suited their nonsense; yet he had brought them all to church: and, in reward of his diligence, he had given him a bishopric in Ireland." (A note by Swift states the cleric to be Bishop Woolly of Clonfert.) Page 87, line 36. A heap of dust and ashes. Drury Lane Theatre was destroyed by fire on February 24, 1809. Page 87, fourth line from foot. "Hic castus artemque repono." Eneid, V., 484. The words of Entellus, the old Sicilian boxer, who emerged from his retirement to meet and defeat the Trojan Dares. Having slain with one blow the steer awarded as prize, he cries out :— Hanc tibi, Eryx, meliorem animam pro morte Daretis Persolvo; hic victor cæstus artemque repono. (Eryx, this better life I give thee for the life of Dares; here victorious, I lay aside the gauntlets and the game.) Page 87, last line. Don Quixote. Page 88, line 7. A Syren Catalini. one of the most beautiful of all singers. upon Braham and Mrs. Siddons. See Don Quixote, Chapter XX. Page 88, line 15. "From innumerable tongues," etc. Paradise Lost, X., lines 507-509, and 521-526. Page 89, line 11. The Romans. Referring to the Roman custom, in the arena, of deciding whether or not death should be inflictednot upon an author, of course, but upon a gladiator. If he were to die the hands were held up with the thumbs extended. A pressed thumb signified approval. Page 89, last paragraph. The O. P. differences. The O. P.-Old Prices -Riots raged in 1809. On September 18 of that year the new Covent Garden Theatre was opened under the management of John Philip Kemble and Charles Kemble, with a revised price list. The opposition to this revision was so determined that " Macbeth," with John Philip Kemble as Macbeth, and Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, was played practically in dumb show, and in the end the theatre was closed again for a while. The battle was waged not only by fists but by pamphlets. After two months' fighting a compromise was effected. Page 90, line 4. "Complicated, head and tail." from Milton above. See quotation Page 90, line 29. Obstinate in John Bunyan. At the beginning of the Pilgrim's Progress. It was not Obstinate, however, but Christian who put his fingers in his ears. Obstinate pursued and caught him. Lamb made the same mistake again in some verses to Bernard Barton (see Vol. V., page 52). Page 91, line 14. Orpheus, Linus, Musaus. Orpheus' playing produced absolute submission in his hearers; Linus is said by some to have been the instructor of Musæus, the Greek poet, author of the story of Hero and Leander. Virgil places him in the Elysian fields, followed by a multitude whom he overtops by fully a head (see Eneid, VI.). Page 91, line 36. Viper-broth. This beverage was once considered a certain rejuvenator. Waller wrote in his "Lines to Charles II. on the Restoration' All winds blow fair which did the world embroil, Thy vipers' triacle [i.e., valuable antidote] yield thy scorpions' oil. Page 92, line 4. "The common damned," etc. I have not succeeded in tracing this quotation or adaptation. A club of hissed authors existed in Paris in the 1870's. Flaubert, Daudet and Zola were members. Page 92. ON BURIAL SOCIETIES; AND THE CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER. Reflector, No. III., 1811. The letter there begins "Sir." Printed again, in part, in The Yellow Dwarf, January 17, 1818. Reprinted in the Works, 1818. Page 93, line 5. "Man is a noble animal.” In Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia. Urn-burial; or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, 1658. Chapter V. Page 93, line 35. If Cæsar were anxious... how he might die. Referring, perhaps, to Cæsar's reply to Calpurnia's dream : Cowards die many times before their deaths; "Julius Cæsar," Act II., Scene 2, lines 32, 33. The following short Essay. "The Character Page 95, line 13. of an Undertaker" is, of course, Lamb's own. Page 95, line 18. Sable. Sable is the undertaker in Sir Richard Steele's "Funeral; or, Grief à la Mode," 1702. Two of his remarks run thus: "There is often nothing more deeply Joyful than a Young Widow in her Weeds and Black Train," and "The poor Dead are deliver'd to my Custody . . . not to do them Honour, but to satisfy the Vanity or Interest of their Survivors." Page 95, line 28. to things spiritual.” "In ordine ad spiritualia." "In their relation Page 96, end of essay. "Graves, and worms, and epitaphs." "Richard II.," Act III., Scene 2, line 145. Page 97. ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE. Printed in The Reflector, No. IV. (1812), under the title "Theatralia, No. I. On Garrick, and Acting; and the Plays of Shakespeare, considered with reference to their fitness for Stage Representation." Reprinted in the Works, 1818. At the close of the Reflector article Lamb wrote: "I have hitherto confined my observation to the Tragic parts of Shakespeare; in some future Number I propose to extend this inquiry to the Comedies." The Reflector ending with the fourth number, the project was not carried out. From time to time, however, throughout his life, Lamb returned incidentally to Shakespearian criticism, as in several essays in the present volume, and the Elia essay "The Old Actors," Vol. II., page 132, with its masterly analysis of the character of Malvolio. I have placed in the Appendix to this volume an essay from The Examiner of 1816 (see page 367), which the late Alexander Ireland thought was Lamb's, and which forms an interesting postscript to the present essay. David Garrick died in 1779, just before Lamb's fourth birthday. Lamb's father often talked of him. Page 97, line 15. "To paint fair Nature," etc. These lines on Garrick's monument, which have been corrected from the stone, were by Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749-1814), the same author whose Gleanings Lamb described in a letter to Southey in 1798 as "a contemptible book, a wretched assortment of vapid feelings." Pratt's lines on Garrick were chosen in place of a prose epitaph written by Edmund Burke. For Garrick's affected figure on this tomb see the plate on the opposite page. Page 97. Footnote. Tom Davies. It was Tom Davies (1712?1785), actor and bookseller, who introduced Boswell to Johnson in his book shop at 8 Russell Street, Covent Garden. Page 98, line 26. Mr. K. John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), who first appeared as Hamlet in London at Drury Lane, September 30, 1783. He retired in 1817. Page 98, line 27. Mrs. S. Mrs. Siddons, John Philip Kemble's sister (1755-1831). Her regular stage career ended on June 29, 1812, when she again played Lady Macbeth, the part in which she had first appeared in London. Lamb admired her greatly. As early as 1794 he wrote, with Coleridge's collaboration, a sonnet on the impression which Mrs. Siddons made upon him (see Vol. V., page 3). Page 99, line 9. Those speeches from "Henry V." Probably referring to "Once more unto the breach" (Act III., Scene 1), and “Ö hard condition" (Act IV., Scene 1, line 250, &c.). Page 99, line ìo. with Lamb's Enfield. William Enfield, first "Enfield Speakers." This had nothing to do It was an elocutionary compilation by the Rev. published in 1774. Page 99, line 33. "Intellectual prize-fighters." I have not traced this phrase. "Intellectual gladiators" is common. Page 99, second line from foot. "Clarissa." Richardson's novel, Clarissa Harlowe, 1748, in the form of letters. Page 100, line 3. Bajazet. There are several Bajazets in the English drama. Probably Bajazeth in Marlowe's "Tamburlaine" is meant. Page 100, line 10. "As beseem'd," etc. See Paradise Lost, IV., lines 338-340. Page 100, line 21. The days of Betterton. Thomas Betterton, the actor, died in 1710. Page 100, fourth line from foot. "Ore rotundo." From Horace, Ars Poetica, 323-324: (To the Greeks the Muse Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo Page 101, line 23. granted genius and the art to speak with well-turned utterance.) Banks and Lillo. John Banks, a very inferior |