Page 123. On the Fast-Day.
John Payne Collier, in his privately printed reminiscences, An Old Man's Diary, quotes this epigram as being by Charles Lamb. It may have been written for the Fast-Day on October 19, 1803, for that on May 25, 1804, or for a later one. Lamb tells Hazlitt in February, 1806, that he meditates a stroll on the Fast-Day.
Page 123. Nonsense Verses.
Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in Mary and Charles Lamb, 1874, says: "I found these lines—a parody on the popular, or nursery, ditty, 'Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home'—officiating as a wrapper to some of Mr. Hazlitt's hair. There is no signature; but the handwriting is unmistakably Lamb's; nor are the lines themselves the worst of his playful effusions." The piece suggests that Lamb, in a wild mood, was turning his own "Angel Help" (see page 51) into ridicule—possibly to satisfy some one who dared him to do it, or vowed that such a feat could not be accomplished.
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Page 124. On Wawd.
Wawd was a fellow-clerk. We have this jeu d'esprit through Mr. Joseph
H. Twichell, an American who had it from a fellow-clerk of Lamb's named
Ogilvie. (See Scribner's Magazine, March, 1876.)
Page 124. Six Epitaphs.
Writing to Southey on March 20, 1799, Lamb says:—"I the other day threw off an extempore epitaph on Ensign Peacock of the 3rd Regt. of the Royal East India Volunteers, who like other boys in this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing at soldiers, but dying in the first flash of his valour was at the particular instance of his relations buried with military honours! like any veteran scarr'd or chopt from Blenheim or Ramilies. (He was buried in sash and gorget.) Sed hae sunt lamentabilis nugae—But'tis as good as some epitaphs you and I have read together in Christ-Church-yard."
The last five Epigrams were sent to the New York Tribune, Feb. 22, 1879, by the late J.H. Siddons. They were found on scraps of paper in Lamb's desk in the India House. Wagstaff and Sturms were fellow-clerks. Dr. Drake was the medical officer of the establishment. Captain Dey was a putative son of George IV. The lines upon him were given to Siddons by Kenney's son.