First republished in Sketches and Essays.

[16]. ‘I have been merry,’ etc. Cf. 2 Henry IV., Act V. Sc. 3. ‘He chirped over his cups.’ Rabelais. See vol. I. (The Round Table), p. 52. ‘There were pippins,’ etc. Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 2. ‘Continents,’ etc. Hobbes, Human Nature (Works, ed. Molesworth, IV. 50). ‘They ... amused themselves,’ etc. Cf. vol. I. (The Round Table), note to p. 100. ‘Eat,’ etc. S. Luke XII. 19. [17]. ‘Hair-breadth ‘scapes.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 3. Old Lord’s cricket-ground. Hazlitt refers to the original ‘Lord’s,’ established about 1782 by Thomas Lord, on the site now occupied by Dorset Square, where the game continued to be played till 1810. The present ‘Lord’s,’ dates from 1814. [18]. ‘A cry more tuneable,’ etc. Cf. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV. Sc. 1. Note. ‘The gentle and free passage of arms at Ashby.’ Described by Scott in Ivanhoe, chap. viii. [19]. ‘Brothers of the angle.’ The Compleat Angler, part I. chap. i. ‘The Cockney character,’ etc. This sentence was omitted in Sketches and Essays. [20]. ‘Book of Sports.’ James I.’s declaration (1618) authorising certain forms of recreation after divine service on Sundays. The declaration was republished by Charles I. in 1633. ‘And e’en on Sunday,’ etc. Burns, Tam O’Shanter. Gilray’s shop-window. Miss Humphrey’s shop, 29 St. James’s Street, where James Gilray (1757–1815), the caricaturist, spent the last years of his life, and where his works were on view. Sketches and Essays prints ‘Fore’s shop-window.’

ON PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN

Republished in Literary Remains and Winterslow.

[26]. ‘Come like shadows,’ etc. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1. B——. B—— here and throughout the essay is Lamb. The essay professes to describe a conversation which took place at one of Lamb’s ‘Wednesdays’ at 16 Mitre Court Buildings, where Lamb resided from 1801 to 1809. Hazlitt (p. 27) describes the conversation as having taken place ‘twenty years ago.’ The defence of Guy Faux. See vol. XI. pp. 317 et seq. and notes. ‘Never so sure,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Moral Essays, II. 51–2. A——. Here and throughout the essay William Ayrton (1777–1858), the musician. [27]. ‘In his habit,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4. Fulke Greville. See vol. V. (Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth), p. 231 and note, and Lamb’s Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. ‘And call up him,’ etc. Il Penseroso, 109–110. [28]. Wished that mankind, etc. Religio Medici, Part II. Sec. ix. The portrait prefixed to the old edition. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, in Memoirs, etc. (1867), vol. I. p. 276 note, suggests that Hazlitt refers to the 12mo edition of 1669 which Lamb possessed. ‘Here lies a She-Sun,’ etc. Poems (‘Muses Library’) I. 86, Epithalamion on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine. [29]. ‘Lisped in numbers,’ etc. Pope, Prologue to the Satires, 128. [30]. His interview with Petrarch, etc. The editor of The New Monthly Magazine adds a footnote: ‘Query, did they ever meet?’ Chaucer was in Italy in 1372–3, and may have met Petrarch. Cf. The Canterbury Tales, The Clerk’s Prologue, to which Hazlitt no doubt refers. Chaucer may have met Boccaccio also. A fine portrait of Ariosto. Hazlitt possibly refers to the ‘Portrait of a Poet’ in the National Gallery, now ascribed to Palma. Titian’s portrait of Aretine is in the Pitti Gallery. ‘The mighty dead.’ Thomson, The Seasons, Winter, 432. ‘A creature,’ etc. Cf. Comus, 299–301. ‘That was Arion,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, IV. xi. 23. Captain C. Captain Burney; M. C., Martin Burney. See vol. VI. Table-Talk, note to p. 209. [31]. Miss D——. In Literary Remains this name is given as ‘Mrs. Reynolds,’ presumably the lady who had been Lamb’s schoolmistress. See Lamb’s Letters, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, I. 121. A harsh, croaking voice. Not to be identified. As to Johnson’s life during 1745–6 see Boswell’s Life (ed. G. B. Hill), I. 176 and notes. ‘With lack-lustre eye.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7. ‘Despise low joys,’ etc. Imitations of Horace, Epistles, I. vi. (to Mr. Murray), 60–62. ‘Conspicuous scene,’ etc. Ibid. 50–53. ‘Why rail they then,’ etc. Epilogue to the Satires, II. 138–9. [32]. ‘But why then publish,’ etc. Prologue to the Satires, 135–146. E——. In Literary Remains and Winterslow this blank is filled with the name of ‘Erasmus Phillips,’ but Hazlitt must refer to Lamb’s lifelong friend, Edward Phillips, secretary to Speaker Abbott (see Lamb’s Letters, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, I. 76; II. 346), or, possibly, to Colonel Phillips (Ibid. II. 148, 346). [33]. ‘Nigh-sphered in Heaven.’ Collins, Ode, On the Poetical Character, 66. J. F——. According to Literary Remains this was Barron Field (1786–1846). [34]. ‘A vast species alone.’ Cowley, The Praise of Pindar, l. 2. G——. Godwin, according to Literary Remains. Eugene Aram. Eugene Aram (1704–1759), hanged in 1759 for the murder of Daniel Clark several years earlier at Knaresborough. H——. Literary Remains reads ‘Hunt.’ [35]. The Duchess of Bolton. Lavinia Fenton (1708–1760), the original Polly, married the third Duke of Bolton in 1751. Captain Sentry. See The Spectator, No. 2. [36]. Giotto, etc. Giotto di Bondone (d. 1337), Giovanni Cimabue (? 1240–? 1302), and Domenico Bigardi (1449–1494), known as Ghirlandaio—three of the most famous early Florentine masters. ‘Whose names,’ etc. See vol. X. (Contributions to the Edinburgh Review), note to p. 63. [37]. The Duchess of Newcastle. Lamb is never tired of praising her. See, e.g., The Two Races of Men (Elia). Mrs. Hutchinson. Lucy Hutchinson (b. 1620). Her Life of her husband, Colonel Hutchinson, was first published in 1806. One in the room, etc. Mary Lamb. Ninon de l’Enclos. Ninon de Lenclos (1616–1706), the famous beauty. ‘Your most exquisite reason.’ Cf. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 3. G——. Godwin, according to Literary Remains. ‘Oh! ever right,’ etc. Cf. Coriolanus, Act II. Sc. 1. ‘There is only one other person,’ etc. It should be noted that Literary Remains and Winterslow wrongly attribute this speech to Lamb. The Magazine clearly gives it to H——, that is, to Leigh Hunt. It is, of course, conceivable that the editor of Literary Remains silently corrected an error in the Magazine, but that does not seem likely, because, in the first place, the speech seems more characteristic of Hunt than of Lamb, and, secondly, because the volume of the New Monthly (XVI.) in which the essay appeared contains a list of errata in which two corrections (one of them relating to initials) are made in the essay and yet this ‘H——’ is left uncorrected.

ON THE CONVERSATION OF LORDS

Published in Sketches and Essays.

PAGE [38]. ‘An infinite deal of nothing.’ The Merchant of Venice, Act I. Sc. 1. [39]. ‘The wish,’ etc. 2 Henry IV., Act IV. Sc. 5. [40]. ‘Bestow his tediousness.’ Cf. Much Ado About Nothing, Act III. Sc. 5. [41]. ‘Treatise on Horsemanship.’ The Duke of Newcastle (1592–1676), husband of Lamb’s favourite (see ante, note to p. 37), wrote two works on horsemanship, (i) La Methode et Invention Nouvelle de dresser les Chevaux (Antwerp, 1657), and (ii) A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses, etc. (1667). Hazlitt probably refers to the first, which was published in English with 43 plates in vol. I. of A General System of Horsemanship (1743). ‘A question,’ etc. 1 Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 4. ‘The act’ [art], etc. Henry V., Act I. Sc. 1. [42]. ‘The feast of reason,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Satire I. l. 128. ‘Catch glimpses,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘The world is too much with us,’ etc. [43]. ‘Face to face,’ etc. Cf. 1 Corinthians xiii. 12. ‘With jealous leer malign.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 503. ‘Best can feel them,’ etc. ‘He best can paint them who shall feel them most.’ Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 366. The Roxburgh Club. Founded in 1812 to celebrate the sale of the third Duke of Roxburgh’s great library. ‘With sparkling eyes,’ etc. Cf. Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II. Hymn 65. [44]. ‘Pure in the last recesses,’ etc. Cf. Dryden, Translations from Persius, Sat. II. l. 133. ‘Or write,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, I. 137. [45]. ‘Held on their way,’ etc. See vol. IV. (Reply to Malthus), note to p. 42. ‘The labour’ etc. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 3. [46]. ‘From every work,’ etc. The Faerie Queen, I. iv. 20. Otium cum dignitate. Cicero, Pro P. Sestio, c. 45. N——. Probably Northcote. A celebrated critic. ? Jeffrey, whom Hazlitt had visited at Craigcrook. [47]. ‘That there are powers,’ etc. Wordsworth, Expostulation and Reply, 21–24. [50]. ‘A man’s mind,’ etc. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, III. 13. The Letter to Sir William Wyndham. Published by Mallet in 1753. Lord Bolingbroke had, it seems, etc. This cannot be true, though Chatham’s admiration of Bolingbroke’s eloquence is well known. ‘As if a man,’ etc. Coriolanus, v. 3.

ON A SUN-DIAL

First republished in Sketches and Essays, where it is said to have been written in Italy in 1825.