betsy Chambers, Miss Wither and Miss Waller
elude one altogether. Lamb's schoolmistress, Mrs. Reynolds, was a Miss
Chambers.
* * * * *
Page 78. NEW POEMS IN LAMB'S POETICAL WORKS, 1836.
In 1836 Moxon issued a new edition of Lamb's poems, consisting of those in the Works, 1818, and those in Album Verses—with a few exceptions and several additions—under the embracive title The Poetical Works of Charles Lamb. Whether Moxon himself made up this volume, or whether Mary Lamb or Talfourd assisted, I do not know. The dedication to Coleridge stood at the beginning, and that to Moxon half way through.
Page 78. In the Album of Edith S——.
First printed in The Athenaeum, March 9, 1833, under the title "Christian Names of Women." Edith S—— was Edith May Southey, the poet's daughter, who married the Rev. John Wood Warter.